Frozen by Mary Casanova

I can't believe it took me so long to get to this.  It was one that I had hoped to pick up at BEA, but didn't.  And then, a publicist from University of Minnesota Press contacted me when I mentioned on my blog that I didn't get it, and offered to send me a copy.  So I do feel really bad that I didn't get to it till now.  On the bright side, I didn't really notice it in my bookstore until just recently anyway, so now I can actually hand sell it to customers.  And, it is my 12th, and final book I've read for the TBR Pile Reading Challenge.
It was a pretty good book.  Historical fiction, about the area of Minnesota near the Canadian border.  For some reason in my head I was thinking of more the Seattle area, probably because of the town name of Ranier?  Which in my head meant Mount Rainier in Washington.  Crazy me.  But anyway, it was about a logging area, and during the time of prohibition.  The main character is Sadie Rose, who is a foster child by a senator.  Every summer they go stay in their cabin along the shores of Rainy Lake.  Sadie Rose hasn't spoken since she lost her mother when she was a child.  About all she remembers of her actual mother is that she had worked in a brothel, and that one night she had followed her mother out into the snowy night, and that was where she'd been found, frozen, but still alive.  Sadie one day finds some pictures of her mother, and all of a sudden she finds her voice.  Slowly, and not with everyone, and as she learns more about her mother, she talks more and more, until she finds she must run away.  She overhears her foster father talking with another corrupt businessman, and realizes she is in danger if they realize what she is remembering.  But since she can't remember it all, she runs away, and soon ends up at the hotel where her mother had worked.  She begins fishing around for information.  Finding out many new things, that again lead to her being in danger.  She sees her friend Owen, a boy she's begun seeing as more than a friend, and he helps her escape back closer to home.  He takes her to stay with her friend Trinity, a girl from a wealthy family.  She learns that Trinity has a bit of a mental disorder soon, and it all comes to a head.  She must go home to her foster family, and learns of a family connection in the process.  She gets to fall in love with Owen, and go on to college, something she thought she'd never get to do.
A good tale, some new types of situations for for a YA book.  I'd say not completely teenage level.  Definitely one my middle schoolers will like though.
So thanks to Heather Skinner at University of Minnesota Press, for sending me this advanced readers copy.