Cover of Snow

Small towns have secrets. That’s no surprise to anyone who’s ever lived in one, but the depth of those secrets is what Nora Hamilton has to explore in Jenny Milchman’s debut, Cover of Snow (no signed copies that we’re aware of, but if that changes, obviously we’ll let you know). Nora’s husband, Brendan, is a police officer in their small town of Wedeskyull, NY. And one snowy January morning, Nora wakes up to an awful silence; her husband has hanged himself. She is beyond stunned, and as she tries to make sense of what has happened, Nora discovers that things in Wedeskyull are not as peaceful as she has always believed, and that the secrets the town hides go back farther than she could have ever imagined. Cover of Snow might very well have slid beneath my radar except that Jenny and her husband stopped by to discuss it this past summer (the personal touch matters!), and had I missed it, that would have been a shame. This is an excellent book! Milchman captures the biting winter cold, the sense of isolation that Nora feels as an outsider and her growing fear as she realizes she doesn’t know who she can trust. Having lived in a small town, I understood the fine line that residents can walk beween feeling wrapped in the comfort of knowing everyone and how quickly that comfort can turn into a feeing of being trapped. While the first chapter seemed a bit choppy to me, the story was so compelling that I couldn’t stop reading it, and Jenny Milchman’s style smoothed out and took off. She has created memorable and astonishing characters, and I feel like I really know these people. Her ability to use the weather and the town almost as characters on their own is excellent. I love finding debut authors, and Jenny Milchman is one to take note of!