For some reason many of the eReaders of Cold River come from Scandinavian countries and cold parts of north Amerika. Strangely, my first page of my first chapter of my first book refers to snow and Christmas...

The "amazing wine" of the Finnish language
The snow arrived early in Helsinki this year, draping the city last weekend in the sort of shining blanket that turns every vista of neo-classical streets and wooded shorelines into a Christmas-card cliché.
...Tucked away in the folds of the ancient mountains that embrace the Kezmarok and Poprad valleys lay a royal town called Vrbov (a place with dual meanings: ‘willow’ and ‘boiling water’).
A weeping at times. But mostly happy little village of a few hundred souls with a robust sense of humour.
It gets dark early in December. The Vrbov definition of winter: streets are snowbound, the road is quiet, the mountain air is very, very cold. That day in 1957, Vrbov was gripped by mid winter night frostiness. It was two evenings before Christmas Eve.
· Readers of Cold River [Independent]