St. Martin’s Press announces that Whiter Than Snow, Sandra’s ninth novel, is scheduled for a mid-April publication date. The novel is set in Colorado in the 1920s, in Swandyke, which is on the Swan River, not far from Middle Swan, the setting of Prayers for Sale.

St. Martin’s describes the story as follows:
"Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado’s Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o’clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive. Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There’s Lucy and Dolly Patch—two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke’s only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There’s Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belie her genteel façade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there’s Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child’s parentage from all the world.

"Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it’s through each character's defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent’s purpose for living. In the end, it’s a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family."

The title Whiter Than Snow comes from Psalm 51, Verse 7: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

Researching Whiter Than Snow

Time and place are like characters in my novels, and readers frequently ask how I research. It’s somewhat unorthodox. First, I read everything I can about the subject I’m going to write about. Then I go shopping—in antiques malls and at antiques shows—to learn about the everyday trappings of my time period. Whiter Than Snow had a different research element. When my grandson, Forrest, then six and a first-grader, heard I was writing a book about a snowslide, he sent me the above note. (I added the periods.)

That was pretty much all I needed to know. —SD

Recorded Books has just released The Chili Queen and Alice’s Tulips as audio books, and will release The Persian Pickle Club and New Mercies in January. Audio books of Buster Midnight’s Café and The Diary of Mattie Spenser will be issued in June. The titles, which are narrated by professional actors, will be available in libraries, via direct-to-consumer rental and download programs, and in other Netflix-type audio rental programs across the country. In addition, Recorded Books will issue an audio book of Whiter Than Snow in April, coinciding with the publication of the hardback

A year ago, Sandra was one of 12 of Colorado’s finest fiction writers who were commissioned to write stories in celebration of the 150th anniversary of both Denver and the Rocky Mountain News. Each author picked a decade, from 1860 to the present, and wrote a story that encompassed Denver’s iconic Larimer Street. Sandra, who was also Managing Editor of the project, chose the 1940s with her story "Lennie’s Tavern." Denver, of course, made it to 150, but the Rocky folded just weeks short of its birthday. Now, in honor of both the city and the paper, Fulcrum Publishing is issuing the eclectic collection of short stories in a hardback book. Entitled A Dozen on Denver, the book, which sells for $22, also includes introductions by John Temple, former Rocky editor, and Patti Thorn, the paper’s former book editor.

The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf. By Stephanie Barron. Bantam Books.

I’m a big fan of Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austin mystery series. (She just turned in the manuscript for another one, by the way.) So I love the two novels she has written that are set in England’s past. The first was A Flaw in the Blood, which poses the possibility that Prince Albert was murdered.

Now, in The White Garden, Barron suggests that Virginia Woolf really didn’t commit suicide on the day accepted by most literary historians but instead went to her friend Vita Sackville-West and stayed with her for several days before doing herself in. Or was she murdered? Of course, you know this really didn’t happen, but by the end of the book, you’ll think Barron might be on to something.

She has a wonderful sense of place. The White Garden is skillfully interwoven with period language and details about England, Woolf, and the extraordinary white garden at Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst Castle. And Barron suggests that Woolf might have come up with the idea for the garden.

Spoon. By Robert Greer. Fulcrum

Barron isn’t the only mystery-series writer who’s taking a breather. Robert Greer, a Denver pathologist, is best known for his CJ Floyd mysteries about a bail bondsman in Denver. Spoon is Greer’s stand-alone novel about a half-black, half-Indian cowboy who goes to work for a Wyoming rancher under siege from rich guys who want his land. The story is told from the standpoint of the rancher’s son. Sound familiar? Greer admits it’s his Shane, although Spoon is set in recent times, the rancher’s son is an adult toying with whether to stay at home or go to college, and the bad guys are land developers. Greer is a heck of a writer—certainly a far better writer than I am a pathologist—and Spoon is a good, solid story.