Fireflies in winter / Eleanor Shearer.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A gripping novel of two young women fighting for survival on the edge of the wilderness, and the love that simultaneously sustains them and threatens their very existence, from the author of the Good Morning America Book Club pick River Sing Me Home .

Nova Scotia, 1796. Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, has never felt cold like this. In the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together in their homes to keep warm. So when she sees a shadow slipping through the trees, Cora thinks her eyes are deceiving her...until she creeps out into the moonlight and finds the tracks in the snow.

Agnes is in hiding. On the run from her former life, she has learned what it takes to survive alone in the wilderness. But she can afford no mistakes. When she first spies the young woman in the woods, she is afraid. Yet Cora is fearless, and their paths are destined to cross.

Deep among the cedars, Cora and Agnes find a fragile place of safety. But when Agnes's past closes in, they are confronted with the dangerous price of freedom--and of love....

With evocative prose and immersive storytelling, Fireflies in Winter is a powerful novel about love--love for the wilderness in all its unforgiving beauty, and love between two women who risk everything to be together.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Shearer's quietly powerful second novel (following River Sing Me Home) combines vividly drawn characters with an emotionally engrossing narrative that explores both the power of love and the difficult choices sometimes required to survive. Orphaned in Jamaica and brought to Halifax as part of the "Trelawney Maroons," freedom fighters relocated by the British in 1796, Cora struggles to endure the harsh Canadian winter and to find a place where she feels she belongs. A lonely figure standing in the snow catches her attention and brings her to Agnes, whose knowledge of the natural world allows her to survive while remaining hidden from those hunting for her. As Cora and Agnes fall in love and begin to dream of a brighter future, forces beyond their control threaten to disrupt everything they cherish. Readers will relish the beautiful descriptions of the Canadian wilderness and the fascinating history behind the story. The setting captures a unique time when Black lives in Nova Scotia included not just the Maroons but also enslaved Africans, indentured laborers, Black loyalists freed during the American Revolution, and runaways. VERDICT Highly recommended for fans of historical fiction centering defiant women who are unafraid to make bold choices.--Mara Bandy Fass

Publishers Weekly Review

The beautiful latest from British author Shearer (River Sing Me Home) follows a young woman transplanted from Jamaica to Nova Scotia in the late 18th century. Orphaned Cora grows up in Jamaica's Maroon community of free Blacks, whose ancestors escaped from slavery and integrated with the Indigenous Taino people. When the British colonial authorities forcibly relocate the Maroons to Canada, Cora winds up there with her foster family. Resisting her family's pressure to marry, she wanders the "glittering world" of the forest, where she meets the formerly enslaved Agnes. Also orphaned, Agnes was taught as a child how to survive in the woods by the Indigenous Mi'kmaq people. The narrative toggles between 1797, as Cora and Agnes gradually fall in love, and a murder trial that takes place the following January, the details of which are concealed for most of the novel. Shearer thoroughly grounds her story in the realistic details of a history most readers won't be familiar with, and she conveys the joys and dangers of life in Nova Scotia, where humpback whales leap in the ocean and bear attacks can be fatal. It's a subtle and morally complex depiction of the price of freedom. (Feb.)