The Virgin of Small Plains - Nancy Pickard

Rating: 4 Tell a Friend over a Derby pie (ääää)

Pages: 351

Challenges: A-Z (V Author)

Synopsis (From BN.com)

Small Plains, Kansas, January 23, 1987: In the midst of a deadly blizzard, eighteen-year-old Rex Shellenberger scours his father’s pasture, looking for helpless newborn calves. Then he makes a shocking discovery: the naked, frozen body of a teenage girl, her skin as white as the snow around her. Even dead, she is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. It is a moment that will forever change his life and the lives of everyone around him. The mysterious dead girl–the “Virgin of Small Plains”–inspires local reverence. In the two decades following her death, strange miracles visit those who faithfully tend to her grave; some even believe that her spirit can cure deadly illnesses. Slowly, word of the legend spreads.But what really happened in that snow-covered field? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the Virgin’s body was found, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds? Why do the town’s three most powerful men–Dr. Quentin Reynolds, former sheriff Nathan Shellenberger, and Judge, Tom Newquist–all seem to be hiding the details of that night? Seventeen years later, when Mitch suddenly returns to Small Plains, simmering tensions come to a head, ghosts that had long slumbered whisper anew, and the secrets that some wish would stay buried rise again from the grave of the Virgin. Abby–never having resolved her feelings for Mitch–is now determined to uncover exactly what happened so many years ago to tear their lives apart.

Review

I liked this book a lot! It kept me wondering what the mystery was and how "the Virgin" got killed. I think it did a good job of reveling only small pieces of the story at one time so you wanted to keep going to find out what happened. I liked the main characters a lot and liked the story of 3 friends whose parents were friends to. This story pulls you in from the beginning when it leaves you wondering why a prominent Doctor would disfigure a body so it can't be identified. What he didn't realize is one of the kids saw him doing this and events start to unfold. Why was the Doctor doing this? Why did the witness parents shuttle him away so no one knew what he saw?