December 1962, a small village near Bristol. Eric and Irene and Bill and Rita. Two young couples living next to each other, the first in a beautiful cottage – suitable for a newly appointed local doctor – the second in a rundown, perennially under-heated farm. Despite their apparent differences, the two women (both pregnant) strike an easy friendship – a connection that comes as a respite from the surprising tediousness of married life, with its unfulfilled expectations, growing resentments and the ghosts of a recent past. But as one of the coldest winters on record grips England in a never-ending frost and as the country is enveloped in a thick, soft, unmoving layer of snow, the two couples find themselves cut off from the rest of the world. And without the small distractions of everyday existence, suddenly old tensions and shocking new discoveries threaten to change the course of their lives forever. A masterful, page-turning examination of the minutiae of life, The Land in Winter is a masterclass in storytelling – proof yet again that Andrew Miller is one of Britain’s most dazzling chroniclers of the human heart.
Delicate and devastating . . . a brilliant novel, but wrap your emotions up tight because Miller steers it expertly towards a desolate, distressing ending -- Martin Chilton * Independent * A novel of dazzling humanity and captivating, crystalline prose -- Hephzibah Anderson * Mail on Sunday * Intimate . . . The writing is stunning and the details of the 1960s setting are particularly evocative. Another psychologically rich novel from one of my favourite writers -- Joanne Finney * Good Housekeeping * With each new novel, Andrew Miller revitalises the form and takes the reader to extraordinary new places. His work is truly exploratory, never still in its ambition or human dynamics. There's always immense sensuality, disquiet, drama and wisdom in his books, but The Land in Winter is outstandingly beautiful and immersive in its storytelling. It's disruptive and graceful beyond anything I've read or could hope to write. He is the novelists' lodestar -- Sarah Hall, author of BURNTCOAT Sentence after sentence, The Land in Winter is beautifully intricate, deeply moving, and utterly absorbing -- Claire Fuller, author of UNSETTLED GROUND I loved it from the first line. The Land in Winter is going to be such an important book - one that we need now. The relentless dignity and vulnerability of ordinary work in the aftermath of horror - the eggs still need scrambling and the cows milking no matter what - and the rough and awkward work of love as part of the same picture feels absolutely essential. It was gently and startlingly beautiful -- Jenn Ashworth, author of GHOSTED The Land in Winter is a wondrous novel about the interior lives of the occupants of two marriages, set in the intensely realised physical world they inhabit. Andrew Miller's talent is to allow us into their world - into their houses and into their minds - so that we see them both as young marrieds in an English village in the coldest winter of the twentieth century and as souls passing through the snowstorms of time -- Tim Pears, author of The West Country Trilogy A beautifully written, slow-burn portrait of a moment and place in time, it excavates the intricacies of the human heart -- Editor's Choice * The Bookseller * PRAISE FOR ANDREW MILLER 'His writing is a source of wonder and delight' HILARY MANTEL 'One of our most skilful chroniclers of the human heart and mind' SUNDAY TIMES 'Unique, visionary, a master at unmasking humanity' SARAH HALL
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