Editions

A Spell of Winter

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780241987506

  • Length: 320  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 19mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 223g

  • RRP: £8.99

A Spell of Winter

  • WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

'Tense, dark and intensely gripping . . . written so seductively that passages sing out from the page ' Sunday Times

Cathy and her brother, Rob, don't know why they have been abandoned by their parents. Alone in their grandfather's decaying country house, they roam the wild grounds freely with minds attuned to the rural wilderness. Lost in their own private world, they seek and find new lines to cross.

But as the First World War draws closer, crimes both big and small threaten the delicate refuge they have built. Cathy will do anything to protect their dark Eden from anyone, or anything, that threatens to destroy it.

'An electrifying and original talent, a writer whose style is characterized by a lyrical, dreamy intensity' Guardian

'Stops you in your tracks with the beauty of its writing' Observer

'Has a strong and sensuous magic' The Times

'Her spellbinding, lyrical prose is close to poetry' Daily Mail

  • Imprint: Penguin

  • ISBN: 9780241987506

  • Length: 320  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 19mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 223g

  • RRP: £8.99

Reviews

  • A marvellous novel about forbidden passions and the terrible consequences of thwarted love. Dunmore is one of the finest English writers

    Daily Mail

  • A hugely involving story which often stops you in your tracks with the beauty of its writing

    Observer

  • An electrifying and original talent, a writer whose style is characterized by a lyrical, dreamy intensity

    Guardian

  • Tense, dark and intensely gripping . . . written so seductively that passages sing out from the page

    Sunday Times

  • Her prose is poetic in its emotional range and intensity

    TLS

  • Unsettling love and stifled horror create and then destroy the claustrophobic world of this lush, literary Gothic set in turn-of-the-century England. In true Gothic fashion, terror, violence and eroticism collect beneath every dark surface. . . . A finely crafted, if disturbing, literary page-turner

    Publishers Weekly

  • It bears the distinctive lyrical beauty of its predecessors . . . Helen Dunmore is an unusually fine writer. There is a strong and sensuous magic to A Spell of Winter

    Gill Hornby in The Times

  • One of our finest writers

    Philip Pullman

  • Immensely sad, quite beautiful, and deserves to be read by all lovers of good novel

    The Bookseller

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About the Author

Helen Dunmore

Helen Dunmore was an award-winning novelist, children's author and poet. She published twelve novels including Zennor in Darkness, which won the McKitterick Prize; Burning Bright; A Spell of Winter, which won the inaugural Orange Prize in 1996; Talking to the Dead; Your Blue-Eyed Boy; With Your Crooked Heart; The Siege, which was shortlisted for the 2001 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002; Mourning Ruby and House of Orphans. She was posthumously awarded the Costa 2017 prize for her poetry collection Inside the Wave.

Helen Dunmore

Related articles

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Extracts

A tribute to Helen Dunmore, from the pen of her son Patrick

Written by her son, Patrick Dunmore, this extract from Helen Dunmore's final work Girl, Balancing is a beautiful tribute to Helen Dunmore, writer – but also to Helen Dunmore, a dearly-loved mother.
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Helen Dunmore
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Features

Helen Dunmore

Orange Prize-winning writer Helen Dunmore, author of The Siege and The Lie, on the alchemy of writing

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