WHAT THE ICE REMEMBERS: A Christian Christmas Romance of Second Chances (Broken Ground)

The ice came down the night Advent began.By morning Balsam Hollow had no power, no road out, and no roof on the church that has carried its music for a hundred years. The Fraser firs that pay for this valley's Christmas are lying broken in the rows. And Lorna Decker, choir director, tree farmer, and the woman who has quietly carried this town's grief for most of her life, is still standing in front of a cold, frightened choir in a packing barn, giving the downbeat to a God she stopped expecting to answer.Gid Ackerman comes up the iced gorge with a volunteer crew, a load of lumber, and no intention of staying. He has rebuilt other people's homes for years because he could not save his own. He reads a wrecked building from the load down, finds the one beam still carrying weight, and is gone before anyone learns his name.Then his crew opens the wall of the old manse beside the church, and the storm gives back what the valley buried with its carols. Nine Christmases ago Lorna's sister Ivy walked out and left her baby girl behind. Everyone said she ran. Lorna never believed it. What comes out of that wall says Ivy never packed to leave at all.Somebody in Balsam Hollow has been loved and trusted for nine years. Somebody wants that wall closed back up, and the crew off this mountain before the thaw.A cold case under the floorboards, a rebuild crew who work for free, and two people past fifty who both quit hoping for a second home. Faith that costs something, a town worth saving, and a Christmas nobody in the Hollow will forget. Book 2 in the Broken Ground Series. Each book can be read as a standalone