2008 Book of the Year (ForeWord Magazine)
Finalist, Popular Fiction

2008 Next Generation Indie Book Award
Finalist, General Fiction
Finalist, Young Adult Fiction

About the Book:

Gary Slaughter’s Cottonwood Winter: A Christmas Story was the ForeWord 2008 Book of the Year Award finalist for Popular Fiction. This novel was also a 2008 Indie Book Award finalist for both General Fiction/Novel and for Young Adult Fiction.

This, the third novel in the Cottonwood series, follows critically acclaimed Cottonwood Summer and Cottonwood Fall, the 2007 finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award for Popular Fiction.

Author Gary Slaughter has created yet another entertaining, richly-detailed reminiscence of home-front America set during the last winter of World War Two. In December 1944, while American forces are slugging it out in Europe and the Pacific, those at home are preparing for Christmas while coping with ever-present shortages, casualties of war, and concerns about loved ones serving overseas.

On the Riverton, Michigan home front, the disappearance of B. R. Santa, the threat of an elite German espionage agent, the unexplained appearances of grape-vine Christmas wreaths all over town, and many more mysteries are to be solved by Jase and Danny, the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn of the Cottonwood novels.

“In Cottonwood Summer and Cottonwood Fall, Gary Slaughter has created an intimate portrait of a small town during World War II. Both novels feature a plethora of eccentrics, humble heroes, grieving families, and dastardly Nazis. Slaughter’s memoir-like style makes these stories a languid reminiscence.”
Nashville Scene