"An enthralling mystery of an unknown bride, tragic love, absorbing period atmosphere, and stirring style - this captivating novel is a page-turning delight."
Rich with romance, mystery and family drama, Elisabeth Gifford’s A Woman Made of Snow is a delicious treat for readers who like their historic fiction seasoned with haunting atmosphere.
It’s 1949 and Caro and Alasdair Gillan are newly married Cambridge graduates living near his Scottish family home. Though elegant, crumbling Kelly Castle has seen better days, and hides many secrets, as Caro discovers when she accepts her mother-in-law’s suggestion that she research the Gillan family history. Her academic career curtailed when she falls pregnant soon after marriage, Caro is glad to have something to occupy her mind, and the mystery of a missing bride is certainly intriguing. The woman in question was married to Alasdair’s great-grandfather, Oliver, whom we meet when the narrative slips back to the late 1800s. As a boy, Oliver resolved to explore the frozen north, and later read medicine at Edinburgh University. Then, as broken-hearted young man, Oliver signs up to board a ship bound for the Arctic.
In the present, as a shocking find is made in the castle grounds, there are tensions between Caro and Alasdair’s family - she’s not the kind of woman they’d envisaged him marrying, yet she is the kind of woman who can uncover Oliver’s past, not least when she finds the diary of his voyage aboard the Narwhal whaling ship and pieces together a tragic and beautiful tale of love that exposes abhorrent Western notions of “savages”.
With a fine evocation of time, place, and Inuit society, A Woman Made of a Snow is a moving, captivating read.
| Primary Genre | Family Drama |
| Other Genres: |
Caroline Gillan and her new husband Alasdair have moved back to Kelly Castle, his family estate in the wilds of Scotland. Stuck caring for their baby and trying to avoid her inscrutable mother-in-law, Caroline feels adrift and alone. But while sorting through old papers, Caroline stumbles across a family secret which changes everything.
There is one Gillan bride who has disappeared from history. No photos or records of her exist. The only certainty is that she had a legitimate child: Alasdair's grandmother. As Caroline unearths a story of love and adventure that stretches as far as the Arctic circle, her curiosity about the missing bride turns into an obsession. And when a body is found in the grounds of the castle, Caroline begins an investigation which could alter the course of her life forever . . .
A Woman Made of Snow features in the following genres: Family Drama, Historical Fiction, General Fiction, Contemporary lifestyle fiction, Historical romance, Narrative theme: Sense of place, Narrative theme: Coming of age, Fiction, Romance / Relationship Stories, Fiction: narrative themes
A Woman Made of Snow is available in Paperback, Hardback, CD-Audio
A Woman Made of Snow was written by Elisabeth Gifford and published by Corvus an imprint of Atlantic Books
A Woman Made of Snow has 290 pages
£8.99
