I came upon this book while scrolling one day. The cover grabbed me as did the overview… “good as Stephen King”, they said. I’ve never read horror, nor Stephen King but I was fascinated by the tags: #fairy tales, #horror. Then I lost it and couldn’t remember title or author.

Friends helped me search but no luck. I turned to bookstores explaining that I knew nothing about it except there was a scary pen and ink drawing of a hare on the jacket. Though they tried, no one could help me.

Finally, on a trip in Arizona, I went into the “Quail Run” bookstore in Green Valley, where the man at the counter made a few research attempts when I asked, “Can you help me find this book? Nope, no author name and no title”. As expected, he came up with nothing. But, as I turned to leave, he said, “Wait, my wife might be able to help”.

If I relied on looks, I never would have pegged her as a researcher. As she walked up the aisle, she might have been a waitress or a hairdresser maybe: long nails, even longer eyelashes, bleached and permed hair, skin tight jeans and t-shirt and skinny as a rail.

Soon, “Miss Quail Run” was at the computer tapping away. “No, nope, no, thats not it”, I said as she offered this one and another. Her husband, now not so sure said, “Welp, we tried…” She cut him off and said with a wink, “Don’t be so hasty. I’m not ready to give up yet, are you?”.

I was happy that I had found someone willing to try harder. Why, I wondered since the book I was looking for was way out of my “comfort genre”, did I care so much whether she found it or not? She kept tapping and asking the same question while I kept repeating, “no, nope”.

Suddenly, she said, “Look at this”. There on the screen was a YouTube video with a woman holding up two books. The images were tiny but as she zoomed in, there it was, the illusive book I had been looking for. Winterset Hollow, by Jonathon Edward Durham. I knew she had found it only because of the freaky, very freaky, hare on the cover.

My companions heard me yelp from the back of the store. When I asked her how she found it, she simply said, “I’ve always had a knack”. She explained that since she was little she could always find things.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have any in stock but not to fear, Amazon is here to save the day. Tracy (daughter) ordered 2 copies, one for me and one for her. Perhaps, I have found a new genre to enjoy. We’ll see if it was worth all the trouble that me and several other people went through just to find a book based only on a drawing on a book jacket.

It just goes to show that in research it’s best to not ever give up…. nor judge a book by its cover like I did with the “diner waitress” looking researcher. She was a crackerjack!!!