……….From the outset,despite its growing reputation and popularity, I just didn’t fancy this. I thought it would be a bit “folksy” – all twee and home made cakes and stuff!.

When I started blogging I’d read a glowing review of it on one of the blogs that I’ve come to like most – Annabel’s House of Books - and I’d written it down as a possible on a little list I keep on my iPhone and that I refer to every time I’m in a bookshop. But The Snow Child stayed stubbornly stuck on the list for months and never made it to my shelves. It serves as a bit of a testimony to my struggle with my alpha-male tendencies!

From Annabel’s review, a few months later, I retrospectively read an equally glowing review of it on another blog I really like, Claire’s ‘Word for Word’ - so I bought it  – but those alpha male prejudices die hard! Even though I bought it I avoided reading it because that small part of me -  just at the back right hand corner of my brain kept whispering “it’s a woman’s book…its a woman’s book…..” I mention all of this for two reasons – firstly to show just how big an eejit a man with alpha male tendencies and prejudices can be – and I am that eejit! – secondly to encourage anybody who may be put off by the title, or the cover of the book, or even by the blurb on the back off it not to be put off by them – because the Snow Child is a beautiful story and a wonderful book! It won’t change your life on a permanent basis (I don’t believe any book does that – not even the ones about self-help and becoming an instant success!) – but while you read it this book will surely make you feel better about the human race and give you an invigorating and uplifting perspective on the crucial role love plays in our lives

It starts very gently really, set in Alaska between the wars and starting before the onset of winter,  with a couple, Jack and Mabel, who are approaching the twilight of their lives in some ways, and struggling with the grief of losing a child which had been stillborn. They have arrived in Alaska as a kind of turn-of-the-century ‘search for themselves‘, trying to recover from their loss and from the chasm that threatens to grow between them as they come to terms with that loss in very different ways. But as time moves on and winter looms on the horizon, Jack and Mabel are struggling to turn their hope of a new start into any kind of reality. Instead there’s growing tension and you feel their lives sliding into a spiral of defeat and disappointment. Alaska seems to turn in on them, trapping them in loneliness and in their growing separation from each other. There’s a cruelty to the land and the wilderness  at this point – the landscape almost becomes a vicious and merciless character in this part of the book as first Jack and then Mabel seem to be defeated by the elements – it’s as if in running from the tragedy in their past, Alaska seems to be almost mocking them in having chosen it as a sanctuary and place to re-build their shattered lives. And then, just when it feels almost painful to read, the magical tale of the Snow Child is revealed, teasingly, almost one snowflake at a time. It begins with one, almost fairy tale like moment, when Jack and Mabel enjoy the briefest of returns to something like the lighter, closer and more together selves they once were, and as the first fall of snow hits Alaska, they delight in the childishness of first throwing snowballs and then building a snowgirl. It feels like the turning of a corner between them but the next day they find only discarded garments and piles of snow where the snow girl had been built, but with one key difference, the scarf has gone and there are child-like footprints leading from the collapsed snow girl and out into the woods through the snow. Over the weeks to come they both seem to have faint glimpses of a child on the edge of the woods but there’s the uncertainty and doubt about whether it is a real child or a hallucination – almost teasing them and their memories of their earlier loss with the suggestion that they might be having some form of joint mental breakdown. The story seems to tease them and the reader – I so wanted them to discover the Snow Child was real as early as possible – not because of the story itself but for Jack and Mabel’s sakes – they are such wonderfully drawn characters you really do live every bit of their pain, anguish and dashed hopes. And then Jack makes the discovery that changes the lives of Jack, Mabel, the Snow Child and their neighbours forever.

There are so many wonderful things about this book. The characterisation is magnificent – I could feel the heave of disappointment in Mabel’s heart at times, I could picture easily Jack’s large, calloused hands working his axe on the edge of the clearing. The supporting characters of Faina, Garrett, George and Esther are all intriguing and enticing in equal measure. The wilderness itself haunts the book and the lives of the characters – it really does run through the book as a personality in its own right – and though it seemed to me to shift its personality as their story shifted, it stayed on a continuum from uncompromisingly harsh to uncompromisingly encouraging.

But at the heart of the book, and the thing that makes it a quite magical story isn’t the magical nature of the story itself, but instead the very down-to-earth and everyday relationship between Jack and Mabel. Even though their actions, and looks, and thoughts and personality traits are all wonderfully captured by Eowyn Ivey, it was the love between them that she got so wonderfully right for me. It’s poignant and sad in places but it’s never trite. It’s gentle in places but its never twee (even though I’d thought it would be). It’s the strength of it that’s remarkable, the stubbornness of it that’s so uplifting and the understated but yet so evident depth of love they have for each other that’s simply heart-warming. I read The Snow Child going back and forward on the Tube to work – as a consequence I have never cried as often in public – so much so that on two separate occasions one of my fellow passengers asked if I was alright! (and if you’ve ever travelled on the Tube then you’ll know that someone talking to someone else is about as rare as a passengers crying is!!!)

I loved The Snow Child for the story, the setting, the characters and the beautiful way it’s written. But above all I loved The Snow Child for the open and unashamed love in it – the very thing I’d been afraid of when I avoided reading it in the first place!

And when I think back to those weeks of avoiding buying it and those months of avoiding reading it – even ignoring a couple of my favourite bloggers, I realise I should have know all along. My favourite word to describe a great book is “terrific” – I love the word because those two “r’s” in tandem suit my Glaswegian accent and allow me to get stuck into the “ic” syllable on ending. I also like other people who use that word. And it’s because of my liking for the word ‘terrific’ and my faith in those who use that word on its own, that I should have known I’d love the Snow Child – for as you can see it was there all along staring me in the face……………………………!!!!!!!!!!!!