You know it’s a good book when, after reading the library’s copy, you go out and buy your own. THE VIRGIN OF SMALL PLIAINS is that kind of book.

In 1987 Small Plains, Kansas, in the midst of a blizzard, eighteen-year-old Rex Shellenberger searches the pastures of his family farm for newborn calves and finds the naked, frozen body of a teenage girl. That night, Shellenberger’s dad—the sheriff—brings the corpse to sixteen-year-old Abby Reynold’s father’s in-home doctor’s office. Hiding in a storage closet in that office, Abby’s boyfriend, eighteen-year-old Mitch Newquist witnesses something that causes his father, the town judge, to abruptly send him from town.

Who is the dead girl? What really happened that night?

For seventeen years, the questions go unanswered and the issues unresolved. When Mitch unexpectedly returns to Small Plains, Abby is determined to find the virgin’s name and discover exactly what happened that night so many years ago.

Nancy Pickard’s characters are believable and their story compelling. Pickard paints such a vivid picture that the reader gets to know the characters’ strengths, flaws, motivations and secret wishes. The story kept me turning pages late into the night. You’ll find a copy of THE VIRGIN OF SMALL PLAINS on my keeper shelf.