This was a book I had a hard time putting down. Grab your blanket because it will make you feel cold. Lillian and Griffian made such a great team. I definitely appreciated the Christian views weaved into the book. Beth did a beautiful job highlighting the hope out of a tragedy. I’d never heard of this avalanche and it happened just a couple hours drive from where I live. The story and the characters pulled me in and held on tight. My only complaint is that I felt the story could have been longer. Give me more! The romance was a bit flat as well. Sort of an instant love at the end. I would have appreciated more lingering glances and subtle touches. But the overall story was perfection and I wouldn’t change it.
Trigger warnings: natural disasters, infants and children and spouses dying.

Restless, engaged, and well off, Lillian is sent to a rugged, small town to help out her pregnant cousin.
She finds herself slowly drawn to a gentle giant who helps keep the railroad tracks clear.
When a train is trapped because of a seemingly endless snow storm, the characters of train passengers become living people, worried and confined.
An act of nature in the form of an avalanche buries the train and the aftermath is unfathomable.
Questions of why resound throughout the area and within the families who lost loved ones in the train cars. The author does a great job of guiding the reader through the whys and guilt.
Lots of history combined with real questions make this an excellent read.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

This book is part of a series called A Day to Remember which features novels about historic North American disasters that changed landscapes and multiple lives. This particular disaster takes place in the Cascade Mountains of Washington in 1910. After record snowfalls followed by warm rains, the worst avalanche in US history took place, killing 96, with only 23 survivors.

Bliss does an excellent job of bringing the little railroad town of Wellington to life in the winter months before the disaster so that the reader experiences the blizzards, the avalanche and the rescue efforts through the eyes of her two main characters, Lillian and Griffin, as their lives are changed forever. I appreciated her treatment of all the questions of why God allowed such a thing to happen, who was to blame, and how it affected the people who lived through it.

It’s not an easy book to read, but it’s definitely worth reading.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own." #WhentheAvalancheRoared #NetGalley