Mary Lawson returns to the small-town world of Northern Ontario in Solace in Winter, her first novel since the Booker Prize-longlisted A Town Called Solace. Whether you’re new to her writing or already a devoted reader, here’s where to start with Mary Lawson’s books.
Few writers capture the quiet dramas of family and small-town life quite like Mary Lawson.
Across five novels, the UK-based Canadian author has made the remote communities of Northern Ontario her fictional territory, writing about siblings and strangers, love and responsibility, the pull of home and the long shadow cast by decisions made years ago.
Now, five years after A Town Called Solace, Lawson returns with Solace in Winter: the story of a widower, a young American on the run and an abandoned dog (arguably the Best Dog in literature) whose lives unexpectedly converge in the winter of 1969.
It is both a welcome return for longstanding Lawson readers and an inviting place to discover her for the first time.
New to Mary Lawson? Here’s where to start
Mary Lawson’s novels can all be read as standalone stories, so you can read as many, and in any order, as you like:
For Mary Lawson’s newest novel:Solace in Winter
For the classic introduction to her writing:Crow Lake
For sibling rivalry and family secrets:The Other Side of the Bridge
For a family story spanning Northern Ontario and 1960s London:Road Ends
For mystery, grief and second chances:A Town Called Solace
Or read on to find the Mary Lawson novel for you.
What are Mary Lawson's books about?
Family is at the heart of Mary Lawson’s fiction and siblings in particular recur throughout her books. So do questions of responsibility: what we owe the people we love, what happens when duty becomes a burden and whether the choices we make can ever truly be left behind.
Lawson now lives in London but grew up in Ontario, and its lakes, forests, farms, snow and remote communities are more than a backdrop to her novels. They shape the lives of the people who inhabit them. Her characters may live in small fictional places within that area, but Lawson uses those communities to explore much bigger questions about love, loneliness, regret and belonging.
Those themes return in Solace in Winter, as Jack’s quiet life is transformed by people – and one dog – who need somewhere to turn.
For readers who already know Mary Lawson, it is a return to familiar territory, rendered more beautifully than ever. For everyone else, it might be the perfect place to begin.
