War and Piste 
The Chalet Girl 
Double Black 
The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse – set in CRANS MONTANA, SWITZERLAND
Novel of emotional instability set mainly in OXFORD
Ten Great Books set in SKI RESORTS
8th March 2024
Join us for our latest ‘Great Books set in…” post. Ten Great Books set in Ski Resorts. Let the adrenaline flow!
Still Thinking of You 
by Adele Parks – set in AVORIAZ, FRANCE
Tash and Rich are wild about each other; their relationship is honest, fresh and magical, so they dash towards a romantic elopement in the French Alps. However, five of Rich’s old university friends crash the wedding holiday and they bring with them a whole load of ancient baggage.
Can Tash hold on to Rich when she’s challenged by years of complicated yet binding history and a dense web of dark secrets and intrigues?
And, as some of those secrets come to light, she has to ask herself does she even want to?
War and Piste by Alex Thomas – set in the AUSTRIAN ALPS
‘As of forty-three minutes ago, I am a seasonaire, whatever that means.’
When Poppy Connors swaps a life of suits and cappuccinos for a job as a ski rep, she soon finds that resort life on the side of an Austrian alp is more than she bargained for. Adapting to her new diet of Jägermeister, adrenaline and Europop, Poppy throws herself into this strange new world – a world in which 200 foot cliffs, midnight shootings and the intrigues of the megalomaniac resort manager soon start to feel normal.
When a growing love for backcountry adventures and the irresistible prospect of an illicit affair start to pull her in different directions, Poppy begins to wonder just how she will ever return to the life she left behind… Wickedly funny and utterly authentic, this is a novel for anyone with an intense love for melted cheese, neat spirits and deep snow – ideally all served together.
This is the diary of a season.
The Chalet Girl by Kate Lace – set in the FRENCH ALPS
The ski season. A glamorous world of snowy pistes, gorgeous ski instructors and glittering après-ski nightlife. What’s not to love?
Quite a lot, thinks Millie Braythorpe. Four months of endless bed-making and cooking for guests have taken their toll, and the only thing she really looks forward to is her nightly gig singing in a little French bar.
Then handsome troublemaker Luke comes to stay at her chalet, and before she knows it Millie’s head over heels in love. But is Luke to be trusted, or is her Alpine romance destined to end in heartbreak
Five Ladies Go Skiing by Karen Aldous – set in LA TZOUMAZ, SWITZERLAND
When Ginny Watts’ husband passes away, she is left grief-stricken, not only over her husband’s death but the secrets he has left behind…
Luckily for Ginny, she has four wonderful friends – Lou, Cathy, Angie and Kim – poised to whisk her away on a ladies’ skiing holiday to beautiful La Tzoumaz, Switzerland.
While all of them appear to have their lives together from the outside, little do the ladies know that every single one of them is fighting a secret battle.
As the trip unfolds, they realise that fears of tumbling down the slopes after too much après-ski fun is the least of their worries and all is not what it seems…
Double Black by Wendy Clinch – set in VERMONT, USA
In DOUBLE BLACK, Boston’s twenty-something Stacey Curtis ditches her cheating fiancé and heads for a Vermont ski town. She’s looking for the life she’s always dreamed about, but she stumbles instead into financial intrigue, bitter family warfare, and murder.
Populated with quirky characters, loaded with New England atmosphere, and starring a young woman with nerve, spunk and a sense of humor about it all, DOUBLE BLACK is an exciting run down some treacherous mountain trails.
One by One by Ruth Ware – set in the FRENCH ALPS
Snow is falling in the exclusive alpine ski resort of Saint Antoine, as the shareholders and directors of Snoop, the hottest new music app, gather for a make or break corporate retreat to decide the future of the company. At stake is a billion-dollar dot com buyout that could make them all millionaires, or leave some of them out in the cold.
The clock is ticking on the offer, and with the group irrevocably split, tensions are running high. When an avalanche cuts the chalet off from help, and one board member goes missing in the snow, the group is forced to ask – would someone resort to murder, to get what they want?
Belle de Neige by Belle de Neige – set in LES TROIS VALLÉES, FRANCE
“People pick the most inopportune times to die; when everything is going along swimmingly and you’re feeling that you really have landed with your arse in the butter recently and isn’t life peachy?” Grief, heartbreak, existential crisis. Life has wrong footed Belle. Running away from it all, she enters the diamond and vomit-encrusted chaos of ski resort life; of abominable snow bums, pushy punters, deep cleans, wayward teens, spliffs, tiffs and snow drifts. Take a crash course in sleazy ski instructors, stale croissants, rants, rapture and Russians. Drink yourself into oblivion, then strap on a pair of skis and head for the hills. A faithful account of one girl’s foray into the alpine abyss, Belle de Neige is a scandalous glimpse into the truth about ‘luxury’ ski holidays and the essential bible for slumdog seasonnaires the Alps-over.
The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse – set in CRANS MONTANA, SWITZERLAND
EVERYONE’S IN DANGER. ANYONE COULD BE NEXT.
An imposing, isolated hotel, high up in the Swiss Alps, is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But she’s taken time off from her job as a detective, so when she receives an invitation out of the blue to celebrate her estranged brother’s recent engagement, she has no choice but to accept.
Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge. Though it’s beautiful, something about the hotel, recently converted from an abandoned sanatorium, makes her nervous – as does her brother, Isaac.
And when they wake the following morning to discover his fiancée Laure has vanished without a trace, Elin’s unease grows. With the storm cutting off access to and from the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.
But no-one has realised yet that another woman has gone missing. And she’s the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they’re all in…
Shiver by Allie Reynolds – set in the FRENCH ALPS
They don’t know what I did. And I intend to keep it that way.
How far would you go to win? Hyper-competitive people, mind games and a dangerous natural environment combine to make the must-read thriller of the year. Fans of Lucy Foley and Lisa Jewell will be gripped by spectacular debut novel Shiver.
When Milla is invited to a reunion in the French Alps resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can’t seem to let go.
The five friends haven’t seen each other for ten years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realise they don’t know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth.
In a deserted lodge high up a mountain, the secrets of the past are about to come to light.
What Happens in the Alps by T A Williams – set in Valle d’Aosta, Italy
Up in the magical, snow-kissed mountains…
Two years ago, Annie Brewer’s life was turned upside down when her adrenaline-junkie husband died in a tragic climbing accident. So she’s hoping that moving to the beautiful village of Santorso in the Italian Alps will finally put her life back on track!
…anything can happen!
She might be going into business with her oldest friend – notorious lady-charmer Matt Brown – but men are definitely out of the question for Annie! That is, until she bumps into tall, dark and delicious Alessandro Lago on the ski slopes…and spontaneously says ‘Yes’ to a date!
It must be the crisp, mountain air but suddenly, anything seems possible. The only trouble is, chivalrous Matt is looking more gorgeous than ever…
We hope you have enjoyed our selection of books set in Ski Resorts. If we have missed any of your favourites, please add them in Comments below.
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Thanks for this list! I actually came looking for more ski resort romances because I’ve just read Pick Me Up by Cecelia Joyce and loved the ski theme! It’s set in La Plagne, France by the sound of it.
I’d add An Accident, by Romanian author Mihai Sebastian, which is largely set in the Transylvanian mountains at the end of 1934.
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Thank you – this has now been added to the database
For mystery fans, two classics:
Crossed Skis, by Carol Carnac. A murder in London sets off repercussions on an Alpine ski trip of young Brits. Notable for its postwar setting and a lot of atmosphere.
Dead Men don’t ski, by Patricia Moyes. The first in her Inspector henry Tibbett series, written when the author broke her leg on a skiing vacation.
Downhill All the Way, by K.M. Peyton. Hilarious YA sequel to “Who Sir, Me Sir” , a good read regardless of age.
Mystery on the Ski Slopes by Mabel Esther Allan. A Cold War YA with a great sense of setting.