Clouds Over Bishop Hill

Greed, pride, and the search for a masterpiece. Shelley Anderson wants her college diploma to be the escape ticket away from Bishop Hill, a former Midwestern Swedish communal society. A reckless driver sends Shelley off the road and into the mysterious past of folk artist Olof Krans. Drafted into finding Krans’s last painting, her only clues are: an old woman’s dreams and an uncle’s guilty conscience. Shelley pounds the brick sidewalks of Bishop Hill as she navigates between museums and restaurants trying to determine if the old woman’s cloud-inspired dreams of Krans’s 1915 studio are real. She’s not the only one on the hunt for the lost Krans. High-placed museum officials, a jealous artist, and a handsome Swede all join in. After 93 years, how dangerous will it be to actually discover it? “A meticulous yet delicately restrained imagery of the historical and character complexities of the Swedish prairie colony.”—Robin Throne, author of Her Kind “The author’s descriptions are vivid and you can almost feel the breeze on your face.”—Susan Strodtbeck