A beautifully told story about starting over.

This is one of those books you just fall in love with. The characters, plot and setting work together to make an unforgettable story. Sonny Dunes was on top of the world, working as a popular meteorologist, in sunny Palm Springs when her world came crashing down. She lost her job and ended up moving back home, to her mother’s house, in the middle of the cold snowy Michigan winter. Sonny hated snow and the painful memories it brought back. As Sonny picks up the pieces of her life, she learns forgiveness, to trust again, makes new friends and even falls in love.

Not only was this book entertaining, but I learned a lot from it. There was so much great wisdom in it (mostly from Sonny’s mother) and it gave me advice on things I didn’t even know I needed. I had a hard time closing this book at the end. I wasn’t ready for it to be over. I highly recommend reading this book. I would love to see this book made into a movie.

Once again, Viola Shipman writes a fantastic book about a meteorologist named Sonny who had moved from sunny California to very cold, snowy Michigan. (Where she was originally from) She was fired and replaced with a “robot” so she moved back to Michigan to live with her mom. (And she’s 50 years old) She gets another meteorologist job and runs into many old friends and has to adjust to the cold winters there again. It’s all about second chances and as usual, Viola Shipman delivers! I just love his story telling! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early release in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 stars What could be more perfect than reading a holiday book that takes place in very snowy Michigan while sitting on a hot beach? Sonny Days career blows up on camera after she's fired and replaced by a "robot". She ends up back home in Michigan working for someone who doesn't like her and with someone who's trying very hard to sabotage her. A little drama, a little romance, and family relationships- this book would make a perfect Hallmark movie!

A "feel good" story about living with past regrets, coming home and connecting with the ones you love. I always look forward to Viola Shipman's new books!

This book is my new Viola Shipman favorite!
I can't say enough good things about this beautiful story! It is what our world needs now!
It has Hope, Love and Spirit!
Upon opening the pages of this novel, I found myself in cold, snowy Michigan with Sonny Dunes.
Sunny Dunes is a meteorologist in Palm Springs where it is always warm and sunny.
However- she had an "on-air" live tV meltdown and finds herself fired. It isn't a surprise.
What does she do? She quietly returns to her Michigan childhood home with her Mom.

Sonny- is and has been a "runner" for years. This is how she always coped or did not cope with horrible tragedies. There are a lot of ghosts and remembrances here for Sonny to challenge.
But... at 50 years of age, it is now time to confront the memories and find the importance of her life, and to begin her journey forward!
Please do yourself a favor and sit and read this story. I mean really read and absorb it.
Ten stars!!

"Our lives, as my mother once told me, are as brief as one blink of God's eye. It is up to us to decide how to decide how to best use His gifts and make out short journey here important and memorable It is important we never forget, as we too often do, what matters most in that blink: family, friends, each other."

Viola Shipman's The Secret of Snow is truly insightful. The words of wisdom touched me and made the story meaningful. The humor lightened the tone perfectly. Great book!

The Secret of Snow will warm your heart. Sonny’s career comes to a screeching halt and she has to take a job in her former stomping grounds in Michigan, which she hates. There’s a special reason for her dislike of the snow that is eventually revealed. She has some cringe worthy moments, but one of the best scenes is the revenge against the culprit who’s been trying to oust her. The best part of the book was the relationship between Sonny and Icicle. The friendship is genuine and I love it when Sonny encourages him to shoot for the stars. There is much character development and it makes the book a pleasure to read.

Sonny Dunes, who is around 50, is a popular on-air meteorologist in Palm Springs, until she is fired. Angry that the young guy who canned her has chosen an AI figure to do the weather, she gets drunk and causes an on-air scene which goes viral. It looks as if her career is done for until she gets a call from a small station in her Michigan hometown offering her a job. It's hard to be living with her mom, getting used to wintry weather, and revisiting the scene of the fatal accident that killed her young sister. But Michigan, she learns, has more to offer that just snow, including a happily ever after ending for the former Amberrose Murphy. Recommended for fans of Debbie Macomber, Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The Secret of Snow is an excellent story, but hard to categorize. It is not really a romcom because there is so much more involved in this well-written, thoughtful, sad and funny tale. Sonny Dunes has a cushy life as a meteorologist in Palm Springs. It is sunny and mid-70's everyday, so reporting is easy, but Sonny has won awards for excellence in journalism. When she is told she's being replaced by a buxom, virtual weather girl who won't have to worry about aging or gaining weight, Sonny has a meltdown on air. Tail between her legs, she returns to her hometown northern Michigan. She left years ago, escaping the sudden death of her little sister, refusing contact with anyone who knew her as Amberrose, including her mother. Amberrose is offered a last chance job on the local news station working for an ex-college dormmate. She's left with covering all the snowy events in the area, regaining her winter habits as she very slowly re-connects with her mother and all the friends and family that she left behind when she fled her memories and her guilt years before. As she learns to humble herself, and enjoy what she once loved about Michigan, Amberrose learns more about the accident that took her sister and more about herself as she begins to slowly recover from years of grief and keeping people at arms length I read this book in one sitting. Not to be cliché, but I laughed, I cried and I loved it. Viola Shipman writes of grief and recovery with sensitivity and honesty. The characters were believable - I LOVE Amberrose's mother, very real and VERY funny! Lots to discuss for book clubs - this would be an excellent selection. I recommend The Secret of Snow to anyone who enjoys a well-written, well-developed novel. Shipman has written many other books and I look forward to reading every one of them. Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to read the ARC. These opinions are entirely my own.

I love Viola Shipman's books!
I have read all, and will continue to look forward to her next book.

During a heat wave in St Louis, I read this book
It had me making snow angels and playing in the snow.
I was even craving some hot chocolate to warm me up.

This was a marvelous story
once I started I could not stop until the final word.

This new book, despite the cool title and cover, wasn't really my type of book--a bit to much "women's lit" with too much drama and woe-is-me drunkenness. Yes, most of us have had a really, really bad day professionally but if you react by drinking yourself nearly unconscious and then act out your revenge fantasy while drunk, then you deserve the fallout. Drama! Marketed to the correct reader demographic, this book should do well.

There’s no better way to cool down on a hot and humid St. Louis afternoon than to read a book that takes place in northern Michigan in the dead of winter!

Sonny Dunes fled northern Michigan thirty years ago for the sunshine and warm temperatures of southern California. Palm Springs to be exact. It’s not hard to be a meteorologist when the weather is the same day after day. But what is hard is not aging or gaining a few pounds. When the station decides to replace the fifty-year-old Sonny with a virtual meteorologist, she loses it. On air. Not good for one’s career.

With no job, Sonny isn’t sure what to do. She has only one place to turn; her mother, in yes that awful, awful place in northern Michigan. It’s not that Sunny hates the wintery weather, which she does with a passion. For her, her hometown is haunted. Haunted by death of her younger sister, and the survivor’s guilt she has endured.

Her agent tries to find her a new gig, but the only person willing to take a chance on her is an old college classmate whom she despises and has been trying to ignore for years. Sonny is forced to swallow her pride and move back home, taking up residence in her childhood bedroom.

The job is as bad as she had feared. The station wants her to cover all the winter activities in the region. Did I mention that Sonny hates winter? Yeah, the job is sheer hell. She has to put on a happy face while hating every minute and aspect of winter.

As Sonny begins to confront her past and to make friends with her new colleagues, her heart and soul begin to melt, freeing her enjoy the attention of a man named Mason and actually start enjoying her life---and dare I say it, the winter weather.

One thing that annoyed me about the book was that it starts off in December 2021 and projects through April 2022. I didn’t feel the plot warranted its futuristic timeline, but maybe I didn’t understand author Shipman’s reasoning behind it.

I liked “The Secret of Snow,” and it receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. And yes, reading it in the depths of summer did make me less hot and cranky.

Amberrose has been running so long that she has created a new person who is called Sonny Dunes who is a meteorologist is sunny California. But her life turns upside down when she is replaced by a robot meteorologist. She creates a scene that is all over social media and finds her self unemployable. An acquaintance from college recruits her to return to her home town and help her build the rates of the local news station. Sonny loses herself and then finds herself amount the memories.

This book is awesome. I think t
It’s Viola’s best book yet. I am a Michigan girl. I am also over (0 and connected right away with Sonny. She is living in Palm Springs, works as a TV Meteorologist. She is replaced by an AI. She moves back to Northern Michigan in the middle of Winter. Through a bunch of challenges she learned to not only love winter again, but also those around her. I recommend this book 100 percent!!!!!

Love, love, love! Last year The Heirloom Garden was my favorite pandemic and beyond read. The Secret of Snow could easily be this year's favorite. Quintessential Viola with just right amounts of tragedy, family, friends, romance and of course, Michigan. I hope there are more winter/Christmas stories to come.

Viola Shipman has done it again! This is a relevant, heartwarming story about a woman who loses everything and finds what really matters in life.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Sonny Dunes is a 50-year-old meteorologist and tv personality in Palm Springs. But this is the cutthroat and superficial world of tv broadcasting and her boss is a bratty little rich kid with zero experience, so he fires her to replace her with a busty female Artificial Intelligence algorithm. In retaliation, Sonny gets drunk and barges on set to denounce the whole situation in a humiliating and career-destroying tirade on live television.

Tail tucked between her leg and with zero other prospects, Sonny is forced to return to her childhood home in northern Michigan in the middle of winter to take a job offered to her by a former classmate at the local tv station. Now all the ghosts of Sonny's past, all the reasons she left town and changed her name are coming back to haunt her.

Enjoyable, quick-paced, but I found it vaguely unsatisfying by the end. The romantic interest is rushed and totally unnecessary (there was enough to unpack here without throwing in a romantic entanglement and throwing in a romance on top of it was overkill and distraction). Some of the scenes in which Sonny's trying to come to terms with the past, where there was really an opportunity for some really interesting but difficult conversations, were instead rushed and unrealistically easy. It just didn't ring true at all.

Unfortunately I did not enjoy this book, but I'm sure that many people will. Give it a try. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

Learning to trust yourself. To love yourself. And thereby learning to open your heart to trust and love others. Viola Shipman teaches this lesson with charm and humor.

I surprised myself by really liking the characters in this story and enjoying their adventures, mishaps, and accomplishments. We've all been knocked down before, whether it's a job or relationship loss, an unwanted change in our lives, or just recovering from a bad relationship. Tragedy often sparks escape by the survivors in one form or another, and Sonny chooses to move across the country and change her name and persona. Brave move, but necessary for her survival after the loss of her younger sister and her notion that she was to blame. It's funny how once we let go of some of our inhibitions and negative self concept that we begin to flourish.