Blackberry Winter

I was offered the chance to review Sarah Jio's debut novel, The Violets of March, in 2011. I am sooooo very glad I said yes. And I've happily said yes to every one since!

Sarah's latest book is Blackberry Winter. And it might just be my favourite - so far.

In the opening chapter we meet Vera Ray. Times are tough in 1933 and Vera is lucky to have a job cleaning rooms at night at a posh hotel in Seattle. But it also means she is forced to leave her three year old son Daniel alone in their attic rooms. After her shift finishes she races home through a freak snowstorm (it's the 2nd of May!) and finds Daniel's bed empty.....

The book then moves forward almost eighty years and we meet a Seattle newspaper reporter named Claire. It's the second of show more May and a snowstorm has hit Seattle. Claire is assigned to write a piece for the newspaper on this anomaly. Her research uncovers the story of a missing boy named Daniel.

Jio alternates her narrative between the past and present, revealing a little more each chapter. (which made it hard for me to find a place to stop for the night!)

I slipped easily into the story. Jio sets the scenes and establishes the players effortlessly. I was drawn to both women leads - they are both likable and sympathetic characters. Although there is the mystery of what happened to Daniel, there is much more to the story. Claire's marriage is falling apart and she has yet to deal with a heartbreaking loss in her life. And what of Vera? Daniel was a much loved child - but who was his father?

As Claire investigates further, connections appear between her life and Vera's. I love the serendipity of it all - it makes you think (hope) that maybe, just maybe, there are things beyond our control that happen for a reason.

In Blackberry Winter, Sarah Jio explores the connection between mother and child, love and loss, regret and redemption with emotion and candor.

Emily from The Violets of March makes a cameo appearance in this book as well. I was glad to see how her life has progressed and it was nice to visit Bainbridge Island again.

The title? Blackberry Winter "is old-fashioned weather jargon for a late-season cold snap - think of plunging temperatures and snowfall in May, just when the delicate white flowers are beginning to appear on the blackberry vines."

One of the main characters loves hot chocolate. I think a big steaming mug of cocoa would be the perfect accompaniment for this warm, rich, satisfying book. Settle back in a comfy armchair and enjoy yet another wonderful read from Sarah Jio. show less

I received this book through the Early Reviewers program (thank you!) yesterday, and started it last night. I absolutely could not put it down all day and just finished it. I haven't been that sucked in by a book in a while!
Usually when I read a story that jumps between two periods of time I am drawn to one story more than the other and almost skimming the one that isn't my favorite. That was definitely not the case with this book as both stories were amazing. Sarah Jio did an excellent job of blending the two stories together so that it truly was like one. I loved both Vera and Claire. I loved the ways that they were similar without being too much so. I loved that I expected the ending to be predictable, but it absolutely wasn't. And I show more love that I have found a new author to add to my list of favorites. show less

I know I'm about to read an emotional story when the book's dedication makes me cry. BLACKBERRY WINTER was both heartbreaking and uplifting, so have a box of tissues handy when you read it.

A blackberry winter is an old-fashioned term used to describe a late spring snowfall, which is what happens at the beginning of this book. Reporter Claire Aldridge awakens on May 2nd to find Seattle covered under a blanket of snow. At work, she is assigned to do a story on the storm, and an identical one that happened on the same day 77 years prior. While researching the story, she discovers the unsolved case of a missing boy. Three-year old Daniel Ray was abducted during the snowstorm in 1933 while his mother Vera was at work.

After being in a show more terrible accident a year ago, Claire has become a shell of her former self. Her marriage is crumbling, and in spite of counseling, she can not let go of the pain. Claire becomes engrossed in the mystery surrounding Daniel's disappearance, the first thing to spark her interest since that terrible day. As she digs deeper for clues to what happened to Daniel and Vera, some shocking secrets are revealed, ones that touch her on a personal level.

I enjoyed how the story alternated between Claire's point of view in present day and Vera's in the past. I could feel every emotion the women experienced, and I sobbed with them a few times.

BLACKBERRY WINTER may sound like a sorrowful tale, but it was so much more. It was about love and forgiveness. It was an eye-opening look at injustice in the 1930s. It was a puzzling mystery that kept me hooked from beginning to end. It was inspirational too. Solving the mystery of Daniel and Vera gave Claire the strength to save herself.

BLACKBERRY WINTER is a story that will haunt my thoughts for a long time. It makes me want to hug my kids and never let go. 5-stars!

My Thoughts on the Audio: This book was narrated by Tara Sands, and I am so happy I chose to listen to the audio version. I loved the emotion that Tara Sands added to the story. Even her male voices worked for me, mainly because she didn't try to be overly "manly" with them. Beautifully done!

SOURCE: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, however I listened to the audio version I borrowed from the library. show less

In 2011, Sarah Jio was a name frequently bandied about as an author that deserves watching as she quickly garnered rave reviews with her first two novels. With Blackberry Winter her third novel, she shows that hers is not a flash-in-the-pan notoriety but rather a well-deserved beginning to what one hopes will be a long and successful career.

Blackberry Winter tells the two separate but mysteriously connected stories of Vera Ray and Claire Aldridge. Vera is a single mother at a time where single mothers were practically social pariahs. Claire is a young, successful career woman who is facing her own demons. Both experience the most painful of losses a woman can ever experience. Even better, the twists of fate do not stop there. As the show more story flits back and forth between Vera’s experiences to Claire’s investigations, a reader is brought along on a ride full of happenstances that are a bit too predictable. The coincidences are too convenient, the connections between the two women are too pat for believability.

Even worse is the theme of the haves versus the have-nots that runs throughout the story. Vera’s abject poverty and the issues that brings is in sharp contrast to Claire’s abundance of wealth and her issues, and if it were not for Claire’s fundamental loss and pain that no amount of money can fix, it would be all too easy to become disgusted with her seemingly insignificant marital problems as compared to Vera’s much more basic human needs of shelter and food.

Yet, as annoying as predictability can be and as clichéd as the rich-versus-poor theme is, Blackberry Winter is utterly captivating. Ms. Jio rises above the clichés to create a story about the most basic of needs – love and security. Claire and Vera, in their collective pain and regardless of their financial backgrounds, are each seeking solace, and their neediness drives the emotional connection between character and reader. Their emotions are raw and brutal, and the resolving of the mystery behind Vera’s loss assuages only the edges of those brittle emotions.

Highly evocative and completely haunting, Blackberry Winter showcases Ms. Jio’s writing abilities. Vera and Claire are brimming with life, and her descriptions of Seattle, both past and present, conjure up mental images of the city as well as drawing on the other senses of smell and hearing. It is an absorbing story, one in which it is all too easy to finish within a few hours, and given the descriptions of cold and snow throughout the novel, it is a perfect Sunday afternoon fall/winter read.

Acknowledgments: Thank you to LibraryThing’s Early Reader Program for my review copy! show less

Basically, this is the story of a woman reporter, Claire, who has lost a child and is trying to find her way out of grief. What finally helps is delving into a 1933 mystery about the disappearance of a three-year-old boy.

I struggled at first with the slow sadness of this book; we follow a modern-day woman dealing with the loss of her child and a failing marriage alternating with the story of Vera, a single mother who is trying to survive during the Depression and then loses her son. This is not an upbeat book, but it is heartfelt and has lovely moments of truth.

I questioned a few of the actions and/or reactions of characters and whether they ring true (but don't want to list them or give away story lines), but I've decided they are show more more than plot devices. They're more part of the theme, that, as in real life, we humans don't always do what we should do or even what we'd normally do. We can't always trust what we've heard or assume. In fact, Claire's questions that should have been asked before about someone else's life, are her first steps towards her own healing process.

There were also more coincidences than we'd find in normal life, but that is often what makes for a full story and appropriate in this case with an experienced reporter uncovering clues.



The bottom line was I cared about what happened to these characters, wanted to keep reading to find out more, and experienced love and loss with them. show less

A crazy snowstorm blankets Seattle in May, but it's not the first time. A fluke snowstorm fell in May of 1933 too and the editor of The Herald wants Claire Aldridge to write a feature article about the May storms--about Blackberry Winter.

During Claire's research of the storm of '33, she finds a newspaper article about Vera and her three year old son who went missing. Vera was a young maid at a high end hotel and had left her son home alone at night while she worked. Authorities believed her three year old, Daniel, ran away during the snowstorm. Claire doesn't believe it for a minute and wonders what happened to Daniel? Were mother and son ever reunited?

Claire's own life is in shambles, but this story seems to ignite a fire in her she show more thought was gone. Can she solve the mystery? Can there be a happily ever after? Can Claire find her way again?

Once again Sarah Jio proves she has the amazing ability to transport her readers into not one, but two stories in two different times. I fell in love with poor Vera. A young mother alone in the world struggling to make ends meet. As I read along, I was cheering Claire on wanting her to hurry and solve the mystery of Daniel. I wanted a happy reunion! It wasn't just me who wanted the mystery solved, but it was as if Mother Nature herself was demanding resolution with the return of the Blackberry Winter. I fell in love with poor Vera. A young mother alone in the world struggling to make ends meet. As I read along, I was cheering Claire on wanting her to hurry and solve the mystery of Daniel. I wanted a happy reunion! It wasn't just me who wanted the mystery solved, but it was as if Mother Nature herself was demanding resolution with the return of the Blackberry Winter. show less

Lovely, evocative writing by Sarah Jio, who weaves together two stories, with a freak Seattle snowstorm in May as the tying element. In 1933, single mom Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son, Daniel, goodnight and goes to work the night-shift at a local hotel. She returns home to find her son missing. In 2010, Seattle Herald reporter Claire Aldridge, is assigned to write about the current storm and learns of the prior storm and the unsolved abduction. Claire doggedly pursues the story despite the potential personal loss it may entail.

Jio manages to alternate chapters seamlessly between Vera Ray in 1933 and Claire Aldridge in 2010, portraying each time period quite well, but linking the stories in several ways, not just the two stories show more of love between a wealthy Seattle man and a woman from lesser means. show less