Cold Grace — Meredith Miller

A story of survival and humanity set in early 1900s New England. Miller explores themes of race, disability, eugenics and rural life on the fringes of society. 'A woman's body is a machine specially designed for producing consequences.' Winter closes in on a valley in northern New England where a violent history is about to repeat itself. The Allen family farm is nearly empty. Only Eddie, the youngest son, remains, living with his family's ghosts near the woods he loves. In those woods he meets Jeanne Delaney, a girl he's known all his life, now turning into a woman. This is not the first time that Eddie's people have come into contact with Jeanne's, though. Their families are already tied together by a violent past. For readers of Where the Crawdads Sing, Cold Grace is a dark historical novel defined by its frozen landscape. Both revenge tragedy and coming of age story, it tells of an isolated community haunted by the ghost of its own violence.