A tender story about a Southern California meteorologist whose
forced retreat to the winter deep-freeze of Michigan melts her hardened heart.
Well-researched stories about Michiganders and the sensitive complexities of family legacies have built Viola Shipman's (pen name of Wade Rouse) successful, comforting brand.
Shipman (The Charm Bracelet; The Recipe Box) begins The Secret of Snow in Palm Springs,
Calif., around Christmastime, where Sonny Dunes, a single, 50-year-old national
TV meteorologist, has a meltdown on air after she learns that her job is being
threatened by a robot. Destroying her career in a terminal way, unemployed and
downtrodden Sonny returns to her hometown of Traverse City, Mich., where she
moves in with her widowed, 75-year-old mother and is offered a job at the local
TV station by a former college rival. Sonny develops weather-centric feature
stories in a segment billed as "Sonny in Winter," where she presents
the history, legends and fun deep-freeze traditions of the Lake Michigan area.
As Sonny comes to appreciate the hometown she fled 30 years before,
complications ensue when the current weather gal at the station fears that
Sonny is after her job.
Along the way, Sonny is befriended by the underappreciated
"Guy Friday" at the station and by a widowed local politician, both
of whom carry heavy burdens in their hearts. While the weather outside grows
frightful, Sonny battles interior personal storms as painful memories come to
light. Can she part the emotional dark clouds of her past and look toward a
sunny future?
Smart comedic plotting and gentle romance kindle Shipman's beautifully descriptive, fluid prose in an absorbing, moving story that will warm the hearts of readers.
The
Secret of Snow by Viola Shipman
Graydon House Books, $26.00
hardcover, 9781525899812, 320 pages
Publication Date: October 26, 2021
To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE
NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being
posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's
Edition
(October 26, 2021), link HERE