The Moonflower Route (McRoy & Blackburn, 2017): When a river in rural Alaska shifts its course, a skeleton emerges from newly exposed glacier silt. For East Coast one-legged cancer survivor Agnes Murdock, the discovery means that another woman’s body lay in her aunt’s grave; for moody newspaper editor Craig Thomas, the ensuing investigation takes him back to his haunted past in the Alaska village of his youth and the disappearance of a young woman he had loved and betrayed. Available from McRoy & Blackburn at alaskafiction.com and amazon.com.
Wild Rivers, Wild Rose (University of Alaska Press, Alaska Literary Series, 2020): In 1941, Anna Harker is attacked by an ax-wielding assailant in the gold-bearing ridges bordering the Alaska Range. It is this moment of savagery that propels the people of Wild Rivers, Wild Rose. Anna’s lover, Wade Daniels, learns of the deaths of Anna’s husband and their worker, and he rushes to the hills to look for Anna and hunt the murderer. As she lies dying on the tundra, Anna relives the major events of her Alaska life while searching her memories for what could have led to the violence. Decades later, an outsider named Billie Sutherland steps into a community still haunted by the murders. Plagued by her own ghosts, Billie delves into the past, opening old wounds. In this gripping novel by Sarah Birdsall, lives are laid bare and secrets ring out in the resonant Alaska Range foothills. Available at amazon.com, alaska.edu/uapress/ powells.com, barnesandnoble.com or orders@press.uchicago.edu
The Red Mitten (McRoy & Blackburn, 2006): An award winning novel of loss and redemption set in Western Alaska. From the publisher: “Memories have a way of coming back, drowning the present with the ghosts of the past. Out of Alaska’s little-known lake country comes this darkly elegant tale that is part romance, part mystery, even part ghost story: the red mitten leaves its unique mark on many people. Chief among them is Katie Gibson, a dream-haunted young woman scarred within and without by the events that led to her self-exile from her childhood home in western Alaska. Returning now as an adult to the harshly beautiful shores of Lake Ilmenof, she must confront the memories–and the reality–of the two brothers who were her friends and lovers, the father who seemed to turn away from her and her mother just when he was most needed, the friends who peopled her life at the lake, and the tragedy that brought that life to a halt. It is only by uncovering the truths underlying that tragedy that Katie can once again begin to live fully, and to move toward love.” Available from McRoy & Blackburn at alaskafiction.com and at amazon.com.
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