This is a good family drama With a mystery at its core. The story is told through dual timelines. This book is full of atmosphere. I didn’t like the ending. Perfect for fans of mysteries.

‘A Woman Made of Snow’ by Elisabeth Gifford is a historical mystery moving between post-World War Two Scotland and the Arctic in the nineteenth century. This is an ambitious, well-researched dual timeline story encompassing exploitation of the Inuit people, the whaling industry, racial prejudice, the maintenance of sprawling country estates and the iron will of a mother for her son to marry the woman she prefers rather than the woman he loves.
In 1949, Caro moves to Kelly Castle near Dundee with husband Alasdair and new baby Felicity, to live with his mother Martha. As the two women scratch along together, Martha asks Caro to organise the family records which have fallen into confusion. Sorting the piles of documents, Caro finds an intriguing photograph of Oliver Gillan, Alasdair’s great-grandfather, and two unknown young women. As she sets out to identify the strangers, workmen on the estate uncover bones of a woman in an unmarked grave. Caro jumps to the assumption that the bones might belong to one of the women in the photograph.
This 1949 storyline is alternated with that a century earlier of Oliver, a medical student, who grew up at Kelly Castle. Gifford lays clues for the reader – could Caro’s mysterious bones be those of one of two girls befriended by his family when he was growing up? And are these the girls in the mystery photo? He is keen on Louisa, her sister Charlotte is keen on Oliver; his mother is keen on neither girl. Oliver leaves home to study medicine in Edinburgh but finds himself instead in Dundee as medical officer on a whaling ship, the Narwhal, bound for the Arctic.
I finished the book with mixed feelings. I loved the Arctic sections and wanted more. The 1949 sections left me feeling curiously flat and wonder if the viewpoint affected my response. I so wanted to hear Yarat’s voice directly, instead we see her only through Oliver’s diary and Caro’s imagination.
This was a slow read for me, I delayed picking it up again which surprised me as I loved Gifford’s ‘The Lost Lights of St Kilda’. Erratic shifts between chapters didn’t help, the jerky changes of subject took me away from the page and the mystery interested me less than the story of Oliver’s life. I most enjoyed reading about the Arctic and the emotional upheaval of falling in love with a woman so alien to your own home and the repercussions that must be faced.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

This book is a wonderfully told story of family history, set in Scotland and the Arctic. I found the tale of what happened to Oliver, his wife and daughter more compelling than the contemporary story, but the threads came together well. Definitely worth a read if you enjoy historical fiction.

Read next to fire to ward off inevitable chills due to icy Arctic landscape and hart breaking cruelty.
I was quickly absorbed into this wonderful book. The time lines were easy to follow and the disappointments of Caro and Martha to be sympathised with.
1840's the inhabitants of Kelly Castle take in two orphaned sisters for holidays, the Father Gregor feels guilt about the girls father lost on a whaling trip, the son Oliver is drawn to Charlotte one of the girls, Sylvia prevents any relationship and banished the girls, Oliver travels to Arctic and meets his wife and Eskimo Yarat.
The other timeline is 1949 Alastdir takes his new wife and baby to stay with his widowed Mother at Kelly Castle, misunderstandings and jealousy prevail, but solving a mystery of a skeleton unearthed in the grounds helps to build bridges.
Descriptions are perfect, from the love of a Mother to the ice caps floating by.
Thank you Elizabeth and NetGalley.

I put 3, rounded down from 3.5 ish stars. This was another good historical fiction novel by Elisabeth Gifford. I absolutely loved The Lost Lights of St Kilda, and this wasn't quite as good for me.

We follow 2 storylines again, which are intertwined. A woman, in post-war Scotland, helps find out what happens to her husband's relatives, where the lineage is unclear. At the same time we get the timeline of his ancestor and his voyage into the Arctic and to Innu/First Nation communities.

I really enjoyed the inclusion of this storyline and characters from this background, even though they were faced with so much racism. I really felt for them.

The reason this scored less for me was because it felt more disjointed than previous books I read by her. I also didn't feel that much for the characters in the post-war storyline. I don't know why but it felt just not that important and it didn't feel like the 'search into what happened' was anything? It felt like they were mostly just reading letters, so wasn't totally engaged.

That said, I'd still recommend it. It's a good historical fiction novel based partly in Scotland and the Canadian Arctic.

Post-war Britain, an ancestral Scottish castle, whaling and exploration of the Arctic, this book captures interesting and informative elements of history. I had high expectations of this book having read The Lost Lights of St Kilda by this author earlier in the year. The start of the book didn't initially grab me, it felt like a good read but nothing I would have been over-excited about. But it's the mystery surrounding the family that really immerses the reader into this book, and an Arctic adventure.

I really took to the character of Caroline, I felt and shared her enthusiasm for women having a different place in society, post-war. Along with the battle of having to find her place within her husband's family and his ancestral home. I mean, who doesn't love exploring a castle and discovering hidden secrets. It is through Caroline's exploration of the photographs, and documents of the family history that the story flips back to the 1840's when we slowly discover the truth surrounding the mystery of the missing female of the family. There is also adventure awaiting Alastair's great-grandfather as he ventures to the Arctic and Baffin Bay (yes I went straight to Google maps to follow their journey). Meanwhile, there are discoveries of their own in the 1950s.

Once the mystery was solved, I found the quiet kindness of Alasdair's great grandmother comes across beautifully. Another thought-provoking novel from Elizabeth Gifford.
4.5 out of 5 ⭐️

Many thanks to Netgalley and Atlantic Books for a review copy of this book.

Rounded down from around 4.5 stars ⭐️

A woman made of snow flicks between two generations of a family. Caroline moves to Kelly Castle with her husband and daughter. However, the wife of an ancestor seems to have been wiped from history. Soon a body is found, can Caro work out these mysteries?

I absolutely loved this book! I have never before read anything quite like this. I am always drawn to a good mystery novel but this one was unique. I particularly loved the sections involving the Arctic and Inuit. It was so full of atmosphere and taught me so much that I did not already know. I found myself devouring the book and felt so moved by some of Elisabeth’s words. There are some really beautiful quotes woven through this novel.

I have two small niggles that dropped the star rating for me slightly. Firstly, there was initially a spooky/ghostly feel to the book that was soon dropped and wasn’t picked up again, which I was a little disappointed with. Secondly, I initially really did not like the character of Caro. I cannot pinpoint why but I just really couldn’t connect to her. This did eventually change and by the end I liked Caro, she seemed to grow as a character which I appreciated. Overall, I didn’t like the ending…because I desperately wanted the book to continue. I was gutted to have to put this one down!

I would recommend this to anyone that enjoys a good mystery novel. This is particularly great to read during the festive period! I want to thank NetGalley, Atlantic Books and Elisabeth Gifford for allowing me to read this book and give my personal thoughts.

A truly epic dual timeline novel spanning from Scotland to Canada to solve a mystery I found myself being really invested in. I loved it. Another wonderful historical novel from Elisabeth Gifford.

Gripping mystery about a family's past. It held my attention from page 1, until the end. The time line shifts between the late nineteenth century, with whaling ships travelling around northern Canada, and the mid-twentieth century when descendants of some of the characters begin to investigate the family's history.

Well written, and with interesting characters - this is a book I would recommend to anyone.

Thank you to Corvus and NetGalley for an ARC.

I slowly became more and more intrigued by Elizabeth Gifford’s new novel. Even the title whetted my appetite for more of the same beautiful writing that made The Lost Lights of St Kilda such a memorable book. We’re still in Scotland, this is the late 1940’s and our heroine Caro lives with her husband Alasdair and baby Felicity in the Laundry Cottage situated in the grounds of his ancestral home. They met at Cambridge University and married less than six months later much to his mother Martha’s surprise. She was expecting him to marry someone of their class, maybe even their family friend Diana who’s valuing heirlooms at the family’s castle. Caro’s mother-in-law wanted her and Alasdair to live at the castle with her, but Caro wanted a little bit of privacy and distance. At Laundry Cottage she can still be in her dressing down at lunchtime or having a sleep while baby Felicity has a nap. Yet, the past is about to make it’s way into the present both physically and mentally. Caro is asked to research the family archives for a mysterious, missing member of the family. A great-grandmother seems to have been scrubbed from the archives, along with a missing diary from her husband Oliver’s trip to the Arctic. When the Laundry Cottage floods suddenly and workers inspect the Victorian drainage system they find a body of a woman. Could this be the missing bride?

It seems formidable mothers are the norm at Castle Kelly, because when we go back in our second narrative we go back to the late Victorian period and tension between Oliver and his mother. From early childhood Louisa and Charlotte Strachan have been summer visitors to the castle and Oliver’s playmates. However, as they get older it’s clear that feelings have developed between Oliver and Louisa. Could she be the missing grandmother from the archives and the body found in the grounds? How come Oliver ended up in the Arctic? What effect will Caro’s findings have on the family and her marriage? With so many questions I was compelled by the story and some of the characters caught up in these dramatic circumstances. Also the historical shifts behind these stories was fascinating too, showing how much the world changed over two world wars.

Caro is such a sympathetic character and I felt immediately on her side in this very difficult situation she finds herself in. She’s an intelligent woman and understands a lot about how the world is changing. Her expectation of life after the war is that she and Alasdair will live in London as lecturers at one of the city’s universities. She didn’t bank on having Felicity so quickly or for Alasdair’s only offer of employment coming from St Andrew’s university. She describes feeling ‘ambushed’ by her own fertility, but she loves Felicity and wants to be a good Mum. I understood her need to be separate from the castle - it’s a compromise between his obligations and the total freedom they expected in London. I also empathised with her feelings of struggling as a new mum and being isolated from everyone and everything she knows. It’s a huge leap from being organised, full of energy, totally independent and career minded, to living in a cottage with a new baby feeling tired and slightly inadequate. She can’t understand why looking after Felicity seems so arduous and exhausting, when she’s always been so lively and alert. She also finds her emotions difficult; she’s struggling to understand why she wants to keep mother-in-law Martha at bay, or why she feels threatened by the presence of Diana. Her interest in the missing grandmother is linked to these emotions, maybe they were both outsiders in this family. It’s painful to her when she hears Martha say she’d hoped Alasdair would marry someone of his own class, surely those barriers don’t exist any more?

When I started to compare it with the second narrative I could see that, for the Gillan family, there is change but it has been minimal compared to the rest of society. Early in the novel Caro remarks that ‘she was secretly rather proud of her ability to make good friends across the classes’ because ‘once the war was over, class was not going to mean anything after all the country had been through together’. This was probably true in more metropolitan areas, but it hasn’t reached the upper class residents of rural Scotland. Martha is trying, but her true feelings are old-fashioned. The mistress of the castle in the Victorian period is Sylvia and she resents her husband’s adherence to an old obligation, in bringing Charlotte and Louisa Strachan to the castle every summer. Whereas Louisa tries desperately to fit in, Charlotte was a more fiery and independent character and I fell in love with her. As soon as she cuts her own hair off I knew I would enjoy her way of being in the world. To Sylvia’s disgust, Charlotte brings a young girl called Mary into the children’s circle. They run wild in the grounds and don’t seem to notice the differences between them. This changes as they get older until one summer Mary’s aunt asks Charlotte not to run in and out of Laundry Cottage where they live, tempting Mary to play when this year she had to work. As far as Sylvia’s concerned the girl is lucky to be merely helping her aunt, because the true destiny of the poor girls of Dundee is in the jute mills that pay for Kelly Castle. When Charlotte defies her, bringing Mary along on an outing to see the family’s new whaling ship and dinner in the Castle Hotel. When Sylvia asks Charlotte to remove her beret at dinner, she sees her unseemly cropped hair. Charlotte knows a punishment is coming, but what her aunt does next makes her sick and heartbroken. Without any emotion she tells the driver to them home via the jute mill. There, she ushers Mary into the office as a new mill girl for the foreman to set to work. Sylvia has wanted Mary in her proper place for some time, but the opportunity to put Charlotte in her place at the same time was too good to miss. Charlotte is devastated. Sylvia now has to find a way of dealing with the Strachan girls, she has her eye on a young lady for Oliver and she doesn’t want her plans scuppered by a crush on someone unsuitable.

I found it interesting how patterns seemed to have formed down the generations. Some brides were suitable to be the next mistress of Kelly Castle, and others were not. Caro’s mother-in-law kept her misgivings and disappointment over her son’s choice to private conversations. Sylvia had been so determined and cruel in her treatment of Charlotte and Louisa that I wondered what fate awaited Oliver’s unsuitable bride, whoever she was. Since there are family rumours surrounding the Arctic voyage with hints of cannibalism, I was worried for this unnamed woman.

This author always creates an incredible sense of place and the beautifully atmospheric opening is reminiscent of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and the ghostly walk up the drive of Manderley. A woman sees Caro and tries to call out to her from her place beneath the earth.

A Woman Made of Snow by Elizabeth Gifford

I slowly became more and more intrigued by Elizabeth Gifford’s new novel. Even the title whetted my appetite for more of the same beautiful writing that made The Lost Lights of St Kilda such a memorable book. We’re still in Scotland, this is the late 1940’s and our heroine Caro lives with her husband Alasdair and baby Felicity in the Laundry Cottage situated in the grounds of his ancestral home. They met at Cambridge University and married less than six months later much to his mother Martha’s surprise. She was expecting him to marry someone of their class, maybe even their family friend Diana who’s valuing heirlooms at the family’s castle. Caro’s mother-in-law wanted her and Alasdair to live at the castle with her, but Caro wanted a little bit of privacy and distance. At Laundry Cottage she can still be in her dressing down at lunchtime or having a sleep while baby Felicity has a nap. Yet, the past is about to make it’s way into the present both physically and mentally. Caro is asked to research the family archives for a mysterious, missing member of the family. A great-grandmother seems to have been scrubbed from the archives, along with a missing diary from her husband Oliver’s trip to the Arctic. When the Laundry Cottage floods suddenly and workers inspect the Victorian drainage system they find a body of a woman. Could this be the missing bride?

It seems formidable mothers are the norm at Castle Kelly, because when we go back in our second narrative we go back to the late Victorian period and tension between Oliver and his mother. From early childhood Louisa and Charlotte Strachan have been summer visitors to the castle and Oliver’s playmates. However, as they get older it’s clear that feelings have developed between Oliver and Louisa. Could she be the missing grandmother from the archives and the body found in the grounds? How come Oliver ended up in the Arctic? What effect will Caro’s findings have on the family and her marriage? With so many questions I was compelled by the story and some of the characters caught up in these dramatic circumstances. Also the historical shifts behind these stories was fascinating too, showing how much the world changed over two world wars.

Caro is such a sympathetic character and I felt immediately on her side in this very difficult situation she finds herself in. She’s an intelligent woman and understands a lot about how the world is changing. Her expectation of life after the war is that she and Alasdair will live in London as lecturers at one of the city’s universities. She didn’t bank on having Felicity so quickly or for Alasdair’s only offer of employment coming from St Andrew’s university. She describes feeling ‘ambushed’ by her own fertility, but she loves Felicity and wants to be a good Mum. I understood her need to be separate from the castle - it’s a compromise between his obligations and the total freedom they expected in London. I also empathised with her feelings of struggling as a new mum and being isolated from everyone and everything she knows. It’s a huge leap from being organised, full of energy, totally independent and career minded, to living in a cottage with a new baby feeling tired and slightly inadequate. She can’t understand why looking after Felicity seems so arduous and exhausting, when she’s always been so lively and alert. She also finds her emotions difficult; she’s struggling to understand why she wants to keep mother-in-law Martha at bay, or why she feels threatened by the presence of Diana. Her interest in the missing grandmother is linked to these emotions, maybe they were both outsiders in this family. It’s painful to her when she hears Martha say she’d hoped Alasdair would marry someone of his own class, surely those barriers don’t exist any more?

When I started to compare it with the second narrative I could see that, for the Gillan family, there is change but it has been minimal compared to the rest of society. Early in the novel Caro remarks that ‘she was secretly rather proud of her ability to make good friends across the classes’ because ‘once the war was over, class was not going to mean anything after all the country had been through together’. This was probably true in more metropolitan areas, but it hasn’t reached the upper class residents of rural Scotland. Martha is trying, but her true feelings are old-fashioned. The mistress of the castle in the Victorian period is Sylvia and she resents her husband’s adherence to an old obligation, in bringing Charlotte and Louisa Strachan to the castle every summer. Whereas Louisa tries desperately to fit in, Charlotte was a more fiery and independent character and I fell in love with her. As soon as she cuts her own hair off I knew I would enjoy her way of being in the world. To Sylvia’s disgust, Charlotte brings a young girl called Mary into the children’s circle. They run wild in the grounds and don’t seem to notice the differences between them. This changes as they get older until one summer Mary’s aunt asks Charlotte not to run in and out of Laundry Cottage where they live, tempting Mary to play when this year she had to work. As far as Sylvia’s concerned the girl is lucky to be merely helping her aunt, because the true destiny of the poor girls of Dundee is in the jute mills that pay for Kelly Castle. When Charlotte defies her, bringing Mary along on an outing to see the family’s new whaling ship and dinner in the Castle Hotel. When Sylvia asks Charlotte to remove her beret at dinner, she sees her unseemly cropped hair. Charlotte knows a punishment is coming, but what her aunt does next makes her sick and heartbroken. Without any emotion she tells the driver to them home via the jute mill. There, she ushers Mary into the office as a new mill girl for the foreman to set to work. Sylvia has wanted Mary in her proper place for some time, but the opportunity to put Charlotte in her place at the same time was too good to miss. Charlotte is devastated. Sylvia now has to find a way of dealing with the Strachan girls, she has her eye on a young lady for Oliver and she doesn’t want her plans scuppered by a crush on someone unsuitable.

I found it interesting how patterns seemed to have formed down the generations. Some brides were suitable to be the next mistress of Kelly Castle, and others were not. Caro’s mother-in-law kept her misgivings and disappointment over her son’s choice to private conversations. Sylvia had been so determined and cruel in her treatment of Charlotte and Louisa that I wondered what fate awaited Oliver’s unsuitable bride, whoever she was. Since there are family rumours surrounding the Arctic voyage with hints of cannibalism, I was worried for this unnamed woman.

This author always creates an incredible sense of place and the beautifully atmospheric opening is reminiscent of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and the ghostly walk up the drive of Manderley. A woman sees Caro and tries to call out to her from her place beneath the earth.

‘Wrapped in darkness beneath the trees I watch rain falling on the earth where I have slept for so long. Light from the Cottage windows stretches across the lawns, but it does not reach me. Find me, I whisper. Give me my name.’

Her need for Caro to hear her showed a spirit undimmed by death. I was really interested in this and the theme of women being controlled or even erased by forces or expectations beyond their control. As the unnamed woman sits beneath the earth, Caro feels removed from the life she wanted by motherhood. Mary is taken from a carefree childhood to the responsibilities and restrictions of adulthood overnight. It had been hoped that she might be given a maid’s position in the castle, but her destiny is at the jute mill. Charlotte isn’t even allowed to cut her hair, and she hates the prissy dresses she’s expected to wear as a guest of the Gillan family. She doesn’t understand why her friendship with Oliver has to change, just because she’s older.

‘Angry tears pricked her eyes.While they were away at school that year it seemed that someone had decreed that childhood was over, a closing down of what a girl may or may not do – and a forewarning of the hardening of roles to come that she saw in the lives of the adults around her. Well, Charlotte was not going to accept it. She would stay true to herself and true to the things she loved.’

I was sad for her, and her sister Louisa. It’s interesting to see how both girls react to the effects of being from a poorer and lower class background. I was compelled to read on and find out about these girls in adulthood, not just their relationship with Oliver, but how they were making their way in the world. I wanted Charlotte to have retained that fire and attitude and hoped that circumstances hadn’t tamed her. There is just so much to love about this novel: the well written characters; the intriguing mystery of the unnamed woman; the depth of research into the two time periods especially into societal changes, class difference and the lives of women. I heartily recommend it to all lovers of historical fiction, women’s lives and family secrets. This is one of those books that I loved so much, I will be buying a finished copy, despite having the proof. It’s so atmospheric, romantic, and deeply poignant.

An intriguing and atmospheric prologue, a brief glimpse of Caroline as an independent woman with ambitions and a touch of unconventionality – and then we join her again in 1949, married to Alasdair Gillan, living in a cottage in the grounds of Kelly Castle, coping with the demands of being a new mother. Kelly Castle is the Gillans’ ancestral home, now the home of Alasdair’s mother Martha – and their relationship is an uneasy one, with Martha constantly overstepping the mark in her attempts to help and advise (despite her determination not to replicate the remembered interference of her own mother in law).

The future of the castle is in the balance, its upkeep becoming untenable – and Caroline undertakes the task of researching its history, to increase its appeal for potential buyers but also in the hope of solving the mystery of one of the Gillan ancestors, a wife erased from family history, Alasdair’s great grandmother. A flood uncovers a body in the grounds of the cottage – the body of a woman, its age giving a possible link to the mysterious missing ancestor – and the story becomes dual time as we revisit the Gillan family in the 1870s and the full story is slowly uncovered.

At first, the earlier story is that of Charlotte and Louisa, orphaned and spending their summers with the family – Charlotte is spirited and unconventional, a talented artist, who yearns in vain to be noticed by Oliver, the family’s son, whose only interest is in the beautiful Louisa. Separated from them both by the machinations of his mother and her social aspirations, Oliver pursues the woman he still hoped to make his wife – only to find that Louisa has aspirations of her own, and his courtship is doomed to failure. That drives him, a medical student, to join a whaling ship as the ship’s doctor – his extraordinary story then becomes the book’s main focus is the hardships of his journey to the Arctic, with a few unexpected experiences and discoveries along the way.

The author’s story-telling really is quite exceptional – I found the whole story enthralling and entirely immersive as it moved seamlessly between Caroline’s attempts to solve the mystery (while continuing to struggle with that relationship with Martha) and the twists and turns of the family’s history in the late 1800s. The part of the story that will stay with me the longest will be Oliver’s Arctic journey – entirely compelling, the descriptions are stunning, the vivid depiction of life on board, the constant edge of danger, the cold you can feel in your bones. But I was also gripped by the unfolding family drama – in both the historical thread and Caroline’s story – underpinned by society’s expectations, the changing roles of women, the prevalent prejudices and norms of the time, and the depths to which they drove some of their actions.

The characterisation is quite superb – the various women (especially Charlotte – her character is simply fascinating), but also Oliver with his naivety and uncertainty as he embarks on his great adventure. The book’s emotional touches are particularly astute – at heart, this is a developing love story that tears at your heart, makes you rage at every wrong and injustice, that makes you ache at the impossibility of a happy ending. The mystery that drives the story is compelling too – the many red herrings, the dripping of clues that slowly allow the identity of that body to be discovered. The research behind the writing must have been immense – not just the realities of life on the whaling boat and its perilous journey, but all the small detail, the importance of the Dundee whaling industry to the production of jute, and the wonderfully replicated social scene of the times.

When I reviewed the author’s last book, I really struggled to find the words to convey how much I loved it – and once more those words have proved difficult to find. But Elisabeth Gifford’s writing is truly exceptional – I’ll never forget this book, and I’ll certainly always remember the way it made me feel.

(Review copied to Amazon UK, but link not yet available)

Home to the Gillan family, Kelly Castle in Scotland has been in their family for generations. A sinister discovery there, in 1949, opens up a family secret which has been hidden for over a hundred years. Charged with the task of searching through the family archives, Caroline Gillan discovers far more about Kelly Castle, and its Victorian occupants, than could ever have been imagined.

The story moves seamlessly between learning more about the Victorian owners of the castle and what's happening to the Gillan family in 1949, especially that of Caroline who has married into the family and is finding life with her mother-in-law, Martha, a little overpowering. The Victorian mystery of Kelly castle is gradually uncovered in a fascinating dual time story which takes us deep into the biting cold of an arctic winter when Oliver Gillan finds himself on board a whaling vessel bound for the Artic. Discovering more about the eponymous woman made of snow adds a tantalising mystery and as we gradually discover just who she was, so we discover why her secret has lain hidden for so long.

The story is one of stark contrasts, harshly beautiful in places, whilst gently beguiling in others, and yet is also wonderfully descriptive of a bygone age. The oppressive restrictions of the social morals of Victorian England runs alongside that of the harsh beauty of the Arctic tundra, as the proud nature of the Inuit people, their legends and customs, come gloriously to life. Atmospheric, imaginative and beautifully written, A Woman Made of Snow, combines multi-generational history with a mesmerising family drama which was every bit as good as I knew it would be from this talented author who, since her very first book, in terms of story content, has never let me down.

I was looking forward to reading this book as the cover looked so enticing and it’s been a while since I read some historical fiction.

Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy the switching of time lines and characters and found this a bit confusing. Also the endless descriptions of the castle and grounds was a bit tedious to be honest.

I’m such a huge fan of this author and always look forward to new books from her. A Woman Made Of Snow is a beautifully written, dual timeline book which is part love story, part mystery and a completely amazing read.

The story follows two timelines one set in 1950 & the other 1870’s. Unusually for me I enjoyed following both timelines equally, soon warming to the two main characters Caro and Oliver who despite being a century apart were having to deal with similar issues to each other. The wonderful descriptions of Oliver’s job as a surgeon on board an artic whaling ship was fascinating and I really enjoyed learning more about it. The author has a great way of describing the cold, stark beauty of the Arctic which made me feel like I was actually there experiencing everything alongside the characters. Some of the descriptions of the killing of the whales and seals did make my stomach churn but it was very interesting to learn more about the innuit and their traditions. Caro’s story was also very interesting as I would have loved to have a research job like she did, trying to solve an old family mystery. It was great to follow the two timelines together and see the secrets gradually be revealed.

This story has some amazing historical detail and the author has clearly done her research as she manages to bring both periods to life. There are some quite serious issues discussed in the book like prejudice and social class which I found very interesting to learn more about. Oliver’s mother perfectly demonstrated societies views in the late 1800s and I found myself very glad that things have moved on.

Overall I loved this book and will be recommending it to everyone. There is something wonderfully immersive to this book which made if very hard to put down as I was so absorbed in the story. The gradual revealing of the secrets was brilliantly done and I thought the end was hugely satisfying.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Corvus for my copy of this book. If you’re a fan of dual timeline historical fiction then I highly recommend this book!

Set in Fife, Scotland this historical fiction novel was a lovely read.
Told in a dual timeline (my favourite) it’s a family saga and mystery as well as a love story.
I thought the settings were excellent and the author must have carried out extensive research as I felt the storyline was set in both place and time.
I found Oliver’s life fascinating and forlorn me this was the most enjoyable parts of the book.
I would more from this author. Thanks to the author and the publisher for a copy of this book in return for an honest review

This was the first book I read by Elisabeth Gifford and won't surely be the last as I found it riveting and fascinating.
A dual timeline historical novel that kept me turning pages as fast as I could as the author is a talented storyteller.
The descriptions of the setting are great, the historical background is well researched, and the characters are interesting and fleshed out.
An excellent read that I strongly recommend.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This is my first Elisabeth Gifford book. I love historical fiction and I do love a dual timeline, especially when both of those timelines are firmly rooted in the past and solving a historical mystery - I'm a fan of Kate Morton books for that reason. It's probably why I read this book in only two sittings!

What I liked:
- Gifford's writing style reads effortlessly. I enjoyed the clear switch in tone between timelines and each characters perspective had a very clear voice/thought process.
- The obvious amount of research that was put into this piece; from the 40s, to the 1880's, to whaling expeditions, to Inuit culture, to Scottish castles. The novel is rich with research so delicately woven in that nothing feels too heavy.
- Oliver Gillan and Charlotte Strachan. I would have loved more from Charlotte. Just her adventures in general to be honest. Make it happen, Gifford!
-The characterisation of the more antagonistic characters in the novel are sublime. I found myself so irritated and annoyed as if they were real and I think that's some pretty damn successful writing!

What I didn't like so much:
- Whilst voices were clear, once we hit over half way we're still being introduced to new ones and it gets a little bit busy. It's still cohesive and definitely adds to the story overall but I did begin to feel like we were darting around a little.
- I'm so tired of reading about tired first time mothers who loath their mother-in-laws. Personally, I'm a bit bored of the trope, but I understand that's a personal choice. But adding to this, I felt that the relationship portrayed between Caro and Martha was inconsistent and felt a little jarring as a result.

Read if you like:
- Reading: Kate Morton / Stacey Halls / Samantha Silva
- Watching: Poldark, Outlander,
- Dual timelines
- Historical romantic mysteries.

Would I reread? I don't tend to reread mysteries as they lose their appeal after one sitting for me. But we'll see!

Really enjoyed this beautifully written story spanning generation of a Scottish family united by themes of family expectations, conflict and breaking convention. Despite her at times difficult relationship with her mother in law, Caro is researching her husband's family tree and trying to find out why his grandmother has been literally erased from it. Papers and letters lead us on a journey through whaling boats, unrequited love and clashing cultures. the evocative use of language makes us feel nauseous on the whaling boat, swept up with the shaman and frozen icy cold in Hudson Bay. We learn of a buried skeleton and the worst kind of snobbery and prejudice tearing a family apart.

Cleverly woven dual timeline historical mystery and family saga set in the 1880s and 1940s, with great evocation of time and place.

One of the first women to be awarded a degree from Cambridge, Caro has her future with her husband Alasdair mapped out in London. But things don't quite go to plan and she finds herself trying to cope with living in a run-down cottage in rural Scotland with a small baby, rationing and an overbearing mother-in-law living nearby in the family castle.

Caro is delighted when the opportunity arises to use her research skills to discover who Alasdair's great-grandmother was and why she has been removed from the family tree. As well as unravelling the mystery, we explore the family dynamics, especially with regard to mothers-in-law, and learn about the first Arctic explorers and whaling ships.

An exciting adventure and a great exploration of daughter-in-law / mother-in-law relationships

A Woman Made of Snow is a captivating and vividly evoked historical drama set across two interconnected timelines and centred around a century-long family mystery within the Gillan clan. Beautifully written, unexpectedly gripping and decidedly astute on relations with the in-laws, it is a very readable story of one woman struggling to find her way amidst domestic upheaval and an overbearing mother-in-law. The freedom that she enjoyed during the war has led independent Cambridge history graduate, Caroline “Caro” Winters, to imagine a rather different life for herself and husband-to-be Alasdair Gillan post-war, namely mixing in the academic circles of London. That was until Alasdair’s only offer of a post came from St Andrews and Caro discovered she was expecting a baby. Living in a simple cottage within the grounds of Kelly Castle, Alasdair’s isolated family estate in Fife, Caro finds herself part of a family very different to her own and struggles to rub along with her mother-in-law, Martha.

In an effort to keep hold of the crumbling family estate, Martha employs Caro to resume the work of her late husband and complete the family history. A long-standing family mystery surrounds the identity of Alasdair’s great-grandmother, with the woman in question legitimately married to his grandfather, expunged from all records. To historian Caro the mystery is manna from heaven that not only immerses her in her husband’s family history but, more importantly, sparks her back into life. When bones are discovered within the grounds of the estate, Caro’s quest goes from curiosity to something far more significant and decidedly darker. Narrated largely from the perspective of Caro with contributions from Martha, mother, son and daughter-in-law soon find themselves becoming co-conspirators in a bid to bring the past to light. A second timeline from the 1800’s follows the life of Alasdair’s great-grandfather, Oliver Gillan, as he progresses from boy to man and leaves Kelly Castle for medical studies in Edinburgh and in a twist of fate serves as surgeon on the whaling ship undertaking a risky voyage to Baffin Island and the Arctic. Revealing just what did happen to Alasdair’s great-grandmother, and what she did to deserve being removed from all records, along with the identity of the bones proves a fascinating story that shines a light on Scotland’s Arctic whaling history and the Inuit culture, both hitherto completely unknown to me.

An undercurrent of tension in the relationship between Caro and Martha runs throughout the 1949 timeline and is brilliantly observed. Desperate not to repeat the frosty welcome that she received from Alasdair’s exacting grandmother and hopeful of making a friend out of her daughter-in-law, the mystery provides Martha with the key to making sense of her past and ultimately embracing the future in Caro. What stands out in this novel, be it in Kelly Castle, the jute mills and whaling ships in Dundee or the Arctic, is the exquisite sense of place that Elisabeth Gifford conjures up. Moving back and forth between timelines, the book is a sweeping, well-researched and truly evocative affair with a terrifically satisfying mystery element.