This is her third novel set in Santa Fe, NM. The main character is Lucy Newroe, a reporter for a fictitious local paper, who also volunteers as an EMT.
I can overlook that the author has Santa Fe supporting two newspapers, but I'm going a little crazy with the amount of snow she has on the ground. On the very first page she has the Plaza in Santa Fe packed with snow "as it had been since the end of October." It's now December 20 in the novel. Except that at this high altitude, with daily sunshine, snow simply does not linger. Well, it can linger if the sun doesn't reach it. One side of my back yard will keep snow if the air temperature stays below 40 degrees, because the sun does not reach there. But the Plaza in downtown Santa Fe? Simply not possible. Even if we got a big snow dump and it stayed relatively cold, the sunshine and dry air guarantees the melt. If nothing else, there would be serious snow removal from the Plaza.
She even has knee-deep drifts elsewhere, which again, just does not happen here. If we get three inches of snow it's a lot. Well, okay, I just did a fast Google search and this city has gotten a couple of feet of snow on a few occasions, but trust me, it just does not linger.
I really hate it when writers violate local weather norms. Stephen King did it in "The Stand" in which he had Boulder, Colorado, completely snowed in all winter. Really? I've lived there. They might get three feet of snow all at once, but within 24-48 hours it will warm up to 60 degrees and the snow will be completely gone.
= new reply since forum marked as read