Embrace the chill and the unique atmosphere of the season with our curated winter reading list, a perfect blend of icy landscapes, cozy mysteries, survival stories, and heartwarming comfort.
All of our books this month are set in cold places, with cold themes, but each one takes on a unique spin.
Check out the the frosty grip of a small town hockey community in Fredrik Backman’s Beartown. Or maybe you would prefer the the magical, myth-infused world of Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale? We also have the raw, unforgiving beauty of the Alaskan wilderness in Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone. Or you could delve into faerie lore with Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. These stories will transfix you by their settings as much as the characters in their stories.
If you are looking for something a little different, check out the challenges of historical survival in the stark setting of The Frozen River, or read about Ernest Shackleton in the Antarctic with the non-fiction classic Endurance. If you prefer the comfort of the indoors, discover Danish secrets to a happy life with The Little Book of Hygge.
For suspense, check out Rock Paper Scissors or I Let You Go.
And for some romantic seasonal tales, try Winter Solstice, Kiss Her Once For Me, or Eight Perfect Hours.
Whether you’re in the mood for an enchanting escape, a gripping thriller, a historical epic like Once Upon a River or Spinning Silver or a quiet contemplation with A Quiet Life, we have an option for everyone on our winter reads list!
A Quiet Life
Author:
Ethan Joella
Genre:
Contemporary Fiction
Summary:
Set in a close-knit Pennsylvania suburb in the grip of winter, A Quiet Life follows three people grappling with loss and finding a tender wisdom in their grief.
Chuck Ayers used to look forward to nothing so much as his annual trip to Hilton Head with his wife, Cat–that yearly taste of relaxation they’d become accustomed to in retirement, after a lifetime of working and raising two children. Now, just months after Cat’s death, Chuck finds that he can’t let go of her things–her favorite towel, the sketchbooks in her desk drawer–as he struggles to pack for a trip he can’t imagine taking without her.
Ella Burke delivers morning newspapers and works at a bridal shop to fill her days while she anxiously awaits news–any piece of information–about her missing daughter. Ella adjusts to life in a new apartment and answers every call on her phone, hoping her daughter will reach out one day.
After the sudden death of her father, Kirsten Bonato set aside her veterinary school aspirations, finding comfort in the steady routine of working at an animal shelter. But as time passes, old dreams and new romantic interests begin to surface–and Kirsten finds herself at another crossroads.
In this beautifully crafted and profoundly moving novel, three parallel narratives converge in poignant and unexpected ways, as each character bravely presses onward, trying to recover something they have lost.
The Bear and the Nightingale
Author:
Katherine Arden
Genre:
Fantasy Fiction/Historical Fiction
Summary:
In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift – a precious jewel on a delicate chain, intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that, armed only with the necklace, she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay.
Kiss Her Once For Me
Author:
Alison Cochrun
Genre:
Romance/LGBTQ
Summary:
One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money.
Finding work at a local coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days–until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse. But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it’s Jack–the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real.
Eight Perfect Hours
Author:
Lia Louis
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Summary:
On a snowy evening in January, thirtysomething Noelle Butterby is on her way back from an event at her old college when disaster strikes. With a blizzard closing off roads, she finds herself stranded, alone in her car, without food, drink, or, even worse, a working charger for her phone.
All seems lost until Sam Attwood, also trapped in a nearby car, knocks on her window and offers assistance. After eight perfect hours together, morning arrives and the roads finally clear. The two strangers part, positive they’ll never see each other again but fate has something else in mind. As the two keep serendipitously bumping into one another, they begin to realize that perhaps there truly is no such thing as coincidence.
Winter Solstice
Author:
Rosamunde Pilcher
Genre:
Romance
Summary:
Elfrida Phipps, once of London’s stage, moved to the English village of Dibton in hopes of making a new life for herself. Gradually she settled into the comfortable familiarity of village life — shopkeepers knowing her tastes, neighbors calling her by name — still she finds herself lonely.
Oscar Blundell gave up his life as a musician in order to marry Gloria. They have a beautiful daughter, Francesca, and it is only because of their little girl that Oscar views his sacrificed career as worthwhile.
Carrie returns from Australia at the end of an ill-fated affair with a married man to find her mother and aunt sharing a home and squabbling endlessly. With Christmas approaching, Carrie agrees to look after her aunt’s awkward and quiet teenage daughter, Lucy, so that her mother might enjoy a romantic fling in America.
Sam Howard is trying to pull his life back together after his wife has left him for another. He is without home and without roots, all he has is his job. Business takes him to northern Scotland, where he falls in love with the lush, craggy landscape and set his sights on a house.
It is the strange rippling effects of a tragedy that will bring these five characters together in a large, neglected estate house near the Scottish fishing town of Creagan.
It is in this house, on the shortest day of the year, that the lives of five people will come together and be forever changed. Rosamunde Pilcher’s long-awaited return to the page will warm the hearts of readers both old and new. Winter Solstice is a novel of love, loyalty and rebirth.
I Let You Go
Author:
Clare Mackintosh
Genre:
Thriller/Suspense
Summary:
On a rainy afternoon, a mother’s life is shattered as her son slips from her grip and runs into the street…
Jenna Gray moves to a ramshackle cottage on the remote Welsh coast, trying to escape the memory of the car accident that plays again and again in her mind and desperate to heal from the loss of her child and the rest of her painful past.
At the same time, a pair of Bristol police investigators are trying to get to the bottom of the hit-and-run accident. As they chase down one hopeless lead after another. The officers they find themselves as drawn to each other as they are to the frustrating, twist-filled case before them.
Spinning Silver
Author:
Naomi Novik
Genre:
Fantasy
Summary:
Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem takes matters into her own hands.
Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk–grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh–Miryem’s fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered.
Set an impossible challenge by the nameless king, Miryem unwittingly spins a web that draws in a peasant girl, Wanda, and the unhappy daughter of a local lord who plots to wed his child to the dashing young tsar. But Tsar Mirnatius is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and her two unlikely allies embark on a desperate quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power, and love
Once Upon a River
Author:
Diane Setterfield
Genre:
Historical Fiction/Mystery
Summary:
On a dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, a wounded stranger carries in the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later the girl stirs, and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Magic?
As the days pass the child remains mute and unable to answer questions. Three families are keen to claim her: the wealthy mother of a kidnapped daughter missing for two years; a farming family sure it is their son’s secret daughter; a parson’s housekeeper, reminded of her younger sister.
Each family has secrets, must be revealed before the girl’s identity can be known.
The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living
Author:
Meik Wiking
Genre:
Self Help/Psychology
Summary:
The Danes are famously the happiest people in the world, and hygge is a cornerstone of their way of life.
Hygge (pronounce Hoo-ga) loosely translates as a sense of comfort, togetherness, and well-being. You know hygge when you feel it. It is when you are cuddled up on the sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends. It is those crisp blue mornings when the light through your window is just right. It is about gratitude and savoring the simple pleasures in life. In short, it is the pursuit of everyday happiness.
Rock Paper Scissors
Author:
Alice Feeney
Genre:
Thriller
Summary:
Think you know the person you married? Think again … Things have been wrong with Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs.
Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts–paper, cotton, pottery, tin–and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now.
They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.
Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget
Endurance
Author:
Alfred Lansing
Genre:
Biography
Summary:
In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the Endurance and set sail for Antarctica, where he planned to cross the last uncharted continent on foot. In January 1915, after battling its way through a thousand miles of pack ice and only a day’s sail short of its destination, the Endurance became locked in an island of ice. Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. When their ship was finally crushed between two ice floes, they attempted a near-impossible journey over 850 miles of the South Atlantic’s heaviest seas to the closest outpost of civilization.
In Endurance , the definitive account of Ernest Shackleton’s fateful trip, Alfred Lansing brilliantly narrates the harrowing and miraculous voyage that has defined heroism for the modern age.
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
Author:
Heather Fawlett
Genre:
Romantic Fantasy
Summary:
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on dryadology, the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopedia of faerie lore.
But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party–much less get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog Shadow, and the Fair Folk to that of friends or lovers. So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hransvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: the dashing and insufferably handsome Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of her research, and utterly confound and frustrate Emily.
But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones–the most elusive of all faeries–lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all–her own heart
The Great Alone
Author:
Kristin Hannah
Genre:
Historical Fiction
Summary:
Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.
At first Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture.
The Frozen River
Author:
Ariel Lawhon
Genre:
Historical Fiction
Summary:
Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.
Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.
Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.
Beartown
Author:
Fredrik Backman
Genre:
Contemporary/Sports Fiction
Summary:
By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals–and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
Under that heavy burden, the match becomes the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown.
This is a story about a town and a game, but even more about loyalty, commitment, and the responsibilities of friendship; the people we disappoint even though we love them; and the decisions we make every day that come to define us. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
