Where Light Comes and Goes: A Novel

Where Light Comes and Goes brings back Dr. Abby Wilmore, the young family physician who was the protagonist of Miller’s first novel, The Color of Rock. Abby has accepted the directorship of a summer clinic in Yellowstone National Park where she hopes to expand her medical skills. She arrives to find herself working above the increasingly restless Yellowstone supervolcano, treating Park visitors, staff, and locals while exploring the Park, evading the advances of a lecherous concession manager, and maintaining a long-distance relationship with her Grand Canyon physician partner. As tremors in the Park become more frequent and the lakes seethe with gas bubbles, Abby learns that someone is mysteriously killing the Park’s bison.

What follows is an engrossing mystery unfolding in a spectacular setting and rich with quirky, often endearing characters and unexpected plot turns. While an overworked Abby makes new friends among her clinic staff and patients, tension builds as the volcano seems to be moving closer to a major eruption and the bison killings become more frequent. Soon Abby finds herself in mortal danger as the story races to a thrilling and unexpected conclusion.

Sandra Miller demonstrated in The Color of Rock that she is a gifted storyteller. Where Light Comes and Goes deftly combines a gripping mystery set in the accurately depicted routine of a busy medical practice amid the wonders of Yellowstone’s magnificent scenery and wildlife. This is entertaining reading at its best.