The next night, a mysterious stranger scrapes outside on her icy car, parked behind the local laundry. Finally realizing she has to have an apartment to live in, she listens to advice from hard-drinking Tina, a local massage therapist, and calls the sheriff to rent an apartment in his house. Stacey also becomes romantically involved with hunky ski patroller/trust funder Chip Walsh. But she continues to ponder who murdered David, part owner of the ski resort, who has been resisting Ski America's demand to develop the resort.

Double Black is the first book in a new Ski Diva's mystery series. Wendy Clinch runs a web site for women who ski (www.TheSkiDiva.com) and will be visiting Village Square Booksellers for an author event in March.

Lisa See's latest historical novel is set in 17th century China at the time of the fall of the Qing (or Ching, from when I was studying Chinese History in the 1960's & 70's) Dynasty by the Manchus.  The chinese literati or gentry (an exam-based system to determine those who work in government positions) is in turmoil- should they be loyalists and suffer physically or economically or possibly die, or go along with the Manchus and work under their regime?

Educated women have no place in society except as wives and mothers - though many secretly write poetry books.

A young woman, Peony, has been educated by her father, but she still has to marry an unknown man in an arranged marriage. Peony's love for The Peony Pavillion, a romantic play that her father puts on for her 16th birthday, and her chance (and illicit) meeting with a handsome stranger at the party, changes her life's path. She becomes consumed by the play's theme and pines away for her secret love, and learns of hungry ghosts wandering the earth, in between the living world and the afterworld, where written words take power and vivid dreams too.

(Seems like I've been reading a lot of novels lately with ghosts in it- I'll mention those later.)