Light on Snow

From Publishers Weekly An after-school stroll leads to a life-altering event for widower Robert Dillon and his 12-year-old daughter, Nicky, in this delicate new novel by acclaimed author Shreve (_All He Ever Wanted_,etc.). In the woods surrounding their secluded home in Shepherd, N.H., Robert and Nicky make a startling discovery—a baby abandoned and left to die in the snow. The infant survives, but the incident leaves its mark. Still recovering from the painful loss of her mother and infant sister two years earlier, and readjusting to the shock of a sudden move from suburban Westchester to rural Shepherd, Nicky struggles to reconcile her innocent notions of adult integrity with the bleak reality of their discovery. The tenuous sense of normalcy Robert manages to sustain is broken with the appearance of Charlotte, the baby's young mother, on his doorstep. Retold 18 years later by an adult Nicky but written in the present tense, the story shifts brilliantly between childlike visions of a simple world and the growing realization of its cruel ambiguities. Aside from a few saccharine moments and a rather pat ending, Shreve does a skilled job of portraying grief, conflict and anger while leaving room for hope, redemption and renewal. Her characters are sympathetic without being pitiable, and her prose remains deceptively simple and eloquent throughout. Copyright В© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Critics agree that Light on Snow is not ShreveвЂTMs best work. One called it simplistic, while another complained that the charactersвЂTM actions were not believable. Some questioned ShreveвЂTMs decision to tell the story from the point of view of an adult Nicky, whose removal from the events deprives the narrative of immediacy. Several readers did find NickyвЂTMs story affecting, and Shreve devotees may enjoy this book as a lesser effort by a favorite author. Those seeking an introduction to her work, however, might look for a different place start—_The PilotвЂTMs Wife_, perhaps. Copyright В© 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. Remembering the December afternoon twenty years earlier when her father and she found an abandoned infant in the snow, Nicky recalls her father's efforts to escape society after a tragedy and a young woman's struggles to live with her choices When a father and his daughter find an abandoned infant in the snow, the event forever alters the 11-year-old's understanding of the world. Walking through snow near their home twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon and her father discover an abandoned infant