Raised in poverty in rural Colorado, Clara Coleman realizes her dreams of becoming a successful teacher and a mother and spends her time reaching out for order and justice. However, things change when new people--ignorant of the hunger, pain, and struggle of the past--move in and threaten to take away all that she had accomplished.

"Lily Higgins Beausoleil, respected mother, grandmother, bank employee and upstanding citizen of bucolic Gold Flume, has passed. A suicide no one will mention. Now the grieving family and town is turned upside down as her secret life is slowly uncovered. Joanne Greenberg, renowned author of the classic, I Never promised You a Rose Garden, spins an intriguing tale of family, betrayal, false appearances, and a stained family legacy in this, her 20th...

In the isolated ski-resort town of Gold Flume, longtime Sheriff Jay Isaacs, prepares to confront three teens for a condo break-in. On his way to the county seat of Aureole, with the teens in custody in the dead of winter, an earthquake shakes the mountain and creates an avalanche which seals off the small town from the rest of civilization.