Blackberry Winter
A Novel
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4.4 • 8 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
***THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER***
From the New York Times bestselling author of Always and The Violets of March comes an emotional story of a dreadful storm, a missing child cold case, and a determined reporter who just may have a stronger connection with the past than she realizes.
Seattle, 1933. Single mother Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son goodnight and departs to work the night shift at a local hotel. She emerges to discover that a May Day snow has blanketed the city, and that her son has vanished. Outside, she finds his beloved teddy bear lying facedown on an icy street, the snow covering up any trace of his tracks—or the perpetrator’s.
Seattle, 2010. Seattle Herald reporter Claire Aldridge, assigned to cover the May 1 “blackberry winter” storm and its twin, learns of the unsolved abduction and vows to unearth the truth. In the process, she finds that she and Vera may be linked in unexpected ways.
Sarah Jio burst onto the fiction scene with two sensational novels—The Violets of March and The Bungalow. With Blackberry Winter—taking its title from a late-season, cold-weather phenomenon—Jio continues her rich exploration of the ways personal connections can transcend the boundaries of time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Claire Aldridge is a reporter for the Seattle Herald coping with an emotionally detached husband and the grief of a recent miscarriage. When she awakes one May morning to find Seattle blanketed in snow, she begins to write a piece about the weather phenomenon known as a blackberry winter. Claire soon unearths the story of Vera Ray, a woman whose three-year-old son went missing in a similar snowstorm on the same day nearly 80 years before, in 1933. As Claire digs deeper, she discovers that she and Vera share ties to the wealthy Kensington family, who may be pulling strings and obfuscating Claire's research in an effort to stop her from uncovering the dark secrets that bind her to Vera. Jio's newest (after The Bungalow) is a fascinating exploration of love, loss, scandal, and redemption. While astute readers will likely surmise the nature of Claire and Vera's connection long before the big reveal, the proceedings are nevertheless engaging, with Claire and Vera enticing protagonists.
