Recommendations based on "Chill factor"

In this magical debut, a couple's lives are changed forever by the arrival of a little girl, wild and secretive, on their snowy doorstep.Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart -- he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone -- but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “When it comes to creating character, evoking place, and writing crackling and convincing dialogue, Sara Paretsky has no peer—and Hard Time proves it once again.”—Chicago Tribune“Terrific . . . expertly plotted . . . This book [is] her best.”—The New York Times Book ReviewIn an instant, the lives of two women collided. One was behind the wheel of a Trans Am she liked to drive too fast. The other was lying in the road, dying an agonizing death. When Chicago private eye V.I. Warshawski got out of her car to look at the woman she almost hit, she began a long, harrowing descent into a world of shadowy secrets and tangled lives—and into the darkest heart of her city.In Hard Time, which heralds the triumphant return of the much-loved heroine V.I. Warshawski, Sara Paretsky revisits the gritty urban landscape she illuminates with brilliant compassion and vivid color. For as V.I. unravels the mystery of a battered and discarded woman, she moves through circles of the rich and the troubled, into the bitter home of a powerful Chicago family, into the pampered world of a TV star, and behind the razor wire of a women’s prison. What V.I. finds is a web of conspiracy—and explosive secrets hidden in the darkest places of all. . . .”You’ll feel handcuffed to this book until you’ve finished—probably at 3 a.m.”—The Denver Post

New York Times Bestseller * National Book Award Nominee * Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Juvenile MysteryIt’s wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler’s inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers’ adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing.But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again...Soon Milo’s home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects go missing and tempers flare, Milo and Meddy, the cook’s daughter, must decipher clues and untangle the web of deepening mysteries to discover the truth about Greenglass House—and themselves.

Grieving over the murder of his sister twenty years earlier and raising his six-year-old daughter alone after losing his wife to cancer, county prosecutor Paul Copeland is inadvertently tied to a murder investigation that he believes may be related to his sister's case, a discovery that threatens to reveal long-buried family secrets. 400,000 first printing.

Forensic psychologist Michael Stone, the unforgettable heroine of Salter's Shiny Water and Fault Lines, becomes embroiled in an explosive sexual harassment case involving an anesthesiologist. In addition, Michael advises a young victim of sexual abuse and ends up facing a lawsuit and a deadly predator.

China's herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she's still reeling from her father's death, and not even remotely interested in her half-brother Miles's investigation into that event. China's husband, on the other hand, has no such qualms. And when fate forces her to get involved as well, China realizes it's time to bring the past to light-or else it will haunt her the rest of her life. But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have been keeping as many secrets as he seemed determined to uncover. How deep do the layers of secrecy go? And who has a stake in concealing the truth after sixteen years?

In Breakup, Kate Shugak's loyalties - to the land, her heritage, her home - are put to the test when a series of mishaps lead to murder. April in Alaska is typically a period of rebirth and renewal, and after the long winter Kate has nothing more strenuous on her agenda than paying her taxes. But mayhem abounds as the meltoff flows; this year's thaw is accompanied by rampaging bears, family feuds, and a plane crash quite literally in Kate's own backyard. What begins as a series of headaches escalates into possible murder when a dead body is found near her homestead. Initially unwilling to involve herself in the investigation, preferring instead to write off each odd occurrence as a breakup-related peculiarity, Kate is drawn irresistibly to seek the truth. Compelled by her friends to act as problem solver and guided by the spirit of her Aleut grandmother, she finds herself slowly taking on the role of clan leader, a post she is bound to by honor and blood. As breakup becomes increasingly fraught with danger and destruction, Kate must decide whether she can cross the line from passive observer to instrument of change, assuming the role of elder as the mantle of responsibility is passed.

In 1923, Arapahos and Shoshones from the Wind River Reservation were recruited to appear as extras in The Covered Wagon, a silent film noted for being Hollywood's first Western to cast real Indians in an effort at authenticity. Charlie Wallowingbull never returned home, leaving people to believe he abandoned his new wife and unborn son.Kiki Wallowingbull, Charlie's great-grandson recently released from prison on a drug conviction, went to Hollywood determined to uncover the truth behind his great-grandfather's disappearance. His family raised him with the belief that only death would have prevented Charlie from coming back to them.But then Kiki himself becomes the victim of murder - his frozen body discovered on the reservation by Father John, and his supposed killer confessing to Vicky that it was self-defense. Together, they must find the connection between two mysteries separated by nearly a century.

"If you’re looking for a real declaration of independence, and a deeper social experiment, try a woman living alone in the Adirondacks for decades." —Megan Mayhew Bergman, Guardian Anne LaBastille found peace and solitude in the log cabin she built for herself at Black Bear Lake. But as the years passed, the outside world intruded in various ways: curious fans, after reading her best-selling book Woodswoman, tracked her down; land developers arrived; there was air and noise pollution and the damages of acid rain. Woodswoman II is the story of the author's decision to retreat farther, a half-mile behind her main cabin, and build a tiny cabin—fashioned after the one in Thoreau's Walden—in which she could write and contemplate. In this book (originally published under the title Beyond Black Bear Lake) she writes movingly of her life with two German shepherds as companions, of a sustaining relationship with a man as independent as herself, and her renewed bond with nature.

Just when nine-year-old Caroline is feeling settled in her new house in Concord, Wisconsin, a cholera epidemic sweeps the state and it is up to Caroline to pull her family together during this hard time. Simultaneous.