Palmer resident Eowyn Ivey is about to make a big splash in the literary world, as her debut novel “The Snow Child” prepares for its U.S. release. The novel has already become a No. 1 bestseller in Norway and has been gaining advance praise across the English-speaking world.

“The Snow Child” takes its inspiration from a fairy tale about a child borne from snow. In this modern, adult retelling, the story centers on Jack and Mabel, a pair of hearty homesteaders in 1920s Alaska, recent transplants from the Northeast United States. Past childbearing years and with a failed pregnancy behind her, Mabel pushed to move to the territory and start a hard life, in a small cabin and attempting to farm the land.

In a rare fit of frivolity, one winter night the couple builds a snowman -- or a snowgirl, to be more precise. They give her a scarf and gloves, and Mabel squeezes the juice from frozen berries on her lips to give them a pink blush.

The next day, their snow child is gone, a single set of footprints leading away from the destroyed sculpture.

Soon after, a girl appears from the woods and begins to flit in and out of their lives. Jack and Mabel wonder if she is their unspoken wish for a child, fulfilled in the flesh. The novel centers on the question of whether or not this snow child is real or just a hopeful figment of the couple’s joint imagination as they attempt to start a new life in a hard place.

Ivey, a former reporter for the Mat-Su Frontiersman newspaper and now a bookseller at Palmer’s Fireside Books, had spent five years working on another novel, her first. Then, one winter evening while stocking the shelves at Fireside, a title caught her eye.

It was a version of “Snegurochka,” a Russian Fairy tale that tells of a childless elderly couple who make a child out of snow and see her come to life.

“I’d never seen it before,” Ivey said of the slender volume, illustrated by Alaska artist Barbara Lavallee. “I read a lot and come across a lot of books, so I was surprised I’d never read this book before.”

So she paused, standing in the aisle, reading the short tale. As she read, she became excited with the book and its possibilities.

“I just had this rush of adrenaline,” she said. “I can’t even describe the feeling -- it was like nothing I’d ever felt before.”

That rush of adrenaline was the result of a lightning bolt of inspiration for the book.  She began researching the fairy tale, and its numerous versions over the years, the myriad tellings and retellings, even a play based on one of the versions. So, Ivey said, she “threw away” her first novel and began work on a new book with “Snegurochka” as inspiration.

She wrote for a year, and by the end, had completed a first draft of “The Snow Child.” Now, the book is gathering major must-read praise from national publications, and has already become a bestseller in Norway prior to its official Feb. 1 release in the United States.

Then, while attending the Kachemak Bay Writer’s Conference, her mother convinced her to talk to a literary agent, Jeff Kleinman of Folio Literary Management, about her manuscript.

“It was a total flukey kind of thing,” Ivey said. “I was there with not intention of pitching the book, which is weird because a lot of authors go there intending to pitch or sell their books.”

After a conversation with Kleinman, he asked to see the first hundred pages of the manuscript -- a manuscript Ivey hadn’t brought with her. One frantic call to her husband back in Palmer -- and 100 pages faxed from the local library -- later, Kleinman offered to represent Ivey and “The Snow Child.”

An elderly couple’s longing

Ivey said that the fairy tale foundation -- a version of which plays a role in the actual book -- allowed her to be playful.

“It was actually really fun to interact with the fairy tales,” Ivey said. “I sort of enjoyed being able to reveal some of the possible endings and the things the fairy tale provided.”