A Spell of Winter

by Helen Dunmore

Book Overview

The inaugural winner of England's prestigious Orange Prize, A Spell of Winter is a compelling turn-of-the-century tale of innocence corrupted by secrecy, and the grace of second chances. Cathy and her brother, Rob, have forged a passionate refuge against the terror of loneliness and family secrets, but their sibling love becomes fraught with danger. As Catherine fights free of her dark present and haunting past, the spell of winter that has held her...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802138764
• ISBN13: 9780802138767
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Haunting, enveloping, powerful prose

Siblings Rob and Catherine live in the big old house with their cold grandfather after their mother abandoned them and their father left to live in a mental institution. Left alone to wonder about the family secrets that seem to be hiding everywhere, they turn to each other for the love and affection they can't find elsewhere. This is an absolutely haunting book. The writing was just about as beautiful and powerful as any I've encountered. Dunmore created such a strong sense of place that was so enveloping that I had to take breaks from reading just to warm up and bring myself back to my life, because I felt like if I spent too much time there in the world of the book, I'd be trapped and never make it out. I'm excited to read more by this author.

Comparisons to Brontes are valid

A Gothic novel that is as dark and atmospheric to the classics it has been compared to. Dunmore's writing it lush and captivating, and this is a total page-turner. Yet, being a devoted fan, I know that she has been better in other works....

Think Bronte, not Joanna Trollope

Rarely, does one come across a gothic novel written by a modern novelist that is not totally insipid. Helen Dunmore's "A Spell of Winter" is literature and it is beautiful. The writing strikes a fine poetic balance - profoundly evocative without being overly dense or distracting from the story she unwinds. You are, quite simply, there. You smell, taste and feel everything. And, the scenery...ah, the scenes, the odd, strange and staggeringly beautiful scenes you find yourself experiencing (Dunmore is a master of place) - ones you won't forget after you close the book. It is all very confusing and exciting and exquistedly sad. The characters, particularly the female ones, are well-realized and deeply complex (just as people truly are in a life fully-lived). Dunmore has obviously, like many of us, been long haunted by Cathy and Heathcliff. Admittedly, I had a few problems with the novel's conclusion. Toward the end, I found many of the actions of the characters became totally, well, uncharacteristic and seemed manipulated to satisfy to the novel's plot, or lack thereof, toward the ending. I found this highly disappointing since I was so involved with the characters by that point. Much of the novel's trembling intensity seems to just peter out. Still, there did exist that "trembling intensity" and finding that anywhere in a novel is a gift not lightly dismissed.

A long sought treasure of a novel...

"A Spell of Winter" is an old-fashioned novel, where once again the flow of narration charms us in an instant, and we are carried off into the nineteenth century English countryside, and enter the small world where Catherine's life undergoes a transformation. It's a small world, for the story evolves around the house, a family mansion of the Allens, a dysfunctional family we grow to love as pages turn around and about. The novel is a pleasure to read, bu all accounts. beginning with an old-style clear typeface, beautiful dust jacket, well-bound hardcover, and ending with the characters, the frozen setting and dusty mysterious atmosphere of the storyline. Helen Dunmore is virtually unknown in America, perhaps because only recently the audience had the chance to discover her works. I am happy that I found A Spell of Winter sue to seemingly random book search patterns I have. Having read thousands of books, I have developed a sort of intuition which whispers in my ear: that's the one! I have bought Helen Dunmore's novel trusting my intuition, and having just finished it, I would like to make a heartfelt recommendation for fellow old-fashioned bookworms like yours truly. The novel is engaging, never dull, the writing style is unique, impossiblt to compare with anyone else's, the narration is soft, dreamilke, and even very topics which others would have found difficult, if not impossible to write about, were touched here with infinite gentleness, like a womanly barely audible whisper, a story told intimately, reserved for your ears only, in confidence of an embrace, in a small room of an old house lit only by a weak yet cheerful candle. I am sure some of you have lived through this; listened attentively with love when the dearest significant other opens her heart; slowly and gradually unfolding the most important tale of personal life. Have you? "A Spell of Winter" is the confession, such confession, this particular confession that makes you slightly tremble all along, while you are aware of both the intimacy and the importance of the moment. It might have been a diary. Yes, it might have been, but then it wouldn't have been as good as it is. Brilliant dialogues, where there is no word lost, or added beyond what is needed, devoid of ornaments, and yet beautiful in its simplicity. I have fallen in love with the voice of Catherine, the charming protagonist of the novel. Eccentric and feminine, Catherine unveils the mystery of her spectacular girlhood in the family mansion. One might say that whoever else tried to touch that subject, would definitely fail, having trivialized it, trampled over with some superimposed vision, where we would have no choice but to follow the interpretation served us by the author. Dunmore allowed us to follow the events, as they came, with her exquisite prose carrying us like the dolphin over waves, in a twirl, leaving it for us to ponder about. There is not a single artificial moment in the book, and boy, wasn't that easy to