Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside of work, much of her free time is spent looking for her next great read and planning her next snack.
Find her on Twitter at @Erica_Eze_.
I love to read books that evoke the season I’m currently experiencing. I feel like it makes the reading experience at least a little more immersive. As we hurtle towards the official beginning of winter, the idea of snuggling up with some books set during the winter sounds more and more cozy to me. Even if some of them take place right after an apocalypse (like Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow).
In addition to Rice’s Anishinaabe-centered post-apocalyptic tale, below are tragic tales based on traditional Japanese folklore, a sweet bookstore-based YA romance, and even a cozy mystery set in Ireland.
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
As I understand it, the cause of the apocalypse that happens in Moon of the Crusted Snow isn’t explained, only felt one day, when a small northern Anishinaabe community suddenly loses cell service. Electricity is the next to go, which spells grave trouble as a harsh winter approaches. As the town tries to ration out its supplies and hold on, a stranger arrives, having escaped from the south, throwing what little order was left into chaos. As more die and become hopeless, tensions harden, but one person emerges as a leader. Young father Evan Whitesky leads a group of young friends back to the old Anishinaabe ways that looked to the land. This may be the solution to dissolving the chaos, but they aren’t out of the storm yet.
There’s a sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow that just came out titled Moon of the Turning Leaves, for once you’ve read this one.
Love in Winter Wonderland by Abiola Bello
In this YA romance, 17-year-old Trey is mega popular at his UK high school, and in a relationship with Blair. The two of them make this sort of power couple.
Then there’s introverted Ariel, who wants to go to art school like her late father, and so needs a job to save up money for tuition. She applies for a job at the Wonderland bookstore—which Trey’s parents own—and gets it. Now Trey and Ariel are working together, but don’t exactly like each other. But when they learn that recent gentrification may lead to Trey’s family’s bookstore being sold to developers, the two come together to try to save the business. And maybe they end up liking each other. Just a bit.
Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales by CLAMP
From the all-female manga artist group CLAMP comes something a little different from their usual. There are five tragic stories in Shirahime-Syo that are all connected by snow and yuki-onna, a mythological “snow woman” from Japanese folklore who is sometimes good…and sometimes not.
Death in D Minor by Alexia Gordon
This is the second book in a cozy mystery series that has quite a few unique elements. The first book introduced Gethsemane Brown, a Black American expatriate living in a haunted cottage in Ireland who starts to solve murder cases as an amateur sleuth… obviously.
In this book, her cottage is about to be sold by the landlord, her ghost friend has disappeared, and her brother-in-law shows up for Christmas only to be accused of stealing an expensive antique. So naturally, she goes undercover at a charity ball to find out the true thief but unwittingly conjures the ghost of an eighteenth-century sea captain and is accused of murdering the ball’s host. Also naturally: sis is pressedT.
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins
Sokcho is the border town between North and South Korea that attracts tourists during the warmer months. But it’s winter when a middle-aged French cartoonist begrudgingly comes into the unkempt inn that a young, half Korean woman is working at. The two form an awkward relationship, as he convinces her to show him around for an authentic experience, and she gets the chance to spend time with someone who reminds her of the French father she never met. This is a subtle exploration of identity, alienation, and the beauty of North and South Korea in the winter. It has also won the National Book Award for translated literature.
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