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

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Rob and Catherine live in virtual isolation in the crumbling old house belonging to their grandfather.

I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.A less experienced author may have turned this into a "romantic melodrama", but Delbanco stated that Dunmore's "authoritative telling" has produced a "haunt[ing]" tale. Also important to note: the plot will not answer all of the questions you will inevitably ask yourself as the story unfolds. Their mother abandons the family home when they are children and their father dies, leaving them to grow up in a decaying mansion cut off from the rest of the world.

I have mixed feelings about this book as some parts I absolutely loved and others I found very dull. In the novel, Cathy narrates the story of her upbringing in a remote part of England on the cusp of WWI. The siblings are left to their own devices with only an unlikeable governess, and a single servant to see to their needs. For the past two years, I have read a number of the longlisted titles, and look forward to the nominations and awards.

The characters are distinctly peripheral; each one demonstrates a hazy carelessness, drifting along in a fog of apathy. The synopsis on the cover (and on Goodreads) offers little in the way of what to expect, and I can see where not knowing what you’re getting into here could lead to less than favorable experiences for some readers, though the right audience will find this a gorgeous (if grim) book. With Kate's departure for Canada and Rob's for the front, destitute times at home force Cathy into self-reliance. 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.

Although the story requires patience and an open mind to the scandals of love and family in all their forms, it's not a book that is easily forgotten once it's you put it down. This is a most enjoyable book, if not an especially deep one, a sort of Bronte meets Lawrence meets McEwan. They are brought up by servants in the house of their grandfather, an Irishman who made his fortune somehow and is known in the neighbourhood as ‘the man from nowhere’. 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.Catherine – like her mother before her – takes charge of her life in unexpected ways that defy social convention. At the beginning I did find it a bit confusing as there were some sudden time jumps but later the story settled down and there was no more confusion. The atmosphere and setting reminded me of a couple of my favourite William Trevor novels ( Fools of Fortune and The Story of Lucy Gault - they share the decaying country house settings and the Anglo-Irish family settings, and they share the elegiac tone with darker overtones and the quality of the writing. 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. Kate, the young woman who attends to both children and the house’s upkeep (among other household staff), is dedicated to her duties but longs for a life of her own in which she’s entitled to more than a leaking attic bedroom.

A Spell of Winter я все поражалась, как такое бывает – такая роскошь, такая избыточность, когда литература может себе позволить что-то промежуточное, просто прекрасно средний роман, в котором все гладко, продуманно, прошито и выписано. A Spell of Winter is one of those novels that pulls you in with its secrets and sense of impending doom. The maturity of Catherine, even though she lives in a world with limited experiences, is amazing and is possible because she accepts what is and keeps an even appearance to the outside world.It's a bit of a demanding read--Dunmore leaps across time and space, her narrative mirroring the way people think, but as a result, you are immersed completely. I wanted us to wake to a kingdom of ice where our breath would turn to icicles as it left our lips, and we would walk through tunnels of snow to the outhouses and find birds fallen dead from the air. On one hand I liked the way the novel is insightful: Catherine’s state of mind when she finds out that the world is changing, the minute descriptions of all the characters and the little twists and turns in the narrative. Since I'm currently reading the novels longlisted for this year's Women's Prize I thought I'd go back and read Dunmore's “A Spell of Winter” which won this award's very first prize in 1996 (when it was known as the Orange Prize. Unsettling love and stifled horror create and then destroy the claustrophobic world of this lush, literary Gothic set in turn-of-the-century England .