15 Oct Trisha T. Pritikin Then Came the Summer Snow #HistoricalFiction #Downwinders #AtomicJustice #1950s #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub @TrishaPritikin @cathiedunn

FEATURED AUTHOR: TRISHA T. PRITIKIN

I’m delighted to welcome Trisha T. Pritikin as the featured author in The Coffee Pot Book Club Blog Tour being held between September 25th – October 16th, 2025. Trisha T. Pritikin is the author of the Historical Fiction / Dark Humor / Atomic Feminism, Then Came the Summer Snow, published by Moonshine Cove Press on September 15th, 2025 (328 pages). 

Below are highlights of Then Came the Summer Snow, Trisha T. Pritikin’s author bio, and a guest post by the author about the historical consequences of the downwind radioactive byproducts of the Hanford atomic weapons production site.

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/08/blog-tour-then-came-the-summer-snow-by-trisha-pritikin.html

HIGHLIGHTS: THEN CAME THE SUMMER SNOW

Then Came the Summer Snow
By Trisha T Pritikin

Blurb:

In 1958, Edith Higgenbothum, a housewife in Richland, Washington, downwind of the massive Hanford nuclear weapons production site, discovers that the milk her young son Herbie drinks contains radioactive iodine from Hanford’s secret fallout releases. Radioactive iodine can damage the thyroid, especially in children.

When Herbie is diagnosed with aggressive thyroid cancer, Edith allies with mothers of children with thyroid cancer and leukemia in communities blanketed by fallout from Nevada Test Site A-bomb tests on a true atomic age hero’s journey to save the children.

Praise for Then Came the Summer Snow:

“In Trisha Pritikin’s crisp and sweeping novel, the Cold War comes home to live with a family in Richland, Washington. Not the Cold War of ideologies, but the one that included 2,000+ nuclear tests, and the production of hundreds of tons of plutonium; that contaminated our homes, food and communities; that actually took family members.” ~ Robert “Bo” Jacobs, Emeritus Professor of History at the Hiroshima Peace Institute and Hiroshima City University, author of Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha (Yale 2022).

“Then Came the Summer Snow is like an unexpected gift in its surprise and freshness. Absurdity informs its realism, its poignancy, and its humor. A troubling, hilarious, weird, and wonderful novel.” ~ Mark Spencer, author of An Untimely Frost

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/bOOqKE

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

AUTHOR BIO: TRISHA T. PRITIKIN

Trisha is an internationally known advocate for fallout-exposed populations downwind of nuclear weapons production and testing sites. She is an attorney and former occupational therapist.

Trisha was born and raised in Richland, the government-owned atomic town closest to the Hanford nuclear weapons production facility in southeastern Washington State. Hanford manufactured the plutonium used in the Trinity Test, the world’s first test of an atomic bomb, detonated July 16,1945 at Alamogordo, NM, and for Fat Man, the plutonium bomb that decimated Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.  Beginning in late 1944, and for more than forty years thereafter, Hanford operators secretly released millions of curies of radioactive byproducts into the air and to the waters of the Columbia River, exposing civilians downwind and downriver. Hanford’s airborne radiation spread across eastern Washington, northern Oregon, Idaho, Western Montana, and entered British Columbia.

Trisha suffers from significant thyroid damage, hypoparathyroidism, and other disabling health issues caused by exposure to Hanford’s fallout in utero and during childhood. Infants and children are especially susceptible to the damaging effects of radiation exposure.

Trisha’s first book, The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic Justice, published in 2020 by the University Press of Kansas, has won multiple awards, including San Francisco Book Festival, 1^st place (history); Nautilus Silver award (journalism and investigative reporting); American Book Fest Book Awards Finalist (US History); Eric Hoffer Awards, Shortlist Grand Prize Finalist; and Chanticleer International Book Awards, 1^st Place, (longform journalism). The Hanford Plaintiffs was released in Japanese in 2023 by Akashi Shoten Publishing House, Tokyo. 

Author Links:

Website     Twitter / X     Facebook     Pinterest

Amazon Author Page     Goodreads     Atomic Heritage Foundation Interview

GUEST POST: HISTORIAL BACKGROUND
THEN CAME THE SUMMER SNOW

Then Came the Summer Snow is a fictional tale set in 1958, in the ‘Atomic City’ of Richland, Washington, downwind of the Hanford atomic weapons production site. The story is based on true historical events.

I was born and raised in Richland. Like many others who grew up during Hanford’s decades of plutonium production, I was exposed to a wide range of airborne and river-borne radionuclides secretly released from the Hanford site. Many of us who were exposed to Hanford’s fallout as infants and children now have radiation-related cancers and other radiogenic diseases.

Hanford began to release radioactive byproducts of plutonium production to the air and water beginning in November 1944, with start-up of the site and continuing during the decades of the subsequent Cold War. Plutonium produced at Hanford was used in the world’s first test of an atomic bomb, the Trinity Test, detonated July 16, 1945, and in the plutonium bomb (Fat Man) that decimated Nagasaki August 9, 1945.

Airborne fallout from Hanford blanketed a wide area of the Inland Pacific Northwest, and entered British Columbia. Hanford operators dumped liquid and solid radioactive byproducts into the Columbia River. Children were particularly susceptible to the effects of radiation exposure.

A wide range of radionuclides were released from Hanford. With regard to I-131, a radionuclide prevalent in Hanford’s airborne radiation, the Atomic Energy Commission and Hanford operators were aware that potassium iodide pills and iodized table salt could block the thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine. Yet, they did nothing to protect communities downwind, concerned that letting the public know the air and water was full of radiation would “cause undue alarm.”

Then Came the Summer Snow is an exploration of what might have happened had a mother in Richland inadvertently discovered that the milk in her young son’s glass was radioactive. This is a true atomic age hero’s journey. 

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