Excerpt from Winter Sisters by Robin Oliveira, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Bonnie was still holding it up to admire when a violent burst of wind pushed open the door and the iridescent bird flew out of her fingers and up toward the ceiling. So much snow was suddenly spilling from the skies that she could hardly see a thing. She fumbled for matches to light the gas jet, but a curtain of darkness had fallen. The snowfall was no longer a mere sprinkling, a last reflexive fit of winter. It was a blizzard. Bonnie instantly thought of Claire and Emma. Would they shut the schools for a storm this foul, or keep the children instead? It didn't matter. She would go get them. Unthinking, she jammed Viola Van der Veer's unfinished hat on her head and fled outside, pulling on her thin coat. Instantly, the churning wind spun her around. She regained her balance and bent low, taking first one step, then another, into the maelstrom.

In the Lumber District, James Harley, the overseer, hollered above the roar of wind for everyone to get out. Hearing Harley's cries, David leaped to the ground from the top of the stack he'd been clearing and headed toward the Lock Bridge with hundreds of his fellow laborers, each one doubting his ability to find his way home in the sudden whiteout. Despite growing panic, the men worked together, linking arms and edging across the narrow Lock Bridge, made hazardous by the accumulating snow. The snaillike pace of escape was excruciating. When it was finally his turn, David bowed his head and shuffled across, praying not to be blown into the canal. But once he successfully negotiated the bridge, it soon became impossible to know what was ground and what was sky. Gravity lied. Senses failed. By blessed dumb luck, David navigated the twelve long blocks back to State Street, staying to the lee of the buildings and marking his path by memory, his collar turned up against the frigid cold. He blundered on, finally reaching State Street, where he traveled perhaps a dozen steps up the sidewalk before he lost his sense of direction and veered into the street. The blinded driver of a heavily laden dray never saw him, nor did he grasp that the cry he heard and the sudden jolt of his sliding wheels meant that he had crushed a man.

Excerpted from Winter Sisters by Robin Oliveira. Copyright © 2018 by Robin Oliveira. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.