About the Book

Book: When the Avalanche Roared (A Day to Remember Book Five)

Author: Lauralee Bliss

Genre: Historical Christian Fiction

Release date: January, 2025

The Day Hope Seemed Swept Away

Enjoy a series of 6 exciting novels featuring historic disasters that transformed landscapes and multiple lives. Whether by nature or by man, these disasters changed history and were a day to be remembered.

Lillian Hartwick has been in the small railroad town of Wellington, Washington, caring for her cousin and assisting the postmaster when February snows bring all train traffic to a halt. Slow-witted but kind Griffin Jones, who works odd jobs for the railway while enduring taunts from other workers, has tried his best to gain Lillian’s interest, but she is engaged and waiting her fiancé’s arrival from California. Predawn thunderstorms on Tuesday, March 1, 1910, trigger a devasting avalanche, sweeping two trains down Stevens Pass. Lillian and Griffin work together to help survivors, including Griffin’s tormentors. In the midst of the catastrophe their feelings for each other grow. But is it enough when Lillian’s fiancé finally arrives in the spring, ready to claim her as his own?

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My Thoughts:

Disasters can happen in the blink of an eye and change people's lives forever. In this Day to Rember story, we have disaster that took place on March 1, 1910, when an avalanche buries the trains, and the snow keeps coming down hindering the town and rescue efforts. This is a story of survival and helping others survive the brutality of the disaster.

Lillian is a young woman who really doesn't know what to do with her life. It is already planned out, even down to whom she will marry. But does she love him, and does she want to have the life of a wife whose husband is gone most of the time due to his career? The answer keeps coming back to not really, but does she have the backbone to say no?

While she waits for her fiancé to return from his trip, she goes to help her pregnant cousin further in the mountains. What she doesn't expect is the disaster that is looming and a man that makes her rethink all her possibilities.

Griffin Jones is an illiterate man. Even though he tries not to let that hold him back, it does set a certain air around him. When he meets Lillian, he will do all he can to help her as he falls quickly in love. Can these two make a team to help when disaster strikes the town?

I was provided a copy of this novel from the publisher. I was not required to post a positive review, and all views and opinions are my own.

About the Author

Lauralee Bliss has always liked to dream big dreams. Part of that dream was writing, and after several years of hard work, her dream of publishing was realized in 1997 with the publication of her first romance novel, Mountaintop, through Barbour Publishing. Since then, she’s had twenty books published, both historical and contemporary. Lauralee is also an avid hiker, completing the entire length of the Appalachian Trail both north and south. Lauralee makes her home in Virginia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with her family.

More from Lauralee

Pure Joy

Lauralee Bliss, Author of “When the Avalanche Roared”

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds… James 1:2 NIV

How does one equate a scripture like this with the death and destruction inherent in natural disasters? It seems an oxymoron to expect joy when faced with twisted metal and broken lives, such as in the deadliest avalanche in American history depicted in When the Avalanche Roared. Even now I think of the natural disaster of the hurricane that just recently destroyed mountain communities in western North Carolina, with homes and lives swept away in an avalanche of water and mud. So it was back in March, 1910 when a mile wide bank of snow detached from Windy Top in the northern Cascades of Washington State, slamming into three parked trains near Wellington, sending cars and sleeping passengers tumbling into the ravine. Over ninety lives were lost.

This could be considered a trial of supreme magnitude. Yet scripture commands we consider joy in the midst of it. The word joy evokes smiles and laughter, peace and satisfaction. It brings to mind Jesus resting in the boat in the midst of a raging storm, tossed about on high waves while the disciples huddle together in abject fear. After He calms the seas He asks them, “Where is your faith?” It demands the human mind look away from apparent destruction to something higher. To look beyond what one sees to the unseen. To trust God even when nothing appears trustworthy.

When the Avalanche Roared delves into the flames that spark, not from smoldering locomotives in a ravine, but within a small rail town that banded together in the wee hours of a frigid morning to rescue others. The destruction is evident. But the grit and determination of those who dug out people from heavy snow solidified by rain and cared for the suffering while their town remained isolated from the world speaks of a picture far greater than the picture of destruction. So it is today with communities swallowed by mud and trees and splintered fragments of homes as reminders of a destructive hurricane. Beyond the visual are the outpouring of help and compassion and holding the hands of those weakened by disaster in gestures of hope and resolve. And in this, a new birth of joy is realized.

God created us to find joy in struggle, to develop perseverance to achieve a goal despite what is thrown our way, to realize that when we do, we truly lack nothing. And therein we find lasting peace even in the midst of catastrophe.

Strangers unite to help the hurting.

A friend flew from Florida to North Carolina and arranged with this store owner for a free truckload of water for communities devastated by the hurricane.