Search - The Snow Garden: A Novel

Atherton University, freshman year. Kathryn, Randall, and Jesse come from different worlds, but find themselves unexpectedly drawn together. For each of them, college promises a bright future and a way to disconnect from a dark, haunted past. But as winter sets in, their secret histories threaten to disrupt the layers of deceit that protect their fragile new lives.

One dark night a professor's wife is drowned in an icy river, and rumors of murder threaten the safe haven of Atherton. Within days, Randall's illicit affair with the professor is about to be revealed in the local press. Then, an old mystery emerges from the shadows as people recall the discovery of a co-ed's corpse in a frozen creek twenty years before. Gradually, the three friends find themselves snared in a web of lies, a web spun long before their days of Atherton. Snowbound on the university campus, they are unwitting captives of a malevolent force that drives them inexorably toward the "snow garden" of the title—a place of nightmares that is all too real, and all too near.

Electrifying in its intensity, with a plot that accelerates with every page, The Snow Garden is an unforgettable read—a psychological thriller and a modern horror story that probes the terrible weight of the past on the present and the corrosive power of secrets. Christopher Rice proved himself to be a remarkable talent with the best-selling A Density of Souls. His stunning new novel will establish him as a master of his craft.