The end-of-year holidays are near, a good time for pie. High in the Sierra Nevada, however, summers are short and hot while winters are long and freezing. Not much time for vegetables and fruit to ripen. Fortunately the train goes through the town of Truckee at the turn of the century and freight is the main load by which the railroad makes most of its fortune. Thus staples are delivered for Mr. Titus, the grocer in The House on Harrigan’s Hill, so that even poor families lik

“Evocative” is the word of choice on the back cover of a novel or in a book review. The reader senses mystery, depth of feeling, swell of remembrance, conflicts that raise emotion. A good word for the novel I wrote, but famous writers have seen that word used about their novels too. Even though you may not have paid attention—I didn’t—to those reviews and covers when choosing your next book to read, as a new author I value that adjective. “An evocative first novel from C.J.

October 1985, Friday Evening, Colfax The black oak tree clung to the slope that plunged to a narrow creek behind Alta’s little house near Colfax. Dusty leaves dropped to the ground. I leaned on the porch railing and looked up, studying the Sierra foothills, scraggly Digger pine interspersed among oaks, then higher, Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. I raised my gaze to take in the first range of mountains, the forest so thick with Jeffrey pine and white fir I couldn’t see the ro