Kathleen McElwain, the narrator of St. Vincent's outstanding first novel, became a widow at 22 when her husband died in a car crash. Now 27, she works in a store "tucked away in the forgotten forests of Pennsylvania, high in the northernmost tendrils of the Blue Ridge Mountains." There, she makes coffee and hamburgers for the occasional hunter or hiker, but most of the time she's engrossed in a book, relishing the solitude of not seeing another person for days. Late one snowy afternoon, she's surprised when a stranger shows up, not dressed for winter and seemingly without any transportation. Daniil-he doesn't give a last name-says he's a student from Uzbekistan. Kathleen becomes inexplicably drawn to Daniil, whose stories make her wonder about finally leaving the area. Eventually, he admits to her he's wanted for a serious crime in his home country. Kathleen's emotions are on high alert when she discovers an odd connection to Daniil's past and the secrets of her marriage. Against the background of the "war on terror," St. Vincent sensitively explores her believable characters' motives in this tightly plotted tale. Agent: Stacia Decker, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary. (Nov.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A mysterious visitor from Uzbekistan forms an unlikely friendship with a stunned young woman in retreat from life in rural Pennsylvania.Four years after the car crash that killed her husband, Amos, Kathleen is still "enveloped in a haze of fear" that clearly has a source beyond the wreck she survived. Having quit college at Amos' behest, she's now marking time, working at a store in a state park visited off-season by only a few hunters, hikersand, one day in December 2007, a walk-in named Daniil who wants to stay at the park hostel. Being the only guest suits him just fine; it emerges that people are looking for Daniil and he has good reason to hide. "I betrayed people," he tells Kathleen, but whether he was a government informant or something worse remains a question as the two tentatively bond over books (Crime and Punishment perhaps a slightly too-obvious metaphor) and chess. Around them, St. Vincent quietly paints a portrait of small-town, working-class America, hollowed out by economic insecurity, where the only way out seems to be joining the Army, like Kathleen's brother and her best friend Beth's husband, to fight wars whose purposes no one understands. "They sold us pain and said it was fine," Kathleen thinks late in the novel, as she's begun to acknowledge how deeply angry she is for many reasons. "They had such contempt for us, and they thought we didn't see it. Just because we lived where we lived and were who we were." The author's background as a human rights attorney and advocate for victims of domestic violence serves her well as she makes subtle connections between socio-economic powerlessness and male rage as the story moves toward a harrowing denouement that hauntingly suggests even evildoers can be consumed with remorse. St. Vincent closes with an image as ambivalent and resonant as the rest of her fine work: "light interrupted by darkness, darkness interrupted by light."Sensitive prose conveys both compassion and outrage in this impressive debut. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Human-rights attorney St. Vincent's debut novel is a nuanced look at tragedy and reconciliation. Physically and emotionally scarred from a car accident that killed her husband when she was 22, Kathleen lives with her aging grandmother near a rural state park in Pennsylvania. She works at a diner and keeps her life contained. Though her best friend encourages her to go back to school to finish her bachelor's degree, Kathleen feels too entrenched to see any future beyond her day-to-day. In the middle of winter, a stranger from Uzbekistan arrives and moves into the hostel up the road. He seems to be running from someone. He and Kathleen get to know each other, both harboring secrets. But as she learns more about what he left behind, Kathleen's perceptions begin to change. Set against the early years of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the beginnings of the opioid crisis, Ways to Hide in Winter is an atmospheric exploration of abuse, endurance, and life-altering choices.--Laura Chanoux Copyright 2018 Booklist