Abandoned by his father after his mother drowns in a frozen Minnesota lake, fifteen-year-old Wes Ballot is stranded with cold-hearted grandparents and holed up in his mother's old bedroom, surrounded by her remnants and memories. As the wait for his father stretches unforgivably into months, a local girl, whose own mother died a brutal death, captures his heart and imagination, giving Wes fresh air to breathe in the suffocating small town.
When buried truths come to light in the spring thaw, wounds are exposed and violence erupts, forcing Wes to embark on a search for his missing father, the truth about his mother, and a future he must claim for himself-a quest that begins back at that frozen lake.
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A HAWK BANKED in the grey daybreak, head hunched, eyes darting beneath a cross of wings.- CHAPTER 1
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(Little A, 1 December 2018, e-book, 352 pages, borrowed from @AmazonKindle, #PrimeReading)
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I really enjoyed Winter Loon. My heart was in my throat in the first pages when Wes loses his mother in horrific circumstances and finds his life upended. This feeling lasts pretty much the whole of the book as Wes struggles to cope with his grief, feels anger to his father for abandoning him and is forced to live with cruel, heartless grandparents. It's a lot for one person to deal with and my heart went out to Wes. The second half of the book deals with Wes, setting out on his own to find his father and make him accountable for everything that happened. This is just a heart-wrenching as the rest of the book.