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Winter Dark
- Audible's Thriller of the Year 2019
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Series: The Winter Series, Book 1
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Thriller & Suspense
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About Winter
Master hacker, highly intelligent, combat trained: Winter is a very modern spy. Worlds apart from the straitlaced characters created in the minds of Ian Fleming and John le Carré , Alex Callister's lead protagonist wouldn't dream of playing the part of the impeccable agent. However, despite her intimidating skillset, Winter is delightfully human and often prone to prioritizing her libido over her employer. Undeniably sexy and exceptionally accomplished, Winter is a true 21st-century heroine.A thrilling performance from rising star Ell Potter
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A note to our listeners
She's terrifyingly quick-witted and intimidatingly sexy with a superhuman skillset: Winter is a woman to be reckoned with. Everyone on the Audible team was immediately drawn to Winter, and we didn’t hesitate in naming this our Thriller of the Year 2019. Alex Callister has perfectly captured today's mood, so cast aside all your current preconceptions of traditional spy novels because Winter Dark puts you right in the middle of a terrifying near-future world plagued by perverse online crime.Ahead of the audiobook's release on 21st March, we put some of our thoughts on film.
About the Narrator
Ell Potter is in her final year at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). She has appeared in the school’s productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, playing Helena, and New England, playing Alice Berry. She is also a writer and comedian, and in 2018 took her two-woman show HOTTER to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it enjoyed a sellout run and was named an Evening Standard Best New Writing of 2018. It has since secured a transfer to the prestigious Soho Theatre. She has been entered for the 2019 Carleton Hobbs BBC radio drama competition. Ell has devoured audiobooks for as long as she can remember, growing up on Harry Potter and His Dark Materials during long car journeys. Winter Dark is her first audiobook.

Meet the author of Winter Dark
Alex Callister is the pseudonym of an industry expert on media, telecoms and internet stocks. She studied history at Oxford and the British School at Rome and was set for a career in academia until the beginning of the tech boom woke a lifelong interest in internet shares. Alex has spent her career visiting high security web hosting sites and speculating on what might go wrong. Winter Dark is her debut novel and the first in the Winter series.More from the same
What listeners say about Winter Dark
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Richard
- 19-10-19
AWFUL !
Complete drivel, the story is contrived and predictable, the characters are totally unbelievable. Like a teenage boys wet dream absolute rubbish, can't believe I finished it !!!
33 people found this helpful
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- Miss K L Morris
- 26-09-19
Fabulous!
I really enjoyed this book, and I can’t wait for the next instalment, love the characters. A thrilling read!
11 people found this helpful
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- James
- 03-05-19
Gripping, enjoyable and fun
I really enjoyed this story. It was great to find a book with such a powerful and charismatic female protagonist. I would love to meet Winter in person, she's right up my street. The reading pace was a little slow at times, so I found myself listening at 1.5x speed. Overall, a great book and I have pre-ordered the second in the series.
11 people found this helpful
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- MR L A WEST
- 27-09-19
brilliant listen
excellent.
cant wait for the next one. and hopefully will get read by the brilliant ell potter once again
9 people found this helpful
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- Les P
- 02-05-19
Amazing, gripping, thriller read!
I really enjoyed this extremely well narrated thriller by a new and up and coming author.
If I had been reading and not listening it would be a page turner for sure. It is like a female Bond, Jason Bourne, Lisbeth Salander type character in my option. I can't wait to start Winter Rising when it arrives as I have pre-ordered.
Very well written and expertly described by Ell Porter as Narrator.
9 people found this helpful
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- Doublespeedson
- 26-09-19
Slow start but really enjoyed it
I very nearly stopped this book after about 2 chapters. But really pleased I persevered.
Performer was enjoyable.
8 people found this helpful
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- Paul Bennett
- 11-05-19
Winter superb action thriller
Winter is a brilliantly big action thriller. Great settings London, Paris etc and a sexy hard female character lead who fizzes from one situation to the next. Definitely would make a great film or Netflix series. Sex scenes should be a bit more graphic the sanitised approach does not fit Winter’s character and we are in 2019 after all. Looking forward to the next book.
8 people found this helpful
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- Sigrin
- 27-12-19
Trying way too hard
Not often I am driven to write a poor review as I will give a book a few chances. However this is such drivel.
Winter the heroine from this book is a cross between a female Bond and Lizbeth Salandar (Steig Larsson millenium series).
The storyline is way to far fetched and verges in laughable at time. Sex for sexsake and the snowboard scene in Courchevel is hysterical. (I live not far from here and am an avid skier.)
This book has been hyped up, but for me it just did not deliver anything meaningful.
The only outstanding comment I can make is the narration by Ms Potter, She was without fault and got me halfway through the book, before I just could not take it anymore.
14 people found this helpful
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- Rob Varnam
- 01-06-20
Cringeworthy nonsense. A waste of a credit 👎
Certainly not one for me. Snow boarding underwear model with an MP5 chases “hot” Vin Diesel clone hacker. Ugh!
5 people found this helpful
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- Peter S.
- 11-05-20
Utter rubbish
Words fail me, this is complete rubbish, lacks imagination and credibility, basically a grown up comic mixed in with a smattering of soft porn.
5 people found this helpful
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- erik
- 25-11-19
What a terrible book
It remined me of the stuff we used to write in high school where everyone took turns writing some lines. Some parts are so made up. I stopped when the main character travelled to Umbria, and there in the middle of Umbria, without a clue, sniffs a corpse lying under sacks of rotten food and thus finds a new lead. Ok, good luck with that.....
5 people found this helpful
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- Dawn
- 29-03-19
Ell Potter, narrator, Makes this story outstanding !
The story is gripping and features a badass queer woman ! Ell Potter does several accents and is easy to follow character to character . Her voice is smooth and adds dimension without being too breathy or distracting. I’d like to buy more books from this narrator ! I listen to 2-4 books per month .
3 people found this helpful
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- Avila
- 18-04-19
Self Indulgent
I regard myself as open minded but the explicit and gratuitous sex was irrelevant to the story. Why? The book reads or should I say sounds like a recording of a fantasy session with the author's therapist.
16 people found this helpful
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- Old n'tired
- 15-09-19
Worked for me!
Unlike a few of the recent reviews I thought this book was well paced and consistent throughout. I didn’t skip any chapters or start paying at a higher rate, which is something I find myself doing about half the time.
2 people found this helpful
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- JMc
- 12-04-19
Ell Potter’s performance... Brilliant!!!
The story itself was great and Ell Potter’s performance made this - hands down - the BEST audio book I’ve listen to yet.
2 people found this helpful
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- Paul Ballard
- 08-04-19
great listen
the book is awesome and the narration is excellent...can't wait for the next one in October.
2 people found this helpful
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- Pamiam
- 06-04-19
Great story Great Listen
I listen to audible books while driving long distance, as I was coming to my destination I stayed in the car to listen a bit more. I cant wait until the next book comes out. The narrator was perfect.
2 people found this helpful
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- melissa
- 02-04-19
Strong female protagonist
Clever and soulful with a kickass main character who happens... to be a women. It’s sexy in a way that makes it fun; and paced so that we can all take in how messy action heroism can be. Loved it and especially loved the narrator!
2 people found this helpful
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- Jessica Cancino
- 30-03-19
Amazing 👌
Loved the book. The narrator was fantastic and the story was truly engaging. can't wait to hear what's next.
5 people found this helpful
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- Charlotte
- 29-10-20
Not for Me
I tried to listen to it but it was to hard to follow and just had to quit. This has only happened 2 times.
1 person found this helpful