Winter Literary

Laura Kasischke, the critically acclaimed and nationally bestselling poet and author of The Raising, returns Mind of Winter, a dark and chilling thriller that combines domestic drama with elements of psychological suspense and horror - an addictive tale of denial and guilt that is part Joyce Carol Oates and part Chris Bohjalian. On a snowy Christmas morning, Holly Judge awakens with the fragments of a nightmare floating on the edge of her consciousness. Something followed them from Russia.

Forced to abandon his wife and child, Harry Cane signs up for emigration to the newly colonized Canadian prairies. His allotted homestead in a place called Winter is a world away from the golden suburbs of turn-of-the-century Edwardian England. And yet it is here, isolated in a seemingly harsh landscape, under the threat of war, madness, and an evil man of undeniable magnetism, that the fight for survival will reveal in Harry an inner strength and capacity for love beyond anything he has ever known before.

Ivy Gover, a curmudgeonly middle-aged charwoman with some slightly witchy talents, inherits a rural cottage in Buckinghamshire and takes up residence near the tiny village of Little Warby. Having settled in with a rescued dog and a pet pigeon, she manages, despite her anti-social instincts, to have surprising effects on her new neighbors. But her biggest challenge will likely be the twelve-year-old runaway who shows up at her door.

Idaho Winter is a boy who, through no fault of his own, is loathed by everyone in the town where he lives - his father feeds him roadkill for breakfast, the crossing guard steers cars toward him as he crosses the road, and parents encourage their children to plot cruelly against him. Then he meets a young girl named Madison who empathizes with his suffering, opening a terrible world of pain in him. When Madison is attacked by dogs meant to harm Idaho, Idaho gets up and runs home, changing the course of the entire story.

New England in December is a special world. Wreath-topped lampposts shine, balsam garland drapes across picket fences, and fresh snow dusts the land. Then there are the decorated houses: saltboxes, Victorians, farmhouses, Tudors. Tiny lights shimmer on front porches; candles glow in paned windows. But one imposing stone colonial towers dark in the night. Since moving to town, Millie Ives has heard hushed whisperings of that house - and of the mysterious man who lives and works there. A chance happening leads Millie to this Mr. Winter's spellbinding shop just past the bell tower.

Welcome to Mattagash, Maine, a town where everyone's personal lives are as entwined as their family trees. On the day of the first snowfall, the residents brace themselves for the long winter ahead. Mere survival will be hard; dealing with each other is another story. As winter settles in, various Mattagashians careen from conundrum to conundrum, trying to save dying small businesses, caring for crabby loved ones, and cruising through town, stirring up gossip any way they can get it.

Winter Dreams is a story of friendship, love and betrayal by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Every day, Cole Roberts reminds himself that life wasn’t always this bleak. He was once passionately in love with Erin. Sam used to be an artistic and lively kid. That was before Brenna disappeared. Every day it gets worse. Erin drinks wine out of the bottle and spends her days with a tormented expression, searching the web for signs of their daughter. Sam hides in his room and rarely speaks. And Cole works himself to a stupor for a paycheck a fraction of the size of his old salary. Until one day, a phone call changes everything.

Ralph, Marnie and Oliver once knew each other as childhood friends. Now they meet again in Ralph's secluded cottage to share the precious days that Ralph has left.

The author of Break in Case of Emergency follows up her the “extraordinary debut” (The Guardian) with a moving novel about motherhood and marriage, adolescence and bodily autonomy, family and love, religion and sexuality, and the delicate balance between the purity of faith and the messy reality of life.

Thirty-four-year-old Angie Dugan struggles with many things - anxiety, her career as a social worker in a retirement home, and her difficult family. Her biggest struggle, though, is finding love. When she meets Matt, she's swept away by his attention. As issues from his past come up, she wonders if she can trust him. Should she break it off, or give him another chance? In the end, all she can do is listen to her heart, and evaluate what she wants most.

Caught somewhere between love, hate, and indifference, Emily Bowen’s marriage is hanging on by a thread. After being let go from his job, her husband pulled away from her, and the distance continues to grow during their family’s sabbatical in Switzerland. With their relationship as cold as the wind baying outside, Emily finds unexpected warmth in a man from her past. As she contemplates seizing the connection she’s been craving, Emily must decide if she’s willing to sacrifice the life she’s built for an unseen future.

1910: people are mysteriously dying at an alarming rate in the Russian-ruled city of Kharbin, a major railway outpost in Northern China. Strangely, some of the dead bodies vanish before they can be identified. During a dangerously cold winter in a city gripped by fear, the Baron, a wealthy Russian aristocrat and the city's medical commissioner, is determined to stop this mysterious plague. Battling local customs, an occupying army, and a brutal epidemic with no name, the Baron is torn between Western medical science and respect for Chinese tradition.

As the dark specter of the Nazis settles over Germany, two wealthy and educated brothers are suddenly thrust into the rising tide of war. Karl, a former soldier and successful businessman, dutifully answers the call to defend his country, while contemplative academic Gerhard is coerced into informing for the Gestapo. Soon the brothers are serving in the SS, and as Hitler's hateful agenda brings about unspeakable atrocities, they find themselves with innocent blood on their hands.

Gripping and atmospheric, Winter in Tabriz tells the story of four young people living in 1970s Iran during the months immediately prior to the revolution and the choices they have to make as a result of the ensuing upheaval. The lives of Damian and Anna, both from Oxford University, become enmeshed with two Iranians - Arash, a poet, and his older brother, Reza, a student sympathetic to the problems of the dissident writers in Iran and a would-be photojournalist, interested in capturing the rebellion on the streets.

In 1911, a young John Shaw from South Carolina had his first taste of flying. In 1926, two years after the plane crash death of his best friend, he attempted a solo flight record in a refitted 1923 Curtiss Jenny. Then, with half the journey completed, his plane was caught in a storm, went down, and for 17 years he was listed as missing, presumed dead. The Longest Winter is a work of fiction, the tale of one man's life. His story is one of despair and courage, tragedy and triumph.

When the marshal of Leadville, Colorado, comes across a pair of mysterious, bloody deaths out in the badlands, he turns to Cora to find the creature responsible. But if she is to overcome the unnatural tide threatening to consume the small town, Cora must first confront her own tragic past.

On a farm in Jutland, Fredrik Gregersen struggles to keep his children fed, supplementing his income by smuggling refugees through Denmark into Sweden. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, Polina, a young Polish Jew, has been forced into prostitution by the Nazis. When Fredrik steals an heirloom necklace from a helpless Jewish family, his fate becomes intertwined with Polina's, entrapping them both in a complex web that takes decades to unravel.

Far from the savage remnants of humanity, Henry and his family have managed to survive the grip of desolate, perpetual winter on a vast tundra that was once an ocean teeming with life. When the family is discovered, their peaceful existence is shattered and their lives changed forever. Henry’s siblings are kidnapped, leaving him alone in the ruins of their home. Broken, altered, and tormented by all that has befallen him, he is driven to wreak vengeance upon those who assume him dead...by any means necessary.

Get the first three books in the Year of Discovery series in one box set: January, February, and March. Over 350 pages of tragedy, tribulation, and triumph in one volume. Twelve women connected by the death of another, realizing what they most want from life, and reaching for it - this is the year of discovery, the year of new beginnings. This compilation includes the titles: January, February, and March.