Light On Snow

Winter has come to Shepherd, New Hampshire. Twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon and her father are snow-shoeing in the woods near their home when they hear the cry of an abandoned newborn. They get the baby girl to the hospital in Mercy just in time to save her life. And they think that's the end of it. But it's not; it's only the beginning.

I probably would never have read this book except I needed a novel set in New Hampshire for my Reading New England Challenge. So I was a little surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Nicky is an engaging narrator. She and her father are still healing from the personal tragedy that struck their family two years earlier; it's why they moved to New Hampshire from New York in the first place. But the baby they find in the woods stirs up memories for both of them...and entangles their lives with that of the baby's young mother, changing all of them.

This is a moving story of love and grief and family, and of consequences and hope. I like the way Anita Shreve weaves together the Dillons' past and present. And I got caught up in the young mother's story. I also liked the New Hampshire setting, especially the Dillons' secluded old farmhouse and the quiet beauty of the snowy woods. It makes for a perfect winter read. Just make a cup of hot chocolate, grab an afghan, curl up on the couch, and enjoy.

Happy Reading!

The Talk-Funny Girl

There are some books that you practically have to force yourself to pick up and keep reading, and other books that once you start, you don't want to put down. The Talk-Funny Girl by Roland Merullo is one of the latter. It has a very compelling narrative voice and I quickly found myself emotionally invested in the main character and in her life and destiny.

The odds are stacked against 17-year-old Marjorie Richards. She lives in the back woods of New Hampshire in isolated poverty. Her parents are not only unstable, but emotionally and physically abusive, forcing "penances" on her like "boying, hungering, facing, and dousing" as dictated by the cult-like church they attend.

"My parents were like gasoline spread around a room--there was the sharp smell of danger, the threat that something might erupt, but it could just as easily evaporate as explode."

Marjorie further isolates herself from others with the way she talks, using an ungrammatical dialect that only she and her parents speak. The only sources of kindness and hope in her life are her Aunt Elaine, and the young stonemason who hires her to help him build a stone "cathedral" in town.

Marjorie's journey out of a life of abuse and neglect is a painful one, but it is also a remarkable journey of courage and hope and love. She endures so much, and yet she never gives up.

"I had my protective shell of funny talk and shyness, but underneath that lived a wilder me, a girl who would take punishment, and take it, and take it, but who would never let go of herself all the way, never completely surrender."

I was blown away by this story. Despite its dark subject matter, it's not a sad or depressing book. It's just really, really good. And once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down.

Happy Reading!

Similar reads:

     Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell

     Words by Ginny L. Yttrup