The Snow Collectors

by Tina May Hall

Haunted by the loss of her parents and twin sister at sea, Henna cloisters herself in a Northeastern village where the snow never stops. When she discovers the body of a young woman at the edge of the forest, she’s plunged into the mystery of a centuries-old letter regarding one of the most famous stories of Arctic exploration—the Franklin expedition, which disappeared into the ice in 1845.
At the center of the mystery is Franklin’s wife, the indomitable Lady Jane. Henna’s investigation draws her into a gothic landscape of locked towers, dream-like nights of snow and ice, and a crumbling mansion rife with hidden passageways and carrion birds. But it soon becomes clear that someone is watching her—someone who is determined to prevent the truth from coming out.

Suspenseful and atmospheric, The Snow Collectors sketches the ghosts of Victorian exploration against the eerie beauty of a world on the edge of environmental collapse.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Gothic, Fiction, Historical, Thriller, Mystery Thriller

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 2020

About the author

Tina May Hall is the author of a collection of stories, The Physics of Imaginary Objects (which won the 2010 Drue Heinz Literature Prize) and a novel, The Snow Collectors (Dzanc Books 2020). She is the recipient of an NEA grant and has done residencies at Yaddo and Vermont Studio Center. Her stories have appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Collagist, Quarterly West, Black Warrior Review, Wigleaf, and other journals. She lives in upstate New York where she teaches creative writing and literature at Hamilton College.

Reviews

[Debra - can't post any comments on site today grrr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Henna has moved to a Northeastern Village where the snow never stops after the deaths of her parents and twin sister. She lives alone with her dog, Rembrandt, and while out walking one day discovers the body of a young woman. Then she is thrown into a century old mystery involving a letter written about a century old expedition to the Arctic which disappeared on the ice in 1845.

The age-old Gothic mystery involves Sir John Franklin's wife, Lady Jane and her quest to learn about what happened to her missing husband. (Some background - Sir John Franklin set out with two ships - the Erebus and the Terror).

Henna's quest to learn the truth takes her to an old mansion full of strange rooms, underground passages, carrion birds, odd people and old dresses. This book feels both Gothic and contemporary.

I will admit, it took me some time to get into it. I struggled initially with the storytelling and short passages. There is magical realism here and one does need to suspend some disbelief. This is a hard book for me to rate as there were many beautiful passages and sentences but there were also times where I just sat there thinking "huh" and "what the $#%$ am I reading?". I found it to be oddly compelling and kept reading to see what would happen.

I'm still not sure what to think of it, but again found it compelling. I didn't really care for anyone in the book and yet was drawn in by their eccentricities. Henna is odd herself and feels somewhat unreliable as she tells stories of holding her breath for way too long and the things she reports seeing and experiencing can't be real (or can they?).

Thank you to Catherine Sinow and Dzanc Books who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Z strange, yet for me an oddly compelling novel. When her twin sister and her parents disappear into the sea, Henna takes her dog, Rembrandt and moves to Alaska. The snow and the cold, seem to fit her mood, the library a source of comfort. Until a young women's body is found, and Henna finds torn sheets of paper dating back to the Franklin expedition.

In short chapters, vignettes, the story reveals one discovery after another. One never knows what is coming next, nor have a clue on where it is going. The police chief seems enthralled by Henna, and seems concerned about her safety. The setting is in the near future, where we wonderful humans have caused many species to go extinct. A few other colorful characters feature prominently, as does the mystery of the past. How do the two connect? An old, many room house and snow itself are also features. The tone is gothic in places, a kind of Jane Eyre vibe.

Interesting, beautifully written, one that definitely pulled in this reader.

ARC from Edelweiss.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

"One day, while snowshoeing after a winter storm, I found a body at the edge of my woods. The first thing I saw was her hand under the low-hanging branches. Her hand, covered in snow, making the sign Claire and I devised for sun--a cup, an ark, a shape to catch the light."

I'm in LOVE with Tina May Hall's prose. I just curled up into it, in the way that a cat would curl up into a warm patch of sunlight while just outside the window, it snows hard. So inventive, atmospheric, with brilliant insight and unique genre bending. This is gothic, historical, dystopian, thriller, mystery, literary all at once.

Set in the near future, in an obscure northeast setting, it weaves together two stories about the aftermath of personal tragedy: Henna deals with the loss of her twin sister, and Lady Franklin tries to overcome the loss of a husband, real life Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin, in the 1800s.

I loved how Hall mixed into her potion all things water: ice, dowsing, drowning, and the main theme, snow collecting. I've heard of that before, but gasped with delight when she introduced it. Love learning more about it. And there is that ever-present snow. It fills the novel and is its own monstrous and beautiful character.

I'll be reading this book again, in sunny Florida, not missing those northern winters but feeling the magic of the peace and quiet that blankets the woods when it snows--and the slight menace it also carries, which Hall captured perfectly.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Snow Collectors, the arresting debut by Tina May Hall, is a tremendously interesting yet very uneven book.  Hall fuses gothic horror, mystery, and historical fiction into a bizarre yet intriguing blend (made more bizarre by the fact that it's not a historical novel at all - it's set in the present-day, or maybe the near-future).  It's almost tongue-in-cheek at times in a way that weirdly reminded me of Northanger Abbey - the narrator comparing herself ironically to a gothic heroine - but the classic comparisons stop there as this is a much weirder book than a lazy Rebecca or Frankenstein comparison would convey.  Anyway, when it works, it's brilliant, and when it falters, it does fall a bit flat.

I think the strongest element here is the snowy New England atmosphere, which is paying a deliberate homage to the arctic backdrop of the Franklin Expedition of 1845.  The protagonist, Henna, finds the body of a dead girl in her woods, and in investigating the crime as an amateur sleuth, she traces it back to the Franklin Expedition and more notably to John Franklin's wife, the Lady Jane.  I did think these segments that focused on Jane were refreshing and interesting enough to mostly carry the novel.

Where this book never fully worked for me was in the contemporary murder mystery; it felt like an after-thought to the point where suspects were never properly introduced; I found the resolution obvious in the sense that it was the only resolution that had ever really been set up at all.  The present-day characters and their motivations also remain hazy to a frustrating extent, though Henna herself is a fascinating character.  All said, I did want a bit more from this, but I do also recommend checking it out if it appeals.  3.5 stars.

Thank you to Dzanc for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Noa]

Hoi! Dit is niet echt een update, maar een aankondiging dat ik Goodreads niet meer ga gebruiken. Ik ben overgestapt op The Storygraph :)

Goodreads is eigendom van Amazon, wat ik al onprettig vind om een miljoen redenen, en heeft met al het geld in de wereld al jarenlang niets gedaan om de website beter te maken. The Storygraph is nieuw, pas net uit beta, en er wordt nog een hoop aan bijgeschaafd, maar ik vind het nu al een leukere website. Momenteel is het eigendom van Nadia Odunayo en zij heeft de intentie dat zo te houden. Maybe I'll see you there!

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) Henna is alone in the world since her parents and twin sister disappeared in a boating accident. She lives a solitary existence with her sister’s basset hound Rembrandt in a New England village, writing encyclopaedia entries on the Arctic, until she stumbles on a corpse and embarks on an amateur investigation involving scraps of 19th-century correspondence. The dead woman asked inconvenient questions about a historical cover-up; if she takes up the thread, Henna could be a target, too. Her collaboration with the police chief, Fletcher, turns into a flirtation. After her house burns down, she ends up living with him – and his mother and housekeeper – in a Gothic mansion stuffed with birds of prey and historical snow samples. She’s at the mercy of this quirky family and the weather, wearing ancient clothing from Fletcher’s great-aunts and tramping through blizzards looking for answers.

This is a kitchen-sink novel with loads going on, as if Hall couldn’t decide which of her interests to include so threw them all in. Yet at only 221 pages, it might actually have been expanded a little to flesh out the backstory and mystery plot. It gets more than a bit ridiculous in places, but its Victorian fan fiction vibe is charming escapism nonetheless. What with the historical fiction interludes about the Franklin expedition, this reminded me most of The Still Point, but also of The World Before Us and The Birth House. I’d happily read Hall’s 2010 short story collection, too.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Nedra Hains · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a twin who has lost her other half, the descriptions of the bond between twins, even across death drew me in. It was a quick read. The plot twists and turns led my mind in the opposite direction of how I imagined it would end.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I'm hesitant to call a book "original" or "unique" because I don't have that much familiarity with its genre. That's the case for me with The Snow Collectors, but I suspect the adjectives really do apply here. I requested an electronic review copy of this book because the description suggested it would be a mystery with ties to the Franklin Polar Expedition, and I'm an eager reader of historical mysteries with a side interest in polar exploration. The Snow Collectors is that—but not in the way I'd expected.

To start with, I found the narrator unexpected: Henna has moved from living on the balmy coast to the far north after her parents and sister disappear in a boating accident. She works writing encyclopedia entries on water-related topics and is/was a dowser who, before her family tragedy, could not just sense water underground, but pull it to the surface.

The book is presented in Henna's voice and she seems a bit unreliable as a narrator—not because she presents readers with falsehoods, but because there are moments when she perceives the world in ways that simply can't be true. For example, at one point, remembering her disappeared twin sister, she tell the reader that when she and her sister used to have competitions to see who could hold her breath longest, Claire always won because she could go without breathing for four and a half days. True? Can't be. And this isn't a fantasy novel in which such things might be possible.

Henna finds a woman frozen to death, shoeless and coatless, clutching a small fragment of what turns out to be a letter written by Franklin's wife. What starts as an attempt to find the woman's identity leads to questions about the accuracy of the historical narrative of the Franklin Expedition. Strange events ensue, involving raptors and a museum of extinction, characters become more menacing, and the book moves from mystery to Gothic.

I kept asking myself as I read whether I could continue with the book's narrator's voice and its awkward straddling of reality and the impossible. But I did finish the book. I just couldn't bring myself to put it down, partially because I wanted to see how its oddities would evolve.

My final impression: this is a book that requires a certain amount of patience and flexibility from a reader, but it truly is engaging and offers the reader surprises on multiple level. I recommend checking it out.

I received a free electronic ARC of this book for review purposes. The opinions are my own.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t remember the whole of the story, if it was a myth or what the book was or who did it, but I heard once somewhere that an aspiring author typed up the entirety of a great work, maybe it was The Great Gatsby, so he could know what it felt like to write a masterpiece. As soon as I started this book, I thought that if I ever put that into practice, it would be with The Snow Collectors. This book reads like art.

[Lyndsey Daniels]

Wow. Just wow. I can 💯 tell you that I haven’t read anything like this before. I have NO idea how to rate it in terms of ⭐️. It was such a fast read — about 48 hours for me. It was an interesting read — I know very little about the Northern Passage Expedition/ Franklin Expedition — so there was a lot of googling/looking things up along the read. Yet still a quick read.

It is impressive how much DETAIL and plot got put into this creepy hard to genre slightly future / climate change(d) hard to place little mystery but also scifi-ish tale.

I very much look forward to ASKING questions and unraveling this title at my upcoming book club. Hearing the discussion questions and learning more about this author!

And that ending? Not the ‘ah ha we got the bad guy’ I was expecting— but went in totally unexpected but likeable direction. All so much in 220 pages.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a weird and refreshing little book that doesn’t follow the normal rules of this kind of fiction. It starts off in a relatively familiar space; our protagonist has a very literary name (Henna) and is doing a very literary job (writing encyclopaedia entries for a publisher on water and ice) after her parents and twin sister Claire died in a very literary way (being lost at sea). The first chapter made me think that The Snow Collectors would be full of the kind of drifty, quasi-magical prose that you find in writers like Alice Hoffman. However, this book, and Hall’s writing, actually sits in a more interesting space. While there are sentences that stray into sentimentality – ‘his palm was dry and warm, speckled with grains of salt which rolled between our joined hands like secrets we hadn’t told yet’ – there are other, much more robust, passages that are more typical of the novel: ‘Attached to the gas station near the interstate was a Dunkin’ Donuts, and I sat at the counter and sipped coffee with skim milk… By the counter of the gas station was a display of souvenirs. Apples dangling from key chains and packets of pancake mix, resin moose and dead skyscrapers in globes of water… Everything smelled the chemical scent of strawberry air freshener. The clerk wished a nice day on everyone, as if it were a curse.’

The Snow Collectors is also weird because it doesn’t seem to be set in either our present or the future. There’s a fantastical air to the world that Hall has created – Claire used to be able to hold her breath for four days – but there’s also a SF hint to the near-future Alaskan setting, where bees are gone and the rest of the US never sees snow. It also shoots off in some unexpected directions. The death of Claire, and of Henna’s parents, barely impinges on the plot, except to give Henna a plausible reason to be so isolated. Instead, the book revolves around a dead girl found in the woods and an archive concerning the lost John Franklin Arctic expedition that is held in the town. In between Henna’s chapters, we get short but captivating glimpses of Jane Franklin, who kept up the search for her husband long after everyone else had given up hope. Ultimately, this felt a little incomplete to me, as if it hadn’t quite been imagined fully enough, but there’s enough promise here that I’d definitely be interested in reading whatever Hall writes next. 3.5 stars.

I received a free proof copy of this novel from the publisher for review.

[Ona Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! It has many attributes I love in fiction: spare style with a tight narrative. It is also a bit of a mystery with a historical saga built in, the Franklin Expedition to map the Northwest Passage. I read Mostly Dead Things awhile back, and I think this book is what MDT wanted to be. The prose evokes a place but is not overwritten. I'm so impressed with this book! Hall has a beautiful style.

[Ava · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was basically what you'd get if Virginia Woolf had written her take on an Agatha Christie style mystery. I kind of hated the protagonist, but the prose was so gorgeous that I was able to ignore her for the most part. Very beautiful and atmospheric, though I wish the epistolary narrative had been explored a bit deeper.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rembrandt is one of the best dogs in fiction. Twin Peaks meets The Franklin Expedition, told in exquisite, exact, and crystalline prose.

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having lost her parents and sister at sea, in order to deal with her grief, Henna moves to an isolated Arctic village to write. On a walk with her dog, she discovers the body of a woman in the snowy woods, clutching the fragment of a letter in her hand, relating to the ill-fated Franklin Expedition. She becomes fascinated by the story of the Captain's wife, Lady Jane.
I don't need much persuading to read anything about Arctic exploration, especially if it concerns the Franklin Expedition, though I must admit I had not expected much from this.
Much of it though, was a pleasant surprise. Hall creates a suitably claustrophobic atmosphere despite the wide open spaces of what I assume, is remote Alaska. Henna finds herself trapped in a small community of odd characters, hemmed in by the winter conditions.
Its not a book to embark upon though looking for historical accuracy. Franklin's background is hazily sketched; but I suppose this is fiction...
In reality he wasn’t at all popular with his crew, wholly unsuited to his role, his previous experience impressive, but hardly relevant, and grossly overweight. But his wife does seem to have been far more of a character, and that is what Hall focuses on; for example her remarkably determined efforts in beseeching Parliament to send boats to find the missing ships.
But the plotline Hall follows is flawed, and predictable. Of much more interest is her occasional foray into Henna's sanity, and the novel's sporadic weird parts.
But being plot-driven, there has to be a climax, and its a pretty awful one, sadly quite predictable. Hall seems intent on neatly tidying the various threads, when there was an opportunity here to write a much stranger and open-ended story.

[Mani · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Snow Collectors follows Henna who lost her twin and both of her parents who mysteriously disappeared at sea. After years of searching for her parents and twin Henna and her dog Rembrandt moves to a remote town where it snows almost all year round and pretty much lives a solitary life. That is until she discovers a died body while walking through the woods.

This book was a pretty quick read for me, the main reason for this was probably the fact the chapters were so much shorter than I was expecting. Even though a quick read I must admit I did struggle with it at the beginning while I got used to the flow of the storytelling.

Through the chapters the story hops back and forward between Henna’s memories of childhood and the moment of when the mystery of finding the body starts. I say in the moment as I couldn’t quite work out if it was set in the present or future.

Now, when it comes to the characters I’m still not quite sure how I feel about them. I didn’t really feel or care for them. But, saying that I was strangely drawn to Henna’s character. She was odd yet interesting, but I can’t find the words to describes her in full.

Tina May Hall is new author to me and although I had a few minor issues with this book overall it was a good strong compelling read and I would happily try more books from this author in the future.

I would like to thank Catherine Sinow at Dzanc Books for getting in touch and sending me the eBook in return for an honest and unbiased review.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a gothic mystery in a creepy old house, but not as much as I love weather-related magical realism and winter bleakness. The atmosphere and lovely silences are very compelling. The modern mystery storyline is a bit off, it feels like an overlay to just get the people in place, but I don't mind as I enjoyed the rest so very much.

[Jem Shelley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Henna is an extremely flat character with little to no personality and the plot twist is extremely predictable. I knew from the beginning who the killer was without having to think too hard and put the clues together. More often than not I found myself thinking "When are we gonna find out it's them" the romance in the book feels jaded and weird as if it's written by a robot. If Hall did this on purpose I don't think it was a good choice, if it wasn't then it's just bad storytelling. Despite being written in 2020 the book felt dated in a poor attempt to bring quirky attempts to a personality, for example, Henna uses a typewriter to mail encyclopedia entries to her publisher. Which is so pretentious I had to roll my eyes each time it's mentioned. Since it is a Gothic novel I was hoping for a bit more existentialism and character development from Henna but she never does anything truly moving or life-altering. There is barely any talk about the grief of losing her entire family to the sea, which I thought would play a bigger plot point than it actually did. I found myself asking 'What is the point of killing the family then?' a lot.

All the clues to the mystery were magically placed in front of her or given to her. More often than not I found my favorite character was the dog.

[Jessica Burchett · Rating 5 out of 5]

My rating is biased.

Having grown up in Maine, where the winters extended from mid-Autumn to nearly-summer, and having spent those winters reading Victoria Holt and other gothic mysteries, this book was perfect. I loved it.

Henna lost her twin sister, Claire, and their parents, to the sea. Their bodies never recovered. She moved to the northeast coast where she hermits herself and writes encyclopedia entries, sometimes venturing to the library.

When a woman ends up dead on her property, she is thrust into a gothic mystery right out of the books she has read.

But there is more to this mystery than just the dead woman. Spanning centuries, we learn about a local family who has been collecting snow for generations and labeling them with snippets of poetry or suggestions of scents. At the center, a woman who, having lost her husband to the Arctic, was hellbent on proving that he did not resort to cannibalism after he and his crew got stuck.

There's a mustachioed librarian. A winding staircase to a tower in the library. A beekeeper who doesn't speak but sounds like silver bells and writes in silver ink. A ravine that possibly eats cars of missing people.

I must find more by this author.

[BrocheAroe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well-written, gothic, with elements of magical realism. But it felt like a good third draft that needed a little bit more editing and a few stronger connections between plot points to actually hold it up.

[WhatShouldIRead]

Nope. The reading was too disjointed for me.

[_Readwithroses · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars
*My thanks to Dzanc Books for the copy of the Snow Collectors.

The Snow Collectors is an enthralling whimsical mystery that sweeps you through a landscape of grief and hidden histories. I truly had a blast with this book, though it did drag in places.
The magic of this book's prose stems from the breathtaking descriptions.
"Sailors, cartographers and escaped slaves all held onto her tail because she never dipped below the horizon, though she came close enough in autumn to stain the trees with her blood." Pg. 42

This is just one example of many from this book, though some readers may find it distracting for that very reason. The book jumps between the 1800's and present day, to intertwine two narratives of loss and regret into a single thread that unravels a centuries old secret.
This book would have gotten five stars if not for some places where it dragged on a bit too much and the mystery being pretty obvious.
Still, this book is amazing despite that fact and I'd recommend anyone who loves unique settings and strange atmospheric writing to pick this up.

[Beck · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5⭐️

This novel starts with a lot of promise given its isolated winter setting, recent murder, parallels to a lost Arctic expedition, and hints of magical realism.

Partway through the book, though, we get a sci-fi element. Then a gothic mansion. Then actual magic. Then heavy-handed commentary on climate change and extinction. Then a potentially dangerous love interest. All these seemingly random elements pull the story in too many directions, and its literary cohesiveness collapses.

The book is only 250 pages - the author should have stuck with a couple consistent themes rather than trying to tackle ALL THE THEMES at great detriment to the plot.

Having said that, the prose is excellent and I would read more from this author, though preferably after some aggressive storyline editing.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I thoroughly enjoy every word, written in this book.
A mystery full of eerie suspense, tragedy, and trying to find calm waters, amidst a stormy sea. With an interwoven call to our possible demise, and the loss of our way of life, due to an ever increasing environmental collapse. This book gripped me on the very first sentence, and didn’t let go, until the very last word. Please go out, and search the open seas for your copy, and give yourself a true reading treat. 🌊

[hope]

so extremely not for me 🫶

[Emma Darcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

A... strange book. I really liked parts of it, but was really frustrated with Henna's decision making. Like, the author couldn't figure out how to make Henna do the things she does despite how obvious it was that the bad guys were who they were (it couldn't have been anyone else when the cast was so small), so she just had to hope the reader would just go with it?

[Emrys Donaldson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, this book was wonderful. One of those books that I put down and was very puzzled why it isn’t incredibly famous. It’s a 21st-century gothic romance featuring a water witch who uncovers complex secrets through archival research! With an ancient crusty dog companion named Rembrandt! Think New England in winter. Think hive-keeping hermits. Think the grip of a hand around your neck and not being sure if what comes next is a kiss or a kill.

[Simón · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lyrical writing, short passages (especially in the first third of the book) and dreamy qualities drew me into this semi-historical novel. I liked the forced metaphors that all pointed to violence, cold, full of sharp talons and glaciers. I liked the set-up that a bereft young woman stuck in grief would escape to a crummy small town to give up on life.

However, the more and more this book conformed to mystery/romance conventions, the less I liked it. I was hoping that the supernatural elements about her relationship with her twin, or the landscape itself, wouldn't quite add up to anything, more like The Turn of the Screw. The tone, lyricism, and plot didn't match for me. I also really dislike murder mysteries and straight romances and expected this to be less mainstream due to it being on a small press. The protagonist isn't very active in her hunt for clues and it just seems like a bunch of really romantically horrible things happen to her. The deus ex machina in the form of a hunky old-fashioned tradesman was too much for me to stomach. I predicted something with dousing but wanted it be more about the protagonist's power rather than some "awakened" lust.

[Debbie Urbanski · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Snow Collectors lies at the wild boundaries of the mystery, the "dark old house" story, the historical, the lyric, and the gothic. I love to read books that lie at the boundaries of anything so I really enjoyed this book.

I took The Snow Collectors with to read on a summer trip and found the adventure, humor, and the precise and surprising writing to be pure pleasure. I found myself at times needing to flip ahead to figure out WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT!!!--a need I don't often experience with literary books. At the same time, I highlighted many many sentences and paragraphs with such wonderful language. (A small example: "I bought a croissant, hot as an animal's heart, and ate it before I even got my change." Or, "Nine planes flew overhead in the dark sky, packed with skin and bones. Nine whales spun in the thick sea. Nine semi-trucks slept on the highway to the west. Nine houses flowed in a gold line down the hill. Nine turtle shells were buried in Mariel's yard. Nine conchs served as their gravestones. Nine wishes buzzed round my head.") What a treat, to get to experience such language in a mystery...

Plus the narrator makes for a lovely companion: courageous, haunted, imperfect, and possessing a really cool super-power related to water. I will hope for sequels.

Perhaps certain readers looking for a traditional straight-forward mystery might be frustrated with the addition of some non-traditional elements in this book. But for those readers open to a looser and more playful experience, willing to follow the book where it takes them--I think they'll find much to enjoy and love.

[gwendalyn _books_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gwendalyn G Anderson
Willow18@live.com
@gwendalyn_books_


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This book was received from the Author, and Publisher, in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

THE SNOW COLLECTORS
By Tina May Hall

A gripping novel of snowy dreamlike, A year and seven months after the loss of her parents and twin sister at sea, Henna, a freelance encyclopedia writer who specializes in entries having to do with water, moves to an unnamed village where her constant companions are the oppressive snow and her sister's basset hound.

Lush imagery, with a stellar gothic mystery that sucks into its atmospheric storyline.
The Snow Collectors, engages the reader with a creative twisty, darkish ghost of a Victorian exploration against the eerie beauty of a world on the fringes of environmental collapse. An eerie labyrinth of poetic prose, that I found impossible to put down. Tina May Hall’s exquisite writing, of a cold case murder, along with a ghosts of a nineteenth-century expedition, interwoven with environmental collapse, is completely original. This is one of those books that stays with you long after you finish reading it.