Achingly beautiful writing. I absolutely loved this book - a retelling of a classic fairytale about a child made from snow. 
 The book is set in 1920's Alaska, a setting that is both bleak and unforgiving, and yet breathtakingly beautiful. I loved the descriptions of the landscape, the sheer vastness of the wilderness, and the cold that seeps from the pages. The setting perfectly echoes the grief of the childless couple, Mabel and Jack, who have given up their life 'back east' to live in near solitude after a life of longing for a child and the grief of losing a baby. One day they make a snow child in their yard and then later see a young girl in the forest. Just as the land transforms as winter comes, so too do the couple as their relationship with the girl develops. 
 The book has just the right amount of magic realism, something that I particularly enjoy anyway, and I loved the sense of never being quite sure whether the girl was real or not. There is a subtle sadness that permeates the book - from the words unspoken, the harshness of the landscape, the starkness of the life they life in their homestead, and animals that are killed to keep the families alive. 
 The writing has a lyrical almost poetic tone to it with lush metaphors and rich synesthesia and has a wonderful olde-worlde charm. An absolutely stunning debut novel - one for the bookcase. 
 "Jack lay beside her, his eyes wide and his brain spinning until finally he drifted into a kind of sleep that wasn't much different than wakefulness, a mystifying, restless sleep where dreams fell and melted like snowflakes, where children ran soft-footed through the trees, and scarves flapped between black raven beaks."