"Winter" Novels of 2018

Tomorrow is the first day of winter!  Here are ten novels from 2018 with "Winter" in the title to get you in the moon for the new season. 

Dark Winter by A. J. Tata - By the time anyone realizes what's happening, it is too late. A dark network of hackers has infiltrated the computers of the U.S. military, unleashing chaos across the globe. U.S. missiles strike the wrong targets. Defense systems fail. Power grids shut down. Within hours, America's enemies move in. Russian tanks plow through northern Europe. Iranian troops invade Iraq. North Korean destroys Seoul and fires missiles at Japan. Phase 1 of ComWar is complete. Enter Jake Mahegan and his team of highly trained operatives. Their mission is to locate the nerve center of ComWar--aka Computer Optimized Warfare--and to shut down the operation through any means necessary. Book 5 of 6 in the Jake Mahegan series 

Depth of Winter by Craig Johnson - Welcome to Walt Longmire's worst nightmare. In Craig Johnson's latest mystery, Depth of Winter, an international hit man and the head of one of the most vicious drug cartels in Mexico has kidnapped Walt's beloved daughter, Cady, to auction her off to his worst enemies, of which there are many. The American government is of limited help and the Mexican one even less. Walt heads into the one-hundred-and-ten degree heat of the Northern Mexican desert alone, one man against an army. Book 14 of 15 in the Walt Longmire Mysteries

When Winter Comes by V. A. Shannon - A survivor of the Donner Party excursion recounts her life as a teenager escaping an abusive family, taking the journey with the Donner family and enduring a tragic winter in the Sierras." -- (Source of summary not specified)
1859: Mrs. Jacob Klein has a husband, children, and a warm and comfortable home in California. No one knows how she came to be out West thirteen years ago. It was a tale of tragedy, mishaps, and unthinkable choices-- yet also sacrifice, courage, and a powerful, unexpected love. 1846: On the outskirts of Cincinnati, wagons gather by the hundreds, readying to head west to California. Among the throng is a fifteen-year-old girl eager to escape her abusive family, hired as helpmate to a married couple with a young daughter. They are optimistic in the face of the journey's hazards and delays-- until instead of following the wagon train's established route, the Donner Party takes a shortcut over the Sierras.

Winter by Ali Smith - Winter. Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. And now Art's mother is seeing things. Come to think of it, Art's seeing things himself.
 When four people, strangers and family, converge on a fifteen-bedroom house in Cornwall for Christmas, will there be enough room for everyone?
 Winter. It makes things visible. Ali Smith's shapeshifting Winter casts a warm, wise, merry and uncompromising eye over a post-truth era in a story rooted in history and memory and with a taproot deep in the evergreens, art and love.  Book 2 of 4 in the Seasonal Quartet series 

Winter Cottage by Mary Ellen Taylor - Still grieving the loss of her wandering, free-spirited mother, Lucy Kincaid leaves Nashville for the faded town of Cape Hudson, Virginia. She goes to see the house she's inherited--one she never knew existed, bequeathed to her by a woman she's never even met. At the heart of this mystery is the hope that maybe--just maybe--this "Winter Cottage" will answer the endless questions about her mother's past...including the identity of her birth father. Rather than the quaint Virginian bungalow Lucy expected, Winter Cottage is a grand old estate of many shadows--big enough to hold a century of secrets, passions, and betrayals. It also comes with a handsome and enigmatic stranger, a man next in line to claim Lucy's inheritance. Now, as Lucy sifts through the past, uncovering the legacy of secrets that Winter Cottage holds, she'll come to discover as much about her family history as she does about herself. In searching, she could finally find the one thing she's never really had: a home.

Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand - Irene Steele's idyllic life-house, husband, family-is shattered when she is woken up by a late-night phone call. Her beloved husband has been found dead, but before Irene can process this tragic news, she must confront the perplexing details of her husband's death. He was found on St. John island, a tropical paradise far removed from their suburban life. Leaving the cold winter behind, Irene flies down to the beautiful Caribbean beaches of St. John only to make another shocking discovery: her husband had a secret second family. As Irene investigates the mysterious circumstances of her husband's death, she is plunged into a web of intrigue and deceit belied by the pristine white sand beaches of St. John's. Book 1 of 2 in the Paradise series 

Winter Loon by Susan Bernhard - Abandoned by his father after his mother drowns in a frozen Minnesota lake, fifteen-year-old Wes Ballot is stranded with coldhearted grandparents and holed up in his mother's old bedroom, surrounded by her remnants and memories. As the wait for his father stretches unforgivably into months, a local girl, whose own mother died a brutal death, captures his heart and imagination, giving Wes fresh air to breathe in the suffocating small town.
When buried truths come to light in the spring thaw, wounds are exposed and violence erupts, forcing Wes to embark on a search for his missing father, the truth about his mother, and a future he must claim for himself--a quest that begins back at that frozen lake.

Winter Sisters by Robin Oliveira - New York, 1879: After an epic snow storm ravages the city of Albany, Dr. Mary Sutter, a former civil war surgeon, begins a search for two little girls, the daughters of close friends killed by the storm who have vanished without a trace. Mary's mother and niece Elizabeth, who has been studying violin in Paris, return to Albany upon learning of the girls' disappearance - but Elizabeth has another reason for wanting to come home, one she is not willing to reveal. Despite resistance from the community, who believe the girls to be dead, the family persists in their efforts to find the two sisters. When what happened to them is revealed, the uproar that ensues tears apart families, reputations, and even the social fabric of the city, exposing dark secrets about some of the most powerful of its citizens, and putting fragile loves and lives at great risk.

The Winter Solider by Daniel Mason - Vienna, 1914. Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War I explodes across Europe. Enraptured by romantic tales of battlefield surgery, he enlists, expecting a position at a well-organized field hospital. But when he arrives, at a commandeered church tucked away high in a remote valley of the Carpathian Mountains, he finds a freezing outpost ravaged by typhus. The other doctors have fled, and only a single, mysterious nurse named Sister Margarete remains. But Lucius has never lifted a surgeon's scalpel. And as the war rages across the winter landscape, he finds himself falling in love with the woman from whom he must learn a brutal, makeshift medicine. Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue, until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the lives of doctor, patient, and nurse forever. 

Winterlong by Mason Cross - It's been five years since Carter Blake parted ways with top-secret government operation Winterlong. They brokered a deal at the time: he'd keep quiet about what they were doing, and in return he'd be left alone.But news that one of Blake's old allies, a man who agreed the same deal, is dead means only one thing: something has changed and Winterlong is coming for him. Emma Faraday, newly appointed head of the secret unit, is determined to tie up loose ends. And Blake is a very loose end. He's been evading them for years, but finally they've picked up his trace. Blake may be the best there is at tracking down people who don't want to be found, but Winterlong taught him everything he knows. If there's anyone who can find himand kill himit's them. It's time for Carter Blake to up his game. Book 3 of 5 in the Carter Blake series 

Snowstorm Novels

We ended up with more rain than snow for where I am today. I was kind of looking forward to a good snow storm, oh well.  Here are ten novels that feature a snowstorm.

 The Blizzard by Vladimir Sorokin - Garin, a district doctor, is desperately trying to reach the village of Dolgoye, where a mysterious epidemic is turning people into zombies. He carries with him a vaccine that will prevent the spread of this terrible disease but is stymied in his travels by an all-consuming snowstorm, an impenetrable blizzard that turns a drive that should last only a few hours into a voyage of days and, finally, a journey into eternity.

Chill Factor by Sandra Brown - Cleary, North Carolina, is a sleepy mountain town -- the kind of place where criminal activity is usually limited to parking violations. Not so, lately. Four women have disappeared from Cleary over the past two years. And there's always a blue ribbon left near the spot where each of the women was last seen. There are no bodies, no other clues, and no suspicion as to who their abductor might be. And now, another woman has disappeared without a trace.It is to this backdrop that Lilly Martin returns to close the sale of her mountain cabin, marking the end of her turbulent eight-year marriage to Dutch Burton, Cleary's chief of police. Dutch's reluctance to let her go isn't Lilly's only obstacle. As she's trying to outrun a snowstorm, her car skids on the icy road and strikes a man who emerges from the woods on foot. She recognizes the injured man as Ben Tierney, whom she'd met the previous summer. They're forced to wait out the storm in the cabin, but as the hours of their confinement mount, Lilly begins to wonder if the greatest danger to her safety isn't the blizzard outside, but the mysterious man right beside her.Is Ben Tierney the feared abductor? Or is he who he claims to be...her rescuer from harm and from the tragedy that haunts her?

The Cold Kiss by John Rector - All Nate and Sara want is a new life in a new town, away from the crime and poverty of their past.  So, after being approached at a roadside diner by a man offering $500 for a ride to Omaha, they wonder if their luck might be changing.At first it seems like easy money, but within a few hours the man is dead. Now, forced off the road by a blizzard and trapped in a run-down motel on the side of a deserted highway, Nate and Sara begin to uncover the man's secrets. Who he was, how he died, and most importantly, why he was carrying two million dollars in his suitcase.Before they know it, Nate and Sara are fighting for their lives, and in the end, each has to decide just how far they are willing to go to survive.

A Cold Season by Alison Littlewood - After the battlefront death of her husband, a soldier, in the sands of the Middle East, a distraught Cass decides to move to the bucolic village of Darnshaw--a place she once knew and loved--with her teenage son, with the hope that a change in scenery will be just the thing to help her family heal.  But the locals aren't as friendly as she had hoped and the iInternet connection isn't as reliable as her work requires. Ben begins to display an uncharacteristic hostility.  A blizzard strikes Darnshaw, marooning it in a sea of snow, and Cass begins to despair. She finds a sympathetic ear in the person of her son's substitute teacher. But his attentions can't put to rest her growing anxiety about her son and her business. And soon, she finds herself pitted against dark forces she can barely comprehend.

Rose in a Storm by John Katz - Rose is determined and focused, keeping the sheep out of danger and protecting the other creatures on the farm she calls home. But of all those she’s looked after since coming to the farm as a puppy, it is Sam, the farmer, whom she watches most carefully.  Awoken one cold midwinter night during lambing season, Rose and Sam struggle into the snowy dark to do their work. The ever observant Rose has seen a change in her master of late, ever since Sam’s wife disappeared one day. She senses something else in the air as well: A storm is coming, but not like any of the ones she’s seen over the years. This storm feels different, bigger, more foreboding. When an epic blizzard hits the region, it will take all of Rose’s resolve, resourcefulness, and courage to help Sam save the farm and the creatures who live there.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey - 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.

Snowblind by Christopher Golden - The small New England town of Coventry had weathered a thousand blizzards...but never one like this, where people wandered into the whiteout and vanished. Families were torn apart, and the town would never be the same.  Now, as a new storm approaches twelve years later, the folks of Coventry are haunted by the memories of that dreadful blizzard and those who were lost in the snow. Photographer Jake Schapiro mourns his little brother, Isaac, even as--tonight--another little boy is missing. Mechanic and part-time thief Doug Manning's life has been forever scarred by the mysterious death of his wife, Cherie, and now he's starting over with another woman and more ambitious crimes.  Police detective Joe Keenan has never been the same since that night, when he failed to save the life of a young boy...and the boy's father vanished in the storm only feet away. And all the way on the other side of the country, Miri Ristani receives a phone call...from a man who died twelve years ago.  As old ghosts trickle back, this new storm will prove to be even more terrifying than the last.

Sweetgirl by Travis Mulhauser - As a blizzard bears down, Percy James sets off to find her troubled mother, Carletta. For years, Percy has had to take care of herself and Mama--a woman who's been unraveling for as long as her daughter can remember. Fearing Carletta is strung out on meth and that she won't survive the storm, Percy heads for Shelton Potter's cabin, deep in the woods of Northern Michigan. A two-bit criminal, as incompetent as he his violent, Shelton has been smoking his own cook and grieving the death of his beloved Labrador, Old Bo.  But when Percy arrives, there is no sign of Carletta. Searching the house, she finds Shelton and his girlfriend drugged into oblivion--and a crying baby girl left alone in a freezing room upstairs. From the moment the baby wraps a tiny hand around her finger, Percy knows she must save her--a split-second decision that is the beginning of a dangerous odyssey in which she must battle the elements and evade Shelton and a small band of desperate criminals, hell-bent on getting that baby back.  Knowing she and the child cannot make it alone, Percy seeks help from Carletta's ex, Portis Dale, who is the closest thing she's ever had to a father. As the storm breaks and violence erupts, Percy will be forced to confront the haunting nature of her mother's affliction and finds her own fate tied more and more inextricably to the baby she is determined to save.

An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapeña - A weekend retreat at a cozy mountain lodge is supposed to be the perfect getaway. But when the storm hits, no one is getting away. It's winter in the Catskills and Mitchell's Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing maybe even romantic weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge woodburning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery. So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off the electricity and all contact with the outside world the guests settle in for the long haul. Soon, though, one of the guests turns up dead it looks like an accident. But when a second guest dies, they start to panic. Within the snowed-in paradise, something or someone is picking off the guests one by one. And there's nothing they can do but hunker down and hope they can survive the storm.

Winter Sisters by Robin Oliviera - New York, 1879- After an epic snow storm ravages the city of Albany, Dr. Mary Sutter, a former civil war surgeon, begins a search for two little girls, the daughters of close friends killed by the storm who have vanished without a trace.  Mary's mother and niece Elizabeth, who has been studying violin in Paris, return to Albany upon learning of the girls  disappearance-but Elizabeth has another reason for wanting to come home, one she is not willing to reveal. Despite resistance from the community, who believe the girls to be dead, the family persists in their efforts to find the two sisters. When what happened to them is revealed, the uproar that ensues tears apart families, reputations, and even the social fabric of the city, exposing dark secrets about some of the most powerful of its citizens, and putting fragile loves and lives at great risk.