From the moment Ruth Sanders rips a glossy photo of a glacier from a magazine, she believes her fate is intertwined with the ice. Her unsettling fascination bewilders her daughter, sixteen-year-old Sylvie, still shaken by her father's leaving.

From the moment Ruth Sanders rips the glossy photo of a glacier from a magazine, she believes herself fated by ice. Her fascination bewilders sixteen-year-old Sylvie, unsettled already by her father s leaving. When Ruth s obsession grows to encompass a man, she uproots Sylvie and her sister from their small Midwestern town to follow him to Alaska. At the glacier, she and Sylvie tangle with wilderness, religion, a divided community, and one another. As their passions braid and cross, the exposed secrets of mother and daughter test their love.

In precise and evocative prose, "Cold Spell" tells the parallel stories of a mother who risks everything to start over and a daughter whose longings threaten to undo them."