Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2017
368 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
Compulsively readable and powerfully moving, Girl in Snow offers an unforgettable reading experience and introduces a singular new talent in Danya Kukafka.
Who are you when no one is watching?
When a beloved high schooler named Lucinda Hayes is found murdered, no one in her sleepy Colorado suburb is untouched - not the boy who loved her too much; not the girl who wanted her perfect life; not the officer assigned to investigate her murder. In the aftermath of the tragedy, these three indelible characters - Cameron, Jade, and Russ - must each confront their darkest secrets in an effort to find solace, the truth, or both. In crystalline prose, Danya Kukafka offers a brilliant exploration of identity and of the razor-sharp line between love and obsession, between watching and seeing, between truth and memory.
"This smart, fast-paced novel is one that readers will be proud to flaunt beachside or elsewhere." - Library Journal
"This 24-year-old writer needs to rein in the prose and crank up the plot. We'll be watching." - Kirkus
"...while the novel employs a full checklist of teen tropes throughout, from abusive parents to fractured love triangles, there is enough narrative muscle to compel the reader to stick with it until the end." - Publishers Weekly
"Hard to believe this whodunit is from a fist-time author. Think Gillan Flynn of 2017." - Yahoo! Style
"A cool literary mystery to get you through the season's heat." - Elle.com
"From its startling opening line right through to its stunning conclusion, Girl in Snow is a perfectly paced and tautly plotted thriller. Danya Kukafka's misfit characters are richly drawn, her prose is both elegant and eerie - this is an incredibly accomplished debut." - Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water
"A sensational debut - great characters, mysteries within mysteries, and page-turning pace. Highly recommended." - Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher novels
"An exciting debut from a talented new voice. Girl in Snow is a propulsive mystery set in a suburban community marked by unsettling voyeurism. Danya Kukafka patiently reveals layers of her characters' inner lives - their ugliness and vulnerabilities - in prose that sparkles and wounds. I couldn't put this one down." - Brit Bennett, New York Times bestselling author of The Mothers
"There is a frightful truth to Danya Kukafka's characterizations, and the mystery at the heart of Girl in Snow is so elegantly constructed. It's an exceptional, unnerving debut novel. I'm already counting the days until her next one." - Owen King, author of Double Feature and co-author of Sleeping Beauties
"Girl in Snow is a haunting, lyrical novel about love, loss, and terror. Reading it felt like entering another world, where things - and people - were not as they at first appeared. The world Kukafka so masterfully creates is suspenseful and electrifying; I was willing to follow her wherever she took me." - Anton DiSclafani, New York Times bestselling author of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls and The After Party
This information about Girl in Snow was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Danya Kukafka is a graduate of New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She currently works as an assistant editor at Riverhead books. Girl in Snow is her first novel.
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