Elk Grove resident Amy Gorder is the author of Ghosts of Winter, a children’s ghost story. Photo courtesy of Chris Gorder

ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) – Resident and author Amy Gorder has written an excellent follow-up to her first book in the Gold Rush Ghosts series.

Ghosts of Winter comes on the heels of Ghosts of Autumn, which received good reviews from Kirkus and The Children’s Book Review. Ghosts of Winter is a children’s books for middle-schoolers, while her first book targeted those in third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades.

Houdi is a spirited seventh grader and budding magician who is visited by a ghost as the book opens. On a field trip to The Elk Grove House and Stage Stop Museum, Houdi finds a pocket watch once owned by the book’s Sheriff John Sutter.

Sutter in real life was a Swiss immigrant who became famous after his partner James Marshall found gold in 1848. Sutter established Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento, a location in the book.

Two outlaws steal Sutter’s pocket watch, and then their mother gets her hands on it. As the plot develops, the two outlaws – known for robbing prospectors – steal gold from Mexican outlaw Joaquin Murietta and attempt to steal more from “Big Bob” Thornton of Boston.

The cover of Ghosts of Winter, published by Emerald Books. Photo by Keith Burbank

Thornton kills one of the outlaws but the second shoots and kills him. The shooter is hung after being caught following the murder. Their mother comes to the murder site following her sons’ deaths and dies in a shooting with Murietta.    

The two outlaws and their mother appear in the book as ghosts seeking the watch. Thank goodness for two kind ghosts, one of which is Thornton who helps the young adventurers hang on to the watch.  

The adventure is both scary and fun.

Gorder is a former schoolteacher. The book is full of details, fictional or otherwise, that lend to the story.  

Later in the tale, for example, Houdi’s teacher Mr. Kelly takes the watch to a horologist, which is a maker of clocks or watches. And then takes coins the children found to a numismatist or an authenticator of coins, Gorder says in the book. Details like these instruct readers.  

Ghosts of Winter was published in 2024 by Emerald Books, Bend, Oregon. Both of Gorder’s books are available on Amazon and bookshop.org. Gorder’s third book Ghosts of Spring is forthcoming and will be written for children in high school.