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

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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.

There are some very shocking things in this book even though one might think Cathy is living a very boring life. I have mixed feelings about this book as some parts I absolutely loved and others I found very dull. But as they enter adulthood the close bond they share must be left behind though Catherine ardently wants things to remain the same.This is a most enjoyable book, if not an especially deep one, a sort of Bronte meets Lawrence meets McEwan. Also important to note: the plot will not answer all of the questions you will inevitably ask yourself as the story unfolds. All told, I would say this is an excellent choice of literature if you’re looking for something dark and bleak that examines a childhood without parental guidance and affection, forbidden love, familial obligations, and a life of seclusion. But as I read, bits of the setting and characters started to come together, particularly the narrator Catherine. But little by little, the spell of winter that has held Catherine begins to break, and she starts to free herself from the weight of the past.

I am reviewing this after Goodreads recommend I read it - just shows how spot on they are at assessing your reading tastes because I think you will see from this review, I loved this one.Dunmore's prose is incredibly rich and detailed which can be beautiful to read but also quite tedious at times when you just want to know what is happening in the plot. Some readers may find the book's "intensity and darkness", which hovers between "gripping and overwrought", a little "heavy-handed", but the reviewer was impressed by Dunmore's "keen, close writing" and "artful use of metaphor". Some events in the plot were gripping and shocking but the parts in-between were quite slow and boring.

No one talks about their mother, who has abandoned them to live in the south of France – she was a bit wild, with crazy Irish hair that poor young Cathy seems to have inherited. 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. And that's why she's trapped in "winter", with her life not really moving forward at all even though the years are passing. The exception being her reaction to birthing and losing a baby, which is buried in some unknown plot of land on the family property.

This novel was the first to win the Orange Prize in 1996, a prize that has had a few reincarnations, including the Baileys Prize and now simply The Women’s Prize for Fiction.

He will leave her body before I do, and he’ll be there, waiting for me, making sure I’m never alone. It also seemed surprisingly emotionless after the string of heart-wrenching tragedies leading up to it. Reading this book made me feel the way I felt when I watched The Piano or Angels and Insects, or read Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. 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.Kamps noted that once the War starts, Cathy shows signs of "something akin to sympathy for others", but added that it is too late "to believe, or care, that the clouds in Cathy's life are suddenly parting. Catherine and her brother Rob do not understand why they have been abandoned by both their parents, or know where their mother has gone. But I was so utterly enchanted and riveted by this book, and I cannot wait to see what else Dunmore has to offer.