238 pages

On the day of her father's funeral, twenty-eight-year-old Clarissa Iver­ton discovers that he wasn't her biological father after all. Her mother disappeared fourteen years earlier, and her fiancé has just revealed a life-changing secret to her. Alone and adrift, Clarissa travels to mystical Lapland, where she believes she'll meet her real father. There, at a hotel made of ice, Clarissa is confronted with the truth about her mother's his­tory, and must make a decision about how—and where—to live the rest of her life.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Believer co-editor Vida again explores violence, its aftermath and the curative powers of travel in her bleak second novel. (Her debut, 2003's And Now You Can Go, sent a young woman to the Philippines after a traumatic event.) But this time readers are nearly a hundred pages in before the long-ago physical violence is revealed. Clarissa, home after her father's funeral, finds herself deeply alone. Her developmentally disabled brother has never spoken, and her mother walked out on them 14 years before. Digging through family papers, she finds her birth certificate, which lists a stranger as her father. The hunt for him—and the resumption of a search for her mother—lead Clarissa to far northern Europe, where the days are short, the reindeer are plentiful and her mother had once felt "connected." Clarissa's travels in her mother's steps—seeking that connection, stumbling, finding it and finally severing it—are bleak. Vida's fan base will welcome this novel, and the twin questions of what Clarissa's amateur sleuthing will turn up and how each discovery will affect her might draw a few new readers through this slim, austere work. (Jan.)
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Somehow I could not put myself in the place of Clarissa. The novel was not bad but somehow I was waiting more. The milieu was interesting and I liked that a lot.

Meet-up in Kouvola.

from the meet-up, thanks, Annelis

Kerava-miittiin

Picked this up from the Kulmis meet-up in Kerava because the plot takes you to Finland.

Whaaaat? "The desk in my Helsinki hotel room had a thin phone book in its top drawer. Finland was so small that every listing fit into the same volume, the numbers organized by town." I know 5,5 million people seems a little, but they do not fit in one thin phone book... What would Trump say, oh yes, False Media...
The leading lady said that she didn't have a passport, and the fact is that all Americans having a passport would fit into a thin book - only two per cent of them have one (no pun intended)! That partly explains their ignorance about the rest of the world.

However, she describes a Finnish jerk very accurately.

I began this year's glögi-season (mulled wine) last weekend, when it was very cold. And dark. And miserable. Pitch dark by five. A lovely bottle from a visit to the Malmgård mansion's farmyard shop last summer.

Huskies are sled dogs, not for hunting elk. I doubt there are elks to hunt in Lapland. If huskies are let loose, they would most probably go after reindeer. They do have a very strong hunting instinct, but they hunt for themselves and they do not bark like an elkhound should.
About telephones in the hallway, that is actually what many people used to have before cell phones. I remember wondering why, because a hallway is not a very nice place to talk on a phone. Growing up we had eight phones. Two numbers, a public one (which was listed in the first of those fat two-volumed Helsinki-Espoo-Vantaa phone books) and a private one, which had a secret number, only given to relatives and close friends and which could be left on for the night. We had two flats next to each other and a telephone centre which enabled us to call from one flat to the other without charge (those phones were all under the same number). We also switched the public line to ring in the less-occupied flat during night time. Dad used to deal with a lot night-owls who didn't think twice about calling in wee small hours. With the phone switch we were all able to sleep.

Finished. If it had not happened partly in Finland, I would not have chosen the book or read it through. Not a very believable plot.
Will travel to London Town with me next.

Picked up because it looked intriguing!

I really enjoyed this. Glad I picked it up.

My Special Sunset Mission book for the Four Directions themed release is actually going to a local Bookcrosser who wants to read it. It will find its way to a Little Free Library eventually!

ETA I have an Available book with West in the title so that will be wild-released for the SSM instead

Passed on by my friend Poodlesister, but it wasn't for me. Hoping someone else enjoys it.

Placed on Staff Room table, Whitefield Schools and Centre (Margaret Brearley), Hale End Rd, E17 ... if not taken it will eventually be moved to Hale End Rd Little Free Library just opposite the school.