Books are food for my soul! Pull up a beach chair and stick your toes in the sand as the Jersey surf rolls in and out, now open your book and let your imagination take you away.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Cover Of Snow by Jenny Milchman (Book Review)

In association with JKSCommunications, Jersey Girl Book reviews welcomes Jenny Milchman, author of Cover Of Snow!







About The Author


Jenny Milchman is a suspense writer from New Jersey. Her debut novel, Cover Of Snow, published by Ballantine and released on January 15, 2013. Her short story The Close was published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine in November 2012. Another short story, The Very Old Man, has been an Amazon bestseller, and the short work Black Sun on Tupper Lake appears in the anthology Adirondack Mysteries II.

Jenny is the Chair of the International Thriller Writers’ Debut Authors Program. She is also the founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day, which was celebrated last year in all 50 states and four foreign countries by 350-and-growing bookstores.

Jenny hosts the Made It Moments forum on her blog, which has featured more than 250 international bestsellers, Edgar winners and independent authors. She co-hosts the literary series Writing Matters, which attracts guests coast-to-coast and has received national media attention, and loves to teach and speak about writing and publishing for New York Writers Workshop, Arts By The People, and WomenWhoWrite.


AUTHOR WEBSITE
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Jenny Milchman ~ Cover of Snow ~ Virtual Book Tour Page ~ JKSCommunications



Book Review



Cover Of Snow by Jenny Milchman
Publisher: Ballantine Books / Random House
Publication Date: January 15, 2013
Format: Hardcover - 336 pages / Kindle - 1307 KB / Nook - 3 MB
ISBN: 0345534212
ASIN: B00957T4ZG
Genre: Mystery / Suspense / Thriller


BUY THE BOOK: Cover Of Snow
AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE


Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from the author / publisher via NetGalley in exchange for honest review and participation in a virtual book tour event hosted by JKSCommunications.


Book Description:

Waking up one wintry morning in her old farmhouse nestled in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, Nora Hamilton instantly knows that something is wrong. When her fog of sleep clears, she finds her world is suddenly, irretrievably shattered: Her husband, Brendan, has committed suicide.

The first few hours following Nora’s devastating discovery pass for her in a blur of numbness and disbelief. Then, a disturbing awareness slowly settles in: Brendan left no note and gave no indication that he was contemplating taking his own life. Why would a rock-solid police officer with unwavering affection for his wife, job, and quaint hometown suddenly choose to end it all? Having spent a lifetime avoiding hard truths, Nora must now start facing them.

Unraveling her late husband’s final days, Nora searches for answers—but meets with bewildering resistance from Brendan’s best friend and partner, his fellow police officers, and his brittle mother. It quickly becomes clear to Nora that she is asking questions no one wants to answer. For beneath the soft cover of snow lies a powerful conspiracy that will stop at nothing to keep its presence unknown . . . and its darkest secrets hidden.


Book Excerpt:


                                                 Chapter One

My husband wasn’t in bed with me when I woke up that January morning. The mid-­winter sky was bruised purple and yellow outside the window. I shut bleary eyes against light that glared and pounded.

A second later I realized my toes weren’t burrowing into the hollows behind Brendan’s knees, that when I flung out my arm it didn’t meet his wiry chest, the stony muscles gone slack with sleep. I slid my hand toward the night table, fingers scrabbling around for our alarm clock.

Seven-­thirty.

It was late. As if drugged, my brain was making sense of things only after a dull delay. But it was a full hour past the time I always woke up. We always woke up. Brendan slept a cop’s sleep, perpetually ready to take action, and I had been an early riser all my thirty-­five years.

Bits of things began to take shape in my mind.

The morning light, which entered so stridently through the window.

Brendan not in bed with me. He must’ve gotten up already. I hadn’t even felt him move.

But Brendan had been working late all week; I hadn’t yet found out why. My husband had good reason to sleep in. And if he had risen on time, why didn’t he wake me?

I felt a squeezing in my belly. Brendan knew I had an eight o’clock meeting with a new client this morning, the owner of a lovely but ramshackle old saltbox in need of repair. My husband took my burgeoning business as seriously as I did. He would never let me miss a meeting.

On the other hand, Brendan would know that if I slept late, then I must be worn out. Maybe getting Phoenix off the ground had taken more out of me than I realized. Brendan probably figured he’d give me a few extra minutes, and the morning just got away from him.

He must be somewhere in his normal routine now, toweling off, or fixing coffee.

Except I didn’t hear the shower dripping. Or smell the telltale, welcome scent of my morning fix.

I pushed myself out of bed with hands that felt stiff and clumsy, as if I were wearing mittens. What was wrong with me? I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror and noticed puddles of lavender under my eyes. It was like I hadn’t slept a wink, instead of an extra hour.

“Brendan? Honey? You up?”

My words shattered the air, and I realized how very still our old farmhouse was this morning.

Padding toward the bathroom, one explanation for the weight in my muscles, not to mention my stuporous sleep, occurred to me.

Brendan and I had made love last night.

It had been one of the good times; me lying back afterward, hollow, cored out, the way I got when Brendan was able to focus completely on me, on us, instead of moving so fiercely that he seemed to be riding off to some distant place in the past. We’d even lain awake for a while in the waning moments before sleep, fingers intertwined, Brendan studying me in a way that I felt more than saw in the dark.

“Honey? Last night tired me out, I guess. Not that it wasn’t worth it.”

I felt a smile tease the corners of my mouth, and pushed open the bathroom door, expecting a billow of steam. When only brittle air emerged, I felt that grabbing in my gut again. Cold tile bit my bare feet.

“Brendan?”

My husband never started the day without a shower; he claimed that a night’s sleep made him ache. But there was no residue of moisture filming the mirror, nor fragrance of soap in the air. I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around my shoulders for warmth, and trotted toward the stairs, calling out his name.

No answer.

Could he have gone to the station early? Left me sleeping while my new client waited at his dilapidated house?

“Honey! Are you home?” My voice sounded uncertain.

No answer. And then I heard the chug of our coffeepot.

Relief flowed through me, thick and creamy as soup. Until that moment, I hadn’t let myself acknowledge that I was scared. I wasn’t an overreactor by nature usually.

I headed downstairs, feet more sure now, but with that wobbly, airless feeling in the knees that comes as fear departs.

The kitchen was empty when I entered, the coffee a dark, widening stain in the pot. It continued to sputter and spit while I stood there.

There was no mug out, waiting for its cold jolt of milk. No light was turned on against the weak morning sunshine. Nobody had been in the icy kitchen yet today. This machine had been programmed last night, one of the chores accomplished as Brendan and I passed back and forth in the tight space, stepping around each other to clean up after dinner.

That thing in my belly took hold, and this time it didn’t let go. I didn’t call out again.

The sedated feeling was disappearing now, cobwebs tearing apart, and my thinking suddenly cleared. I brushed past the deep farm sink, a tall, painted cabinet.

With icy hands, I opened the door to the back stairs, whose walls I was presently laboring over to make perfect for Brendan. Maybe, just maybe, he’d skipped his shower and called in late to work in order to spend time in his hideaway upstairs.

The servants’ stairs were steep and narrow, with a sudden turn and wells worn deep in each step. I climbed the first two slowly, bypassing a few tools and a can of stripper, then twisted my body around the corner. I took in the faded wallpaper I’d only just reached after months of careful scraping.

Perhaps I didn’t have enough momentum, but I slipped, solidly whacking both knees as I went down. Crouching there, gritting my teeth against the smarting pain, I looked up toward the top of the flight.

Brendan was above me, suspended from a thick hank of rope.

The rope was knotted around a stained glass globe, which hung in the cracked ceiling plaster.

Brendan’s neck tilted slightly, the angle odd. His handsome face looked like it was bathed entirely in red wine.

Suddenly a small cyclone of powder spilled down, and I heard a splitting sound. There was a rip, a tear, the noise of two worlds cracking apart, and then a deafening series of thuds.

The light fixture completed its plummet, and broke with a tinkling sprinkle of glass. A tangle of ice-­cold limbs and body parts slugged me, heavy as lead blankets.

And I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until the warble my voice had been before became no more than a gasping strain for air.


My Book Review:

Cover Of Snow is a gripping story of one woman's journey to uncover the truth of her husband's suicide. When Nora Hamilton wakes up one morning to find her police officer husband Brendan has hung himself in the attic of their farmhouse, she questions how and why he would commit suicide. Nora's quest to find out why Brendan killed himself leads her to uncover deep dark long buried secrets of a small town in the Adirondack Mountains, and the people who will go to any lengths to keep the past buried. Considered an outsider by the townspeople of Wedeskyull, NY, Nora doesn't know who she can trust, and her determination to continue her quest to uncover the truth will put herself and others in grave danger. Will Nora uncover the truth of her husband's death, or will she too be silenced?

In her debut novel, author Jenny Milchman weaves a riveting thriller full of tension, suspense and enough twist and turns that keeps the reader sitting on the edge of their seat. Written in the first person narrative, the story is told by the main character Nora Hamilton, with third person narratives from other character perspectives interspersed throughout the book. The reader is transported to the cold snowy little Adirondack Mountains town of Wedeskyull, NY, where dark secrets are buried deep and townspeople protect their own. Nora takes the reader on a dangerous journey to uncover the truth of why her husband committed suicide, only to open up a pandora's box that could prove to be even more deadly.

The story opens with the shocking suicide and rapidly engages the reader to follow along with Nora as she uncovers the mystery that surrounds the death of her husband and the long buried secrets of his hometown. With a smattering of clues that are revealed in each chapter, and a slue of mysterious characters with motives, secrets and dark pasts, the story easily holds the reader's attention and keeps them guessing until the surprising conclusion. The author's attention to detail and vivid description of the riveting storyline and the cold snowy NY mountain setting that comes alive and leaps off the pages in a bone-chilling way that makes Cover Of Snow a gripping mystery suspense thriller that is one heck of an entertaining read.


RATING: 4 STARS ****


















2 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for sharing this thoughtful review! It's great to be on Jersey Girl (since I am in fact a Jersey girl :) Thanks again!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Jenny! Thank you for the opportunity to read and review Cover Of Snow. I love suspense thrillers, and really enjoyed this story. Great debut for a fellow Jersey Girl. :)

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