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A Long Winter
One snowy morning, after arguing with her husband, Miquel’s mother walks out from their home high up in the Pyrenees and does not return. With his younger brother stationed far away on military service and his father cast out by the people of the town, Miquel and his father are left to fend for themselves. Together they will be forced to battle the elements, and their resentment of each other, through the long winter.
Miquel’s desperate searching for his mother is only interrupted when Manolo, an orphaned servant boy from the next village, arrives to help out in the house. As Miquel is forced to confront the reality of his mother's absence, Manolo, with his silences and longing gaze, offers the promise of new love, and another kind of life.
Miquel’s desperate searching for his mother is only interrupted when Manolo, an orphaned servant boy from the next village, arrives to help out in the house. As Miquel is forced to confront the reality of his mother's absence, Manolo, with his silences and longing gaze, offers the promise of new love, and another kind of life.
140 pages, Hardcover
Published September 3, 2025
177 people are currently reading
6447 people want to read
About the author
Colm Tóibín
232 books5,340 followersColm Tóibín FRSL, is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. Tóibín is currently Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University in Manhattan and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 179 reviews
September 26, 2025
I’ve recently been in a conference in Brighton, England, and bought this to read on the plane to Rome. I didn’t realise that it had already been published in one of his previous books – Mothers and Sons. If I’d known, I’d probably have just bought that instead, although, he has an afterword in this that I particularly enjoyed. I let my friend Nell know I had bought it and she got hold of it too. When we caught up in London we sat in a Pret with a cup of tea and chatted about it. My daughter was also with me and she read it too. My reading wasn’t at all like theirs. I’m going to tell you about a short scene in this, which I don’t really think is a spoiler, but that neither Nell nor Maddy really agreed with me about.
There is a part in this where the main character is woken in the night by the wind blowing a door outside that bangs loudly in the night. He gets out of bed and puts a rock beside the door to stop it swinging.
Now, to me, in a book so much about death, the knocking has a special significance. My grandmother used to hear the knocking when someone died. And it is also in TS Eliots’ The Waste Land – pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door. So, this wasn’t something I was likely to not think was very significant in the story. What I actually thought, as I read it, was that if I’d been writing the story, I’d have made a complete mess of this bit. I’d have explained it more – I’d have made this a very clear turning point. I’d have made some reference to passing spirits. I’d have spoken about Simon becoming Peter – and how Peter means rock. That is, I’d have laden this with all of the meanings I saw in it and forced that interpretation on the image. That neither of my fellow readers saw or even really agreed with my reading of it came as a bit of a surprise to me. A moment Derrida would have found amusing, I guess. Each reader brings their own self to their reading. Nell, for instance, had been woken in the night by a door banging in the wind before and so was interested in some of the mechanics of putting a rock behind the door that I would never have thought of. How the door needs to swing towards you for the rock to work as a way to fix the problem.
This story doesn’t resolve in a way you might hope. But then, life and death are a bit like that, aren’t they?
There is a part in this where the main character is woken in the night by the wind blowing a door outside that bangs loudly in the night. He gets out of bed and puts a rock beside the door to stop it swinging.
Now, to me, in a book so much about death, the knocking has a special significance. My grandmother used to hear the knocking when someone died. And it is also in TS Eliots’ The Waste Land – pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door. So, this wasn’t something I was likely to not think was very significant in the story. What I actually thought, as I read it, was that if I’d been writing the story, I’d have made a complete mess of this bit. I’d have explained it more – I’d have made this a very clear turning point. I’d have made some reference to passing spirits. I’d have spoken about Simon becoming Peter – and how Peter means rock. That is, I’d have laden this with all of the meanings I saw in it and forced that interpretation on the image. That neither of my fellow readers saw or even really agreed with my reading of it came as a bit of a surprise to me. A moment Derrida would have found amusing, I guess. Each reader brings their own self to their reading. Nell, for instance, had been woken in the night by a door banging in the wind before and so was interested in some of the mechanics of putting a rock behind the door that I would never have thought of. How the door needs to swing towards you for the rock to work as a way to fix the problem.
This story doesn’t resolve in a way you might hope. But then, life and death are a bit like that, aren’t they?
October 1, 2025
The more I think about this curious novella (in which, really, there is only one event), the more I keep on thinking.
I’ve read it three or four times already. It won’t let me go.
It’s a third-person narrative in six chapters, told from the viewpoint of Miquel, a young man in his early twenties. The book blurb sums up most of what happens in one sentence: ‘One … ] morning, after arguing with her husband, Miquel’s mother walks out from their home high up in the Pyrenees and does not return.’
It’s mid-winter on the day she walks out, and until now it has been relatively mild. But this morning “the sky darkened suddenly, blue-black clouds appeared over them, gathering in a low dense mass. The light became a dark purple and there was no wind. Miguel … ] knew that it meant snow.”
So this troubled woman has chosen the wrong day to walk out. She sets off for her brother’s house but she never arrives. If she’s dead, the snow has buried her body. This literal event is also the metaphor that takes over everything. Just as the snow buries the mother (or we assume so), so social convention and grief bury all sorts of other things. In fact, this story is absolutely full of concealment.
Miquel, for example, who is old enough to be looking for a wife, is not interested in women, or not in that way. He is attracted to men. It’s a society in which such attraction is clearly known about but stays secret, and disapproved. Strong feelings of any kind are not spoken about, although they drift about the place as freely as the wind.
Miquel’s father has offended most of the small village by reporting some of them for “diverting water in the summer months”. The family has been shunned by the neighbours as a result, perhaps one factor that has driven Miquel’s mother to drink. But her alcoholism has been concealed from Miquel, although both his younger brother and his father are aware of it. Miquel in turn conceals his mother’s disappearance from his younger brother (away doing military service). But Miquel has been playing at concealment since he was a child: his mother encouraged him in a game of hide and seek when she pretended she couldn’t find him.
Snow conceals the mother’s fate. But snow both conceals and preserves. The winter may be long but it will end. Not inside this novella, however. And in fact we see other, smaller, deaths. The rabbits, for example, that the mother had bred for the table. Without her, they start to get sick and die. The hens eat their own eggs. The neighbours, out hunting, take brutal pleasure in killing wild boar. The vultures, when the snow begins to melt, feed on a dead dog. The father shoots one of the vultures.
The idea of things rotting also weaves in and out, as though the fate of the imagined dead body has permeated the narrative. The glass from which she has drunk wine smells “pungent, almost rotten”. In the final paragraphs, the vultures, feasting on a carcase, smell horrible, and their odour is also “pungent” from eating “what was rotten and dead”. All of this is part of the long winter, the nightmare time in which what was familiar is destroyed and out of it something new will grow. But not yet.
It was interesting to me that the new relationships here are between men, and only one of these has a sexual dimension (between Miquel and Manolo, the young man employed to do their cooking and cleaning). The other is an incipient friendship between the father and an estranged neighbour, who offers kindness and practical help. Miquel struggles with the guilt he feels about his mother’s departure. We know this because the tale is told from his point of view. But it seems obvious that the father (who is far more to blame) also bears a burden of guilt, although he doesn’t (and probably can’t) speak about it. It doesn’t make him more bitter; in fact, he seems to be a more humane and compassionate person by the final page.
My friend Trevor, who also reviewed this book [https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...], was especially struck by a moment that the author himself found seminal: it’s a tiny episode where Miquel hears a barn door banging at night and gets up in the dark to wedge it shut with a stone.
This is a story with many images that stick in the head. One that stays with me is the idea of patiently and carefully folding things up and putting them away. The younger brother loved folding things. He kept his pyjamas folded neatly under his pillow.” As for Miquel, “when he was a small boy his favourite pastime, under his mother’s supervision, was opening each drawer and taking out the contents and then folding them and replacing them exactly as he had found them.” There is something in this idea that I can’t quite explain, but it seems to me to be something to do with love, and there is love in this tale, though much of it is concealed, and there is love in the way the tale is told.
I’ve read it three or four times already. It won’t let me go.
It’s a third-person narrative in six chapters, told from the viewpoint of Miquel, a young man in his early twenties. The book blurb sums up most of what happens in one sentence: ‘One … ] morning, after arguing with her husband, Miquel’s mother walks out from their home high up in the Pyrenees and does not return.’
It’s mid-winter on the day she walks out, and until now it has been relatively mild. But this morning “the sky darkened suddenly, blue-black clouds appeared over them, gathering in a low dense mass. The light became a dark purple and there was no wind. Miguel … ] knew that it meant snow.”
So this troubled woman has chosen the wrong day to walk out. She sets off for her brother’s house but she never arrives. If she’s dead, the snow has buried her body. This literal event is also the metaphor that takes over everything. Just as the snow buries the mother (or we assume so), so social convention and grief bury all sorts of other things. In fact, this story is absolutely full of concealment.
Miquel, for example, who is old enough to be looking for a wife, is not interested in women, or not in that way. He is attracted to men. It’s a society in which such attraction is clearly known about but stays secret, and disapproved. Strong feelings of any kind are not spoken about, although they drift about the place as freely as the wind.
Miquel’s father has offended most of the small village by reporting some of them for “diverting water in the summer months”. The family has been shunned by the neighbours as a result, perhaps one factor that has driven Miquel’s mother to drink. But her alcoholism has been concealed from Miquel, although both his younger brother and his father are aware of it. Miquel in turn conceals his mother’s disappearance from his younger brother (away doing military service). But Miquel has been playing at concealment since he was a child: his mother encouraged him in a game of hide and seek when she pretended she couldn’t find him.
Snow conceals the mother’s fate. But snow both conceals and preserves. The winter may be long but it will end. Not inside this novella, however. And in fact we see other, smaller, deaths. The rabbits, for example, that the mother had bred for the table. Without her, they start to get sick and die. The hens eat their own eggs. The neighbours, out hunting, take brutal pleasure in killing wild boar. The vultures, when the snow begins to melt, feed on a dead dog. The father shoots one of the vultures.
The idea of things rotting also weaves in and out, as though the fate of the imagined dead body has permeated the narrative. The glass from which she has drunk wine smells “pungent, almost rotten”. In the final paragraphs, the vultures, feasting on a carcase, smell horrible, and their odour is also “pungent” from eating “what was rotten and dead”. All of this is part of the long winter, the nightmare time in which what was familiar is destroyed and out of it something new will grow. But not yet.
It was interesting to me that the new relationships here are between men, and only one of these has a sexual dimension (between Miquel and Manolo, the young man employed to do their cooking and cleaning). The other is an incipient friendship between the father and an estranged neighbour, who offers kindness and practical help. Miquel struggles with the guilt he feels about his mother’s departure. We know this because the tale is told from his point of view. But it seems obvious that the father (who is far more to blame) also bears a burden of guilt, although he doesn’t (and probably can’t) speak about it. It doesn’t make him more bitter; in fact, he seems to be a more humane and compassionate person by the final page.
My friend Trevor, who also reviewed this book [https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...], was especially struck by a moment that the author himself found seminal: it’s a tiny episode where Miquel hears a barn door banging at night and gets up in the dark to wedge it shut with a stone.
This is a story with many images that stick in the head. One that stays with me is the idea of patiently and carefully folding things up and putting them away. The younger brother loved folding things. He kept his pyjamas folded neatly under his pillow.” As for Miquel, “when he was a small boy his favourite pastime, under his mother’s supervision, was opening each drawer and taking out the contents and then folding them and replacing them exactly as he had found them.” There is something in this idea that I can’t quite explain, but it seems to me to be something to do with love, and there is love in this tale, though much of it is concealed, and there is love in the way the tale is told.
December 25, 2025
4.5, rounded down.
This is actually an older novella that was included in the author's 2007 collection Mothers and Sons, just now being reprinted as a stand-alone title - rather than as I first misapprehended, a new work. Also unusual in that it is NOT set in Tóibín's usual Irish setting, but in rural Spain.
It's a taut, tight work, about a somewhat fractured family - Miguel, the protagonist, is the elder son, who has returned to the fold after his mandatory military service, just as younger brother Jordi takes off to fulfill his. His parents have long settled into a comfortable, but none too loving marriage, with the mother hiding a secret drinking problem that has arisen while Miguel was away.
When the husband pours out her secret stash and refuses to allow her any further access (the doctor has diagnosed that the drink is killing her), she runs away during a snowstorm, leaving the two men on their own. Inept at faring for themselves, the father hires a rather feminine house servant/cook, Manuel, who brings out Miguel's latent preferences. I'll leave things there, as it's really a lovely story, well worth the 2 hours it takes to read. Highly recommended.
This is actually an older novella that was included in the author's 2007 collection Mothers and Sons, just now being reprinted as a stand-alone title - rather than as I first misapprehended, a new work. Also unusual in that it is NOT set in Tóibín's usual Irish setting, but in rural Spain.
It's a taut, tight work, about a somewhat fractured family - Miguel, the protagonist, is the elder son, who has returned to the fold after his mandatory military service, just as younger brother Jordi takes off to fulfill his. His parents have long settled into a comfortable, but none too loving marriage, with the mother hiding a secret drinking problem that has arisen while Miguel was away.
When the husband pours out her secret stash and refuses to allow her any further access (the doctor has diagnosed that the drink is killing her), she runs away during a snowstorm, leaving the two men on their own. Inept at faring for themselves, the father hires a rather feminine house servant/cook, Manuel, who brings out Miguel's latent preferences. I'll leave things there, as it's really a lovely story, well worth the 2 hours it takes to read. Highly recommended.
January 4, 2025
Un llarg hivern ·
Aquesta és la típica novel·la on el paisatge i l'entorn és un personatge més. La part rural, el Pirineu, la neu, l'hivern... elements claus del relat que hi tenen un pes important. En aquest llibre hi trobareu un relat contemplatiu, on hi ha poca acció, però la simple lectura no n'exigeix més perquè l'argument és prou ric per mantenir viu l'interès del lector/a fins al final.
Colm Tóibín té el do de fer màgia amb la vida contemplativa, i te la fa viure de tan a prop que et sents una més d'allò seu que llegeixes. M'ha agradat molt com tracta la narració amb lleugeresa i com deixa molts camins narratius oberts.
Encara no em trec el pes de la desaparició de la mare, del vincle amb el fill. El final del llibre m'ha fet estremir. És brutal com narra -amb cruesa- la natura i els seus cicles.
Aquesta és la típica novel·la on el paisatge i l'entorn és un personatge més. La part rural, el Pirineu, la neu, l'hivern... elements claus del relat que hi tenen un pes important. En aquest llibre hi trobareu un relat contemplatiu, on hi ha poca acció, però la simple lectura no n'exigeix més perquè l'argument és prou ric per mantenir viu l'interès del lector/a fins al final.
Colm Tóibín té el do de fer màgia amb la vida contemplativa, i te la fa viure de tan a prop que et sents una més d'allò seu que llegeixes. M'ha agradat molt com tracta la narració amb lleugeresa i com deixa molts camins narratius oberts.
Encara no em trec el pes de la desaparició de la mare, del vincle amb el fill. El final del llibre m'ha fet estremir. És brutal com narra -amb cruesa- la natura i els seus cicles.
September 9, 2025
A haunting tale of loss, love, and survival. Tóibín’s tale of grief, hope and cold landscape is pure literary magic and it lingers even after turning the last page.
November 26, 2025
I loved this book. I was not expecting to find so many thoughts that i have had myself in the past in this tiny little book about grief and about family relationships. Not really a Christmas book, but a good one for cold January days. I really really want to read other books from the author
December 19, 2025
An intense novella about a missing woman. The end seemed abrupt after getting immersed in the story.
March 20, 2025
No és una novel·la, sinó que es tracta d'un relat. En concret, del relat que tanca el recull 'Mares i fills' que es va publicar l'any 2006 en anglès i que des de fa uns anys també tenim en català gràcies a l'editorial Amsterdam.
La història transcorr en un poblet aïllat del Pirineu Català i això –no us ho negaré– em va semblar curiós, però gràcies al pròleg que acompanya el relat vaig descobrir que l'autor hi té una casa i, per tant, que hi ha passat llargues estades. Això vos ho explic perquè l'indret i l'ambient hi juguen un gran paper i el fet de conèixer l'entorn de primer mà ha permès a l'autor fer-ne una descripció força acurada.
Pel que fa a la història, la coneixem a través d'en Miquel, el fill gran, qui juntament amb la seva família es prepara per a passar l'hivern. Tot sembla anar bé, fins que arran d'un secret que concerneix la mare es produeix una discussió i aquesta, sense que el seu marit i el seu fill se n'assabentin, se'n va de casa. Quan ambdós se n'adonen, surten a buscar-la, però de sobte comença una gran tempesta de neu que els farà recular, que deixarà els camins impracticables i que iniciarà un llarg hivern que els deixarà amb el neguit de saber què li ha passat a la mare. S'haurà pogut refugiar en algun indret? Haurà arribat a casa del seu germà? O bé ha quedat sepultada per tota la neu?
Personalment, m'hi han faltat algunes explicacions o bé poder aprofundir una miqueta més en algunes qüestions. No obstant això, crec que ha estat una bona aproximació a l'autor.
La història transcorr en un poblet aïllat del Pirineu Català i això –no us ho negaré– em va semblar curiós, però gràcies al pròleg que acompanya el relat vaig descobrir que l'autor hi té una casa i, per tant, que hi ha passat llargues estades. Això vos ho explic perquè l'indret i l'ambient hi juguen un gran paper i el fet de conèixer l'entorn de primer mà ha permès a l'autor fer-ne una descripció força acurada.
Pel que fa a la història, la coneixem a través d'en Miquel, el fill gran, qui juntament amb la seva família es prepara per a passar l'hivern. Tot sembla anar bé, fins que arran d'un secret que concerneix la mare es produeix una discussió i aquesta, sense que el seu marit i el seu fill se n'assabentin, se'n va de casa. Quan ambdós se n'adonen, surten a buscar-la, però de sobte comença una gran tempesta de neu que els farà recular, que deixarà els camins impracticables i que iniciarà un llarg hivern que els deixarà amb el neguit de saber què li ha passat a la mare. S'haurà pogut refugiar en algun indret? Haurà arribat a casa del seu germà? O bé ha quedat sepultada per tota la neu?
Personalment, m'hi han faltat algunes explicacions o bé poder aprofundir una miqueta més en algunes qüestions. No obstant això, crec que ha estat una bona aproximació a l'autor.
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December 2, 2023Magnífic. I més tenint en compte que l'ha escrit un irlandès, ho ha situat tot al Pirineu català, que se'l coneix molt bé
November 28, 2025
This was a 124 page little novella. I always love reading something short like this during the Christmas season. I enjoyed this. The story takes a lot of turns that I wasn’t expecting. I enjoyed following these different characters in this landscape through these circumstances. It also didn’t end the way I thought it would.
September 22, 2020
Set in the small villages of Catalonia close to La Seu d’Urgell, two decades after the end of the Civil War, this is a short and powerful novella about loss.
As winter nears the older son of an isolated family leaves for military service. The family are isolated not just because of their rural dwelling, but also the father has informed on fellow villagers for breaking the agricultural code. The mother’s drinking habit has worsened, and on discovery by the father and younger son, she disappears.
Toibin writing is quiet, thriving on inconsequence so that when moments of intensity arise, they are particularly significant.
The novella, or long short story, is part of a collection called Mother and Sons, but is special piece of writing, and deserves its own publication, fattened up by 30 or 40 pages.
Special also for me, reading it when just a few kilometres away from where it is set.
As winter nears the older son of an isolated family leaves for military service. The family are isolated not just because of their rural dwelling, but also the father has informed on fellow villagers for breaking the agricultural code. The mother’s drinking habit has worsened, and on discovery by the father and younger son, she disappears.
Toibin writing is quiet, thriving on inconsequence so that when moments of intensity arise, they are particularly significant.
The novella, or long short story, is part of a collection called Mother and Sons, but is special piece of writing, and deserves its own publication, fattened up by 30 or 40 pages.
Special also for me, reading it when just a few kilometres away from where it is set.
January 16, 2019
Halverwege deze novelle keek ik verbaasd op. Het regende buiten. Honden werden voor de laatste maal uitgelaten deze dag, maar ploeterden niet door metershoge sneeuw. Het trieste verhaal over verlies en een zoektocht naar een vrouw, een moeder, in onherbergzaam gebied door grote sneeuwval. Zij is verdwenen na een ruzie en speelt zich af in Spaans berggebied. Een vader en een zoon blijven ontredderd achter. Een tweede zoon vervult de dienstplicht en is onwetend van het drama. Manolo komt in huis, hij zorgt ervoor dat er geleefd kan worden. En dan komt de dag dat de sneeuw smelt.
July 29, 2024
Een traag verhaal in eenvoudige bewoordingen, geen overdreven metaforen of versieringen. Het verhaal en de personages staan centraal in de Catalaanse onherbergzame bergen. De moeder gaat wandelen na een ruzie vlak voor een sneeuwstorm. Tevergeefs zoeken ze haar. De seizoenen gaan verder. Wachten op de dooi. En tot de gieren rondcirkelen rond hun prooi om de moeder te vinden.
Grote emoties worden weggemoffeld en uitgevlakt, zoals ook de sneeuw alles bedekt en uitvlakt.
Grote emoties worden weggemoffeld en uitgevlakt, zoals ook de sneeuw alles bedekt en uitvlakt.
January 4, 2025
Tóibín, amb un estil precís i sobri, transforma un hivern fred i llarg en una metàfora de les relacions humanes: distants, complicades i sovint irreconciliables. Una lectura que queda gravada, com el silenci després d’una tempesta.
December 2, 2025
A very tightly written novella by an excellent writer!
December 6, 2025
I’m not sure if this did much for me but I do love a good description of a snowstorm
October 6, 2025
A slow, sad and thoughtful novella, set over a long winter in the Pyrenees, about a young man whose unhappy mother walks out of their house and village one day and never returns. According to the author's Afterword, it was inspired by a true local story - a story that remains unproven and unresolved, as does the mother's disappearance in the book - those hoping for a neat and tidy ending will be disappointed. But it's an immersive read, beautifully written, and Miquel's lonely, heart breaking struggle to come to terms with the loss that's left both him and his emotionally distant father bereft will stay with me for a long time.
September 23, 2025
I love Kenny's book shop. cheap shipping and great items. like this signed and numbered book. I got book 330/1000.
Great story, I don't know what I was expecting at the end but that wasn't it. but that ended up being okay too.
this book was just what I needed.
reminded me of Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These
Great story, I don't know what I was expecting at the end but that wasn't it. but that ended up being okay too.
this book was just what I needed.
reminded me of Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These
November 14, 2025
Yikes, I should have looked into what this novella was about before I bought it. Gosh, I love Colm's writing with everything else he's written (Brooklyn, Long Island, Nora Webster), but this was obscure and frankly, dreadful. I am glad I read the Afterword, because that explained his purpose for this novella. Still...yikes.
September 23, 2025
Really a 4.8. This is a gorgeously heart rending little story about family bonds, loss, and survival.
September 23, 2025
Powerful small read that will stay with me.
October 5, 2025
This taut novella is a bleak, atmospheric story set high in the Pyrenees. There are layers to the story that I’m guessing reveal themselves on a second or third read. I didn’t love it but it held my attention with its tension and wonderful literary writing and imagery. 3.5/5 ⭐️
October 22, 2019
Un relat ple de sensibilitat i poètica. Em recorda molt a la Maria Barbal i la seva descripció de la quotidianitat als pobles pirinencs, la psicologia dels personatges i com afloren sentiments íntims adormits entre paisatges salvatges.
May 9, 2024
Un llibre curt, molt curt. I intens, realment intens. Tantes paraules no dites, accions no fetes i buits a omplir. És una història colpidora que deixa veure clarament l’impacte d’una manca d’amor i llibertat per a l’ésser humà.
September 2, 2024
La seva manera d’escriure em va atrapar des del primer moment. I la història també. Quin gran descobriment, amb ganes de llegir més del que ha escrit!
November 14, 2025
A novella eight-chapters-long that is full of so much loss and emotion. Miguel misses his brother who has gone off to his military service. And then shortly thereafter, his mother walks out after a rebuke by her husband. Miguel is torn and feels the need to go out to search for her, especially in view of the snow blizzard that begins almost immediately after she left. Miguel and his father are rather distant and this further contributes to Miguel's feelings of abandonment and loss. It is only after a long, lonely winter that Miguel comes to accept the loss of his mother. There is an afterword by the author that reveals how he came up with the idea of writing this story. It's all rather dark but also very emotional.
October 16, 2025
A short bleak story that has many layers. Miquel has just returned home from his stint in the army while his younger brother has just left to do his tour of duty. Set in a small rural area in the Pyrenees the family live a subsistence life within a community that isolated the family when the father officially complained about his neighbours diverting water. When his mother disappears after an altercation Miquel realises that things have not been good in the family home. The tale based a true event evolves over the next weeks and follows Miquel attempting to deal with his relationships.
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December 4, 2025No
A book I borrowed from the library to try before I buy (tired buying hundreds books and hating half)
I do not rate these “tested”
books. This is really for me. I will not be buying, reading borrowing this book.
I read first ch or more -first 10-100 pages skim around at times. I read many of my GR friend’s reviews. This is what I did and didn’t like:
Beautiful cover
This is a little novella 120p. I have tried this writer three times now. His writing feels choppy and is boring. His ch do not feel real to me. I think I’m done with this author.
A book I borrowed from the library to try before I buy (tired buying hundreds books and hating half)
I do not rate these “tested”
books. This is really for me. I will not be buying, reading borrowing this book.
I read first ch or more -first 10-100 pages skim around at times. I read many of my GR friend’s reviews. This is what I did and didn’t like:
Beautiful cover
This is a little novella 120p. I have tried this writer three times now. His writing feels choppy and is boring. His ch do not feel real to me. I think I’m done with this author.
December 22, 2025
Miquel comes home from his service in the Spanish military just before his younger brother leaves for his service. A lot has changed while he was gone and the tension in the home was palpable. Following an argument with her husband, his mother sets off alone across the mountains towards her family home and disappears in an unexpected blizzard. Much of the novella centers around the search and what happens to this father and son left alone. It's a stark tale and the weather and description of the mountains and village at this time of year layer in a tension that slowly. builds.
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