Kathleen works in a small store at the edge of a state park in Pennsylvania's Blue Ridge Mountains. She was widowed at 22 by a car wreck that left her badly injured, but she insists that she does not have a limp. She wants only to be left alone. But then a stranger appears out of the harsh snow of mountain winter, wearing dress shoes and a disarming expression; his native country is Uzbekistan, and he gives no good reason why he should be lurking out-of-season at the hostel next to Kathleen's store. Despite her instincts, she indulges him with conversation and, eventually, a cautious friendship.
Sarah St. Vincent's first novel, Ways to Hide in Winter, tells the story of these two people, each skittish in their own way, as they avert their eyes from the past. Kathleen keeps her world small: she cares for her grandmother, occasionally visits with an old school friend, warily guards a bad habit or two. The stranger--who has a name, but it's rarely used; Kathleen calls him simply "the stranger"--speaks haltingly of a family and career back home, but there is clearly more that he's not telling.
This is a story of secrets. The stranger confesses to a crime committed back home, but this confession may not be what it seems. As the action of this gripping novel unfolds, then, the mystery of two personal histories races against the present: What will be revealed, and will it be in time to save the protagonists?
Ways to Hide in Winter is an impressive, compelling first novel, with characters that will be missed after its conclusion. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia