The Secret of Snow

By Viola Shipman*

Thorndike, 2021

Genre: Fiction/Holiday/Winter

Pages: 403 (large print)

Via: Library

Ever finish a book and just kinda want to sink back into your favorite reading chair, snuggle up under a soft blankie and smile and sigh? Just kinda sit there and savor the read for a few? That’s what finishing Viola Shipman’s warm and whimsical holiday-themed novel, The Secret of Snow, is like.

“Now, not everyone would think of scooping up a book called The Secret of Snow in the middle of July,” spake I, Kimber the Magnificent. “But you know Mom! Thus, (isn’t that a great word, “thus”? Mom taught it to me. No idea what it means. But if Mom likes it, then so do I.”)” 

Hidden Gem

“As I was saying – neither Mom nor I had ever heard of this author before. Ditto the book. So we decided to take a chance on both the other day. (We do that sometimes.)

We had no idea what to expect when opening the cover. But Holy Meow Mix! Did this book ever surprise us! Talk about a hidden gem. Here’s the scoop (pun intended)”:

The Basics

Amberrose Murphy (aka:” Sonny Dunes”) is running. A fifty year-old meteorologist recently fired from a top TV station in Palm Springs, California, Sonny suddenly finds herself out of options. She’s forced to leave the sun and palm trees of Southern California and move back to her hometown of Traverse City, Michigan. And move in with her mom.

Desperate, Sonny lands a job at a struggling local TV station. The news director and her new boss, Lisa, is an old “frenemy” from college. It’s complicated. And prickly. Think porcupine.

Daughter, sister, and Michigan native, Sonny struggles to re-connect with her painful past and live up to the “hometown girl makes good” angle Lisa wants to push. Not really an outsider but no longer a local, Sonny’s drowning. So she does what Sonny does best: running away.

Running

Sonny’s soon running from old friends, her mom, old relationships, old sights and sounds. Most of all, Sonny’s running from old memoires about the loss of her father and the untimely death of her kid sister, Joncee. She’s also running from a potential romance with a widower named Mason, pushing him away before he gets too close. Before he discovers her awful secret. The one that’s haunted her for decades.

Regrets

But regrets won’t bring Joncee back. And they won’t keep Sonny safe.

Running back to the desert after a dreadful live broadcast meltdown in Michigan, Sonny falls asleep in her Palm Springs home. She dreams of her family and “snow that will smile forever and never melt.”

A Second Chance?

Meanwhile, Mason urges Sonny to give herself – and them – a second chance. And who’s the dweeb who’s doctoring videos of Sonny to make her look like a total dork and an incompetent clown and blasting them all over social media?

A Lot

The plot thickens because The Secret of Snow is about a lot of things. It’s about how it feels to open your heart. Let down your guard. Allow people to see the real you. It’s about painful memories of past traditions and long-ago winters. It’s about:

• Sled-fuls of regret. Loss. Guilt and denial. Hiding and running
•  Discovery, honesty, authententicity, and happiness
•  “Eat some snow, it’ll make you grow
•  Second chances.
• Beauty in imperfections.
• Magic found in foibles and fragility.
• How every line, wrinkle, and hole in one’s soul, heart, or body tells a story.
• A Leland Blue stone (Chapter 10. Don’t miss it. Priceless.)
• It’s both funny and sad and avoids melting into maudlin or sappy.
• It also includes clean romantic moments, like when Sonny and Mason go outside to dance in the snow under a full moon. (How cool is that? Like, literally freezing!)

Change

It’s about how winter can change a person:

It can show you the delicate structure of the world when everything is stripped clean. It can illuminate your soul when would is cloaked in darkness. It can warm your hear when everything else is frozen. It can let you hear you own thoughts for the first time when the earth finally falls silent.

Mostly

But mostly, winter allows you to see yourself “when all the leaves are off, the green is gone, the adornment is stripped away, and… you can appreciate all the knots, bends, broken limbs and lightning strikes. You can see the beauty that has been created in harsh times.”

It would’ve been easy to turn this novel into a frothy rom com with lemon meringue filling type of story. You know the type? Light and fluffy, with as much substance as a cream puff. And while the book is sprinkled with levity and lighter moments, it also has a real and authentic feel to it that’s got teeth. Depth. Breadth. Firmness and strength.

It surprised one of us. (Hi, Mom.)

Most of all, The Secret of Snow delivers sled-fuls of family, heirloom memories, colorful and richly textured characters, and hope. Lots and lots of hope.

The Secret of Snow is for anyone who’s ever lost a loved one, struggled with guilt or regrets, felt overwhelmed, or asked “Why?” It’s a cozy, sun-soaked read that aims straight for the heart. And hits it. Even when one of us read in shorts and flip-flips while chomping on popsicles and swilling ice-cold lemonade like there’s no tomorrow (Hi again, Mom).

Our Rating: 3.0

Would’ve scored it higher except for the typos. And the occasional sermonizing.

*Note: “Viola Shipman” is a pen name for author Wade Rouse.