The Secret of Snow

As comforting and familiar as a favorite sweater, Viola Shipman’s first holiday novel is a promise of heartfelt family traditions, humorously real experience, and the enduring power of love and friendship.

Encapsulating the beauty of winter and the charm of the holidays on every page, The Secret of Snow will make readers laugh and cry as they’re immersed into a world of sisterhood, grief, and starting over in a very snowy town.

When Sonny Dunes, a Southern California meteorologist who knows only sunshine and 72-degree days, has an on-air meltdown after she learns she’s being replaced by an AI meteorologist (which the youthful station manager reasons will never age, gain weight or renegotiate its contract.), the only station willing to give a 50-year-old another shot is one in a famously nontropical place–her northern Michigan hometown.

Unearthing her carefully laid California roots, Sonny returns home and re-aclimates to the painfully long, dark winters dominated by a Michigan phenomenon known as lake-effect snow. But beyond the complete physical shock to her system, she’s also forced to confront her past: her new boss is a former journalism classmate and mortal frenemy and, more keenly, the death of a younger sister who loved the snow and the mother who caused Sonny to leave.

To distract herself from the unwelcome memories, Sonny decides to throw herself headfirst into all things winter to woo viewers and reclaim her success: sledding, ice-fishing, skiing, and winter festivals, culminating with the town’s famed Winter Ice Sculpture Contest, all run by a widowed father and Chamber director whose honesty and genuine love of Michigan, winter–and Sonny–just might thaw her heart and restart her life in a way she never could have predicted.