Synopsis "Before the River Froze (The Doe River Series)"
Some girls run from their past. Some bring it with them.April 1997. A nineteen-year-old girl steps off a bus in Massena, New York, with one duffel bag, no winter coat, and a name that isn’t hers.Darcy Leclair has come to work on the Kirkland farm in tiny Lindenville, high above the Doe River, and Anne Kirkland takes one look at her and knows she’s running from something. Anne buys her a coat, gives her the little room in the old summer kitchen, and sets a place for her at the kitchen table. Six-year-old Nicky decides Darcy is a princess. Anne’s husband, Tom, can’t stop looking at her. And Eli Marchand, the smuggler’s son from down the river, would do anything she asked.For one long summer, the farm feels like home. The first home Darcy has ever had.But the man she ran from is a patient man. He’s been counting the days. And as winter closes in and the worst ice storm in North Country history bears down on Lindenville, every secret in that old farmhouse is about to come due: the affair no one talks about, the name no one is supposed to know, and the old iron door in the cellar that leads to the river.Told in the voices of the people who were there, Before the River Froze is the story of the year that ended in the cellar, and of the woman who went down those stairs with a lantern on the night of January 7, 1998, and never came back up.The prequel to The Doe River Murder. For readers of atmospheric small-town suspense, family secrets, and slow-burning heartbreak. Read more
