Whiter Than Snow

Back to the snow and cold of the Colorado gold fields for another Sandra Dallas read - this one, Whiter Than Snow, a tale of an avalanche. "On a spring afternoon in 1920, moments after four o'clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path."
In its path were nine children just let out from school. Of the nine, four survive. Before we learn who the four are, we learn the stories of all their families; who they were, where they came from and how they ended up in the mining town of Swandyke. "Fate, chance, and perhaps divine providence all collide in the everyday lives of these people. And ultimately, no one is without sin, no one's soul is whiter than snow, and no one is without the need for forgiveness."
I really enjoy reading Sandra Dallas' books. She has a certain touch with historical fiction.

When I wrote about reading a Kate Wilhelm mystery for the first time in my August 6 blog, I said I was going to try one of her legal thriller series featuring Barbara Holloway, instead I picked up one of her stand alone books, the 2002 Skeletons. I know I'm going to keep reading Wilhelm - this book had me on edge the entire time I was reading it.
Lee Donne has spent four years in college, changing her major several times and leaving without a degree. Without a job and no prospects in sight, she agrees to house-sit her grandfather's isolated Oregon home. Her stay soon turns into a nightmare when she is tormented by strange and menacing noises night after night. The local law enforcement believes she is imagining things, especially after they investigate the roof where Lee says the noise of gravel being thrown upon it is what has awakened her and they find no rocks or gravel of any kind on the roof.
Lee asks her friend to come stay with her. Between the two of them, they figure out how the intruder managed the 'gravel on the roof' noise - which I thought was genius. (I also thought it was genius for the author to come up with the idea. But maybe it is an old trick I just hadn't heard of before.) The two women do manage to capture the ghostly trickster, but in the process, they accidentally kill him. In a panic, they drive his car and body to a parking lot and leave it - hoping it will never be tied to them. When the body is discovered and identified, they learn the young man was the respected son of a local attorney.
Why was he trying to scare Lee away from her grandfather's house? What was inside that he wanted plenty of time to search for? Lee and her friend set out to find out and when they discover that the man's father and Lee's grandfather share a past. The trail thickens and leads to New Orleans and plenty of skeletons.
This was such a good book on so many levels. I haven't even mentioned the main plot line. I want you to discover it for yourself. Even the blurb inside the cover doesn't give a hint about the sinister and far-reaching secrets Lee is going to discover.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy is the only book of Margot Livesey's which our library has. Darn. I want to read all of her books based on how much I liked this one.
Almost all the reviews I've read want to compare this to Jane Eyre - "an inventive reimagining of Jane Eyre" - etc, etc. Okay, but it could also be related to Cinderella. Poor little Gemma is taken from her native Iceland to Scotland to live with her kind uncle and his family when her widowed father drowns at sea. Doting  guardian falls through ice while skating and also drowns. Cruel aunt and cousins treat Gemma as an unwelcome guest, making her do the housework, walk to school while her cousins are driven, punished for fighting when she defends herself against the cousins. No wonder winning a scholarship to a boarding school sounds like a dream come true.
But at age ten, at Claypoole, she finds herself treated as an unpaid servant. When the school closes before Gemma can take her exams for university, she accepts an au pair position on the Orkney Islands. (Here is where the Jane Eyre comparison comes in.) Yes, Gemma and the much older Mr. Sinclair, owner of remote Blackbird Hall, fall for one another. But the book does not end with a 'happily ever after'. Just as they are to be married, "Gemma's biggest trial is about to begin: a journey of passion and betrayal, redemption and discovery, that will lead her to a life of which she has never dreamed."
The Flight of Gemma Hardy is set in Scotland and Iceland in the 1950s and '60s. Scotland has long been one of my favourite novel settings and I was reminded that once upon a time I was more than a little interested in visiting Iceland. At almost 450 pages, this was a long book, but a surprisingly quick and easy read. Once I began reading about Gemma's hard path, I had to discover how the determined little girl took charge of her life which led to a satisfying end. Oh yes, I want to read more of Margot Livesey's writings.