It’s 1949 and Caroline and Alasdair Gillan have moved from London to Fife, in Scotland, for Alasdair’s work. Moving into a cottage on Alasdair’s family estate - Kelly Castle - the urbanite, educated and independent Caro finds herself frustrated with life on her mother-in-law’s doorstep. That is, until she is offered the opportunity to find out more about the Gillan family tree and solve a century-old mystery; a mystery made even more shocking by the discovery of a body buried in an unmarked grave.

I love historical fiction, dual timelines, and a good ‘digging-in-the-archives’ style mystery, so ordinarily this would my ideal kind of book, but for some reason this one didn’t quite captivate me entirely. I very much enjoyed the timeline set in the 1880s but found the main story set in the 1940s a little bit repetitive. There were also a handful of fleshed-out characters that felt somewhat superfluous. The novel does, however, portray the nature of in-law relationships well and to see how this carries down through three generations, and into a fourth, was cleverly done.

Overall, an enjoyable enough read, with a fascinating insight into the fishing and whaling industry and the explorers of the late 1800s, plus of different cultures and society at this time.

Many thanks to the publishers, Atlantic Books, and to NetGalley for the advance copy on which this review is based.

"A Woman Made of Snow" is an epic tale of love, hate, bigotry and family relationships set in Scotland and Arctic Canada. The dual timelines are late Victorian (about 1880) and post WW2 (1949).

The attention to period detail is wonderful and the suspense is kept going as to the identity of the body buried in the Laundry Cottage garden. As there were limited investigation techniques available in 1949, and definitely no DNA, the identification process is a fairly protracted affair.

How many readers will be aware that whale oil was an essential product for the jute industry during the nineteenth century - hence the importance of the whaling fleet in Dundee. Whaling was a treacherous occupation which relied to a certain extent on the goodwill and help of the native Inuits of Hudson Bay. It's a shame that these people, with their intimate knowledge of their environment and ability to survive in such harsh conditions, were generally treated so badly by Europeans. Mind you, in those days of Empire, the Europeans generally seemed to think that they were a cut above any native peoples and tended to treat them poorly.

There is also a great deal about personal relationships in this book - between siblings, lovers and particularly the daughter-in-law / mother-in-law one of Caro and Martha.

This is a wonderful and engrossing read and is highly recommended.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

Thank you to #NetGalley for allowing me to read #AWomanMadeOfSnow by#ElisabethGifford
Caroline Gillan has followed her husband to his ancestral home in Scotland when he obtains a position at a university there.
But being at home with a small baby and no way of getting around resentment starts to fester both against Alasdair and his mother Martha who seems to criticise everything Caro does. Trying to put the family’s archives in order seems to be a way for Caro to feel part of the family and when she is told of a mystery surrounding Alasdairs grandmother she can’t wait to get started. Going back and forth over a century this story tells a tale of love and fear. A story that will capture your attention and keep you reading.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A well researched story taking you from Cold Kelly Castle to the even colder depths some hundred years previous of the Arctic Circle sailing on Whalers from Dundee . Caro is struggling to cope living with her mother in law in apparently Kelly Castle but is asked to research a missing family member. In doing so she unearths a tragic tale of love, hate prejudices and revenge from a century previous. All is not as it seems either in 1949 where the same traits abound . The storylines are intricately woven to make an excellent read

A wonderfully rich story of family, class, discrimination and betrayal.

The story is written over two timelines. Caro is trying to juggle motherhood alongside her mother in law. She is tasked with helping the family to uncover the secret of her husband’s mysterious great-great grandmother.

Beautifully written prose with a tale that takes you to the Artic and explores the lives of whalers and Inuit. Atmospheric and very interesting. The characters are well rounded with a mixture of loveable and loathe-able for good measure!

A story told in two parts, past and the present, very enjoyable and had me page turning.
I received a free copy of this book from netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoy reading books by Elisabeth Gifford, she has a beautiful style of writing. I was delighted to get the opportunity to read her newest book and I was not disappointed. A Woman Made of Snow is a fantastic story and I can't wait to read more from the author in the future.

Life hasn’t panned out as Caro expected. Rather than lecturing history at a London university alongside her new husband Alasdair and continuing to exercise the independence she found during the war, she finds herself a young mother, transplanted to her husband’s family estate in Scotland and living within a stone’s throw of her rather over-attentive mother-in-law, Martha.

The Gillans have lived at Kelly Castle since Alasdair’s great-great-grandparents; but due to financial necessity Martha is considering turning over the property to the National Trust. In order to do so, she asks Caro to complete the family history of the property begun by her late husband, from the time of the Gillans reclaiming it from ruins, and in particular to investigate a mysterious ancestor who seems to have been wiped from the records.

Who could resist the mystery of a family tree with one name blacked out? Who was “Mrs Gillan”, Caro’s husband’s great-grandmother and wife of Oliver Gillan, and what did she do to deserve being deleted from history? But matters take on a sinister turn when a freak flood in the garden of Caro and Alasdair’s cottage in the grounds of Kelly Castle leads to the discovery of bones. Could this be the missing Mrs Gillan?

“A Woman Made of Snow”, by Elisabeth Gifford, is a great story that kept me guessing right to the end. Moving between Caro’s life in the 1940s back to the 1800s, the author gradually reveals more about the various Gillan ancestors and the world they inhabited, from the jute mills of Dundee to the whaling boat Narwhal, and its dangerous voyage to Baffin Island and beyond in the hunt for whale oil.

Being an outsider is a theme that runs throughout this book, from Caro trying to fit in with the ways of Kelly Castle (in an overheard conversation to make you shudder, she hears herself referred to by her new sister-in-law as “very grammar school and suburban”!), to the orphaned children staying at Kelly in the holidays with Oliver, to Oliver’s mysterious wife, and even Caro’s mother-in-law Martha - once a new bride at Kelly herself. The author perfectly portrays the disconnect Caro feels entering a family that’s more different from her own than she’d anticipated, and the awful, fake cheerful politeness shown by Martha to Caro, and vice versa, as both try to establish their place. But the most intriguing character of all is the lost Mrs Gillan, Oliver’s wife. To say more would spoil the story, but I enjoyed getting to know this character and her place in the family’s history.

This is a great book, and one I would recommend to others - it is an intriguing mystery, with family strife, period detail and romance all there for good measure!

“A Woman Made of Snow” is released in the UK on 7th October 2021. Many thanks to NetGalley, Atlantic Books and of course the author for providing an ebook copy.

I love Elisabeth Gifford's writing style and have enjoyed all her other books. This book was no different. Set in the late 40s and also in the mid to late 1800s in Scotland, this story had plenty of mystery but also a human element about relationships as Caroline, in the 40s, tries to discover who the mysterious Mrs Gillan was. Recommended.

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed Elisabeth Gifford’s previous novels but I’m not sure that this is one of her best. Set in a Fife castle near St Andrews, the story moves from a family in the 1940s back to one of their ancestors in the 1800s. There is a mystery to solve, relationship problems, family tensions and lovely descriptions of the Dundee whaling industry and life in the Arctic. Lots to digest but the story skipped about a lot and never really settled to a satisfying read.

Political idealist Caro has big plans for herself and Alasdair when they marry after the war is over. However, honeymoon baby Felicity puts paid to her plans and the couple locate to Scotland when Alasdair takes up a lecturing post at St Andrews. They live in a simple grace and favour cottage next to Kelly Castle, Fife which is owned by Alasdair’s mother, Martha. The estate and castle, like many others, is in financial straits and plans need to be made. Martha offers historian Caro a job as the castle archivist through which they learn some incredible facts about the family’s past. The story alternates between 1949 chiefly from Caro’s perspective and we follow a storyline from the nineteenth century involving Oliver, Alasdair’s great grandfather.

This is a very enjoyable, well written historical novel with colourful scenes which come alive as you read. There are some excellent descriptions of Kelly Castle from which a real atmosphere exudes. Similarly good are descriptions from Oliver’s time which is firmly set in its historical context in Dundee with the jute factories and whaling ships. Oliver’s story is absolutely fascinating taking us from the castle, aboard a whaling ship where he serves as a surgeon and into the Arctic. There are some superb descriptions here with some wonderfully colourful characters. I especially enjoy the inclusion of the Inuit and we get a strong sense of their traditions and so on. This part of the story is heartbreaking in places and is very vivid. Society views especially of native people are very unsettling to us in the twenty first century but are in the context of the times and this is very clearly demonstrated by Oliver’s mother. She is not a pleasant woman and through her the class divisions and differences are also shown. I love the air of mystery that surrounds Alasdair’s heritage and this evolves well through the storytelling. The early hints at ghostliness do fizzle out though which I think is a shame. The characterisation is good as are the relationships between some of them, at times there is misunderstanding and at others abrasion and dislike. Although the ending is satisfying it is a bit too neatly tied up in a pretty bow in my opinion.

Overall, though this is a compelling and very interesting read. It’s clearly been well researched and the author has piqued my interest to go to Dundee and it’s museums to learn more about the connections between Scotland and the Inuits.

With thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Books, Corvus for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

Stories set in Scotland are like catnip for me and I forever look for new authors who write stories set there, but this was sadly not for me. The story was convoluted with its back and forth in the timelines, the dialogue did not feel to me as if it was how people actually talk to each other and the overall "mystery" was just not my thing, it just never really made me feel intrigued.

With grateful thanks to corpus netgalley and Elisabeth Gifford for an arc in return for an honest opinion.
Firstly I have to say this is one of the most beautiful books I've read in a long time,
Elisabeth Gifford has done it again.
This being a dual timeline and worked seamlessly, it brought a tale of a family saga from the mid 40's and dating back to the 18 hundreds when a a great grandmother went missing under very odd circumstances the story of Caro Martha and alasdair and young flissy and a beautiful Scottish castle its a story of love loss interfering mother in laws but a beautiful story emerges we all need friends no matter what I really can't praise this book enough and can highly recommend a fabulously poignant tale I would love to give more stars but sadly one can't

A Woman Made of Snow is a strange historical drama. The main story is happening at the end of 1949 and the mystery takes the readers back to the end of the nineteenth century. I say it’s strange because the story has too many storylines, too many voices. Some of those storylines work well into the main story but some do not go anywhere.

It’s a family drama, it has difficult in-laws, misunderstandings, traveling to faraway places, bigotry and mysteries that are resolved with talking to the right people. It’s a historical story that is too politically correct. The thought behind this story is interesting, just the end result could be better.

Part mystery, part "Who Do You Think You Are", "A Woman Made of Snow" by Elizabeth Gifford is an enjoyable read. Set in two time periods, Caro is new to Kelly Castle and the mysteries of the Gillan family. When she is invited to research and document the missing Mrs Gillian, who would have thought it would uncover what it does. Luckily they all kept really good diaries and were prolific letter writers, so that the story could be pieced together.

I enjoyed this book,but at times felt like it didn't really know what it was trying to be? Mystery,detective story,family drama?
The strands at times felt a bit too separate for me.
There was a certain level of predictability to the plot too.

That said,I enjoyed the characters,and the setting.
It was an easy read (which for me is not an insult).
Some historic bits in there that were of interest,so all in all I was a happy reader.

I’ve read another of this authors book and enjoyed this one as much as the last! She writes with ease and the books are easy to follow though its obvious she resarches well! Her historical information is very good! A story told in two parts, past and the present, very enjoyable and had me page turning.