A Spell of Winter: WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

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A Spell of Winter is a difficult book to categorize and difficult to explain without giving too much away - but it follows siblings Cathy and Rob who have spent their lives in a quasi-abandoned manor in the English countryside which belonged to their parents; their father is now dead and their mother ran off when they were young. The first thing seemed to come out of nowhere and I had to reread the scene about three times to make sure that yes, that is indeed what it said. A Spell of Winter is the kind of book whose pages turn easily, not because of a compelling story or entrancing characters, but because Dunmore weaves a soft, dreamlike tale of first love and guilty secrets. This is a most enjoyable book, if not an especially deep one, a sort of Bronte meets Lawrence meets McEwan. Cathy wants the pregnancy terminated before anyone else notices, and Kate arranges an illegal abortion for her.

I thought you did a great job in this review analyzing the failings of the final section, and I completely agree with your criticisms. In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. Much of the book has a very Gothic feel- it’s not a high-tension mystery or supernatural fright fest, so don’t enter this one expecting Daphne du Maurier or Shirley Jackson. This was the first winner of the Orange Prize (now the Women's Prize for Fiction), and I found it very impressive. Sadly she died in 2017, but the following year her final poetry collection posthumously won the Costa Book Awards Book of the Year.There are some very surprising twists in this novel and I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it. But then all the characters are strongly drawn often with contradictory aspects to their character – the maid, Kate, is impulsive but wise; Miss Gallagaher can be rigid about rules but is also sentimental. I have mixed feelings about this book as some parts I absolutely loved and others I found very dull. With her sumptuous use of words, she evokes a rich, gothic setting, and a quietly sinister and claustrophobic atmosphere that I adored. It’s a tricky title to recommend, so I won’t be pushing this one on anyone, but I do hope that those interested enough to pick up A Spell of Winter will find as much to appreciate in its pages as I did.

During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. Cathy and Rob are semi feral, left to grow up in a rambling house with their Grandfather and beloved servants they soon discover nothing lasts forever. There is a war mentioned in this book and while they don't actually name the war at all, I'm guessing it may be world war one? With the exception of a few bumbling sentences (such as " Elsie shudders exaggeratedly as she goes away in the early December dusk"), Dunmore's craft exudes an easy rhythm and dips in and out of the past and present with a fluidity akin to waves gently lapping at the shore.

Both arguably felt ensnared and defined by their role within the family, and both must find their own ways to break the chain of inheritance, both literal and metaphorical. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel. All told, I would say this is an excellent choice of literature if you’re looking for something dark and bleak that examines a childhood without parental guidance and affection, forbidden love, familial obligations, and a life of seclusion. A Spell of Winter is a 1995 literary gothic novel [1] by Helen Dunmore, set in England, around the time of World War I. Secrets can cross from one person to the other without words, and suddenly you find that you've always known them.

As adults, Cathy and Rob's relationship begins to develop into something forbidden, and it sets off a tragic chain of events that spread into the years of the First World War. And then Cathy finally meets up with her mother again, but we never find out why the mother left in the first place? The chill which has taken hold of the crumbling previously grand country house and its occupants is almost tangible - you will get cold fingers just holding the book and turning the pages. Despite the word “winter” in the title, this is an excellent book to reach for at the height of spooky season (it would also be great for winter, of course). What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels.Their mother had abandoned them for a better life in southern Europe, and their father was committed to a sanatorium. The two children, the asylum, the predatory governess, the incest, the pregnancy and abortion, the sudden emergence into WW1 never feel organic, more dropped in precisely because they are tropes.