First published 2021
A blizzard locks down Silver Ridge, Colorado, and Nora Martinez is not going home. The librarian stays put as the storm deepens, and so do the people who have drifted into her building. There is Marlene, an elderly woman who has written off most of humanity. There is Jasmine, a teenager in trouble. There is Lewis, a homeless man running low on hope and time. And there is Vlado, the security guard who reads every book he can find and watches Nora from a careful distance. Nora knows something about hard luck. She lost her parents young and then watched her brother disappear into addiction. She still believes he is out there somewhere. That belief is the engine that keeps her going and the wound that will not close. Trapped together through the long night, these five people trade stories and silences. Each one carries something they have not told anyone. By morning, Nora will have to look at her brother's disappearance from a direction she has never tried before. What feels like being stranded turns out to be something else entirely.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, contemplative, emotionally-resonant, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-driven-narrative, forced-proximity, found-family, secrets-revealed
Setting: Silver Ridge, Colorado, Library
Period: Contemporary
299 pages · Paperback · Lake Union Publishing
Content warnings: addiction, death, mental-illness