The Land in Winter

by Andrew Miller

December 1962, a small village near Bristol. Eric and Irene and Bill and Rita. Two young couples living next to each other, the first in a beautiful cottage—suitable for a newly-appointed local doctor—the second in a rundown, perennially under-heated farm.

Despite their apparent differences, the two women (both pregnant) strike an easy friendship—a connection that comes as a respite from the surprising tediousness of married life, with its unfulfilled expectations, growing resentments and the ghosts of a recent past.

But as one of the coldest winters on record grips England in a never-ending frost and as the country is enveloped in a thick, soft, unmoving layer of snow, the two couples find themselves cut-off from the rest of the world. And without the small distractions of everyday existence, suddenly old tensions and shocking new discoveries threaten to change the course of their lives forever.

A masterful, page-turning examination of the minutiae of life, The Land In Winter is a masterclass in storytelling—proof yet again that Andrew Miller is one of Britain's most dazzling chroniclers of the human heart.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical, British Literature, Audiobook, Book Club

384 pages, Hardcover

First published October 24, 2024

About the author

Andrew Miller was born in Bristol in 1960. He has lived in Spain, Japan, Ireland and France, and currently lives in Somerset. His first novel, INGENIOUS PAIN, was published by Sceptre in 1997 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane Cavour prize in Italy. His second novel, CASANOVA, was published in 1998, followed by OXYGEN, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Booker Prize in 2001, and THE OPTIMISTS, published in 2005.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update: 8/14/2025
Original read date.. Feb 2025
Recently I have found myself thinking about this book whenever I see the title, and remembering details which I really don’t with many books. So I have upped my review to a solid 4!


Two couples living on neighboring properties in a rural area in England… the middle of a very cold and snowy winter, in the early 60’s.
The wives both pregnant and due almost around the same time.
A real feeling of isolation out there … sounds real cozy, but really nothing much happens, til the very end and then there was a sudden ending.
3.5

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025
Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2025
Miller's historical novel is set during the Big Freeze in the UK winter of 1962/1963 and uses the classical snow storm motif (The Snowstorm, The Dead, The Magic Mountain etc.) as a catalyst in a chamber play that illustrates the way a society was organized at a very specific time - it's a kind of fictional micro history, pointing at the repercussions of big world and national politics for average middle-class people in a small town. The story is structured around two married couples, both expecting a child. Doctor Eric cheats on his wife Irene with an older married woman, London-born Irene feels lonely and useless. Bill dropped out of Oxford to become a farmer, his wife Rita is haunted by her traumatic past.

The plot is driven by the vividly drawn, psychologically complex characters: The liberating year of 1968 seems far, far away and societal expectations are a main theme, especially for the women who forge a friendship to find some mutual understanding, but also for Bill who is facing classist prejudices. WW II is still simmering beneath the surface, and mental illnesses (many of them trauma-induced) which were seen as taboo at the time are shaking up the lives of many characters. Around the middle of the text, a party on Boxing Day lets the overall feeling of intense social claustrophobia culminate in boozy festivities - this Christmas is more of a horror show than any Halloween. And talking about booze: These people drink a lot and all the time. Needless to say, the pain still mostly wins.

The text frequently mentions the Arnolfini Portrait, an oil painting from 1434 that perfectly captures the vibe of a marriage as the society we encounter envisions it - and as our two couples dread it, which leads to different decisions for each of them. This is a highly successful historical social study and a somewhat classic Booker novel. I don't think this will really stick with me for a long time and I still feel that Seascraper should have won the prize, but I guess Miller has a solid chance now.

You can listen to our podcast gang discuss the novel (in German) here: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well crafted but, dare I say it, a bit cold and clinical. Adult loneliness and feelings of dissatisfaction permeate the lives set in coal powered, smoking, rural and slightly alcoholic 1960s England
I don’t stay because I like it - this seems a key phrase applicable to all characters in the novel

I loved the psychiatric ward opening of this Booker shortlisted book, so filmic and including death, which is something that is mirrored at the end of the novel. Following the lives of two pregnant women and their respective farmer and doctor husbands, nothing is romanticised in this atmospheric depiction of 1960s England in one of the coldest winters on record.

Lies and deceit abound as we soon find our drugs being subscribed by doctor Eric who is in an affair. And then there is the taboo of abortion as well, as the pill is also still illegal.
Adult loneliness plays a major role in the narrative and the live of Rita as a housewife reminds me of the 1950s narrative in The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Female desire is thoroughly repressed and seen as circumspect.

The war still being very real in memory and life in the 1960s
We are served coal powered, smoking, rural England and I love how scenic the book conjures the times, with drinking Guinness while pregnant, because it is full of iron and exotic honeymoons in Mallorca. A man in his sixties is almost pronounced dead and a car is bought for £30.
Soon we also find out the stigma against mental health with a character hearing voices after losing a child.

While at times the book and depicted village life feels like a snowglobe I like the unromantic position the author takes, for instance on how farm life is not romanticised in this novel, especially for Bill, a failed Oxford man of 29.
Trying to be a farmer, trying to be a good housewife, while there is so little grave and frankly love between spouses, is described so clinically.

Part 1 feels like I see the author set-up a chess play skilfully but raising the question what the novel tries to achieve, while making me feel a bit untouched by the characters as the writer seems to have so little empathy with them.

Trauma and scars are real: Eric being raised by his railway father while Bill is distant from his real estate dealing father, who is foreign, Jewish Gabi dealing with the loss of his family.
I don’t stay because I like it: this seems a key phrase applicable to all characters in the novel and the physical unease this brings about is captured so well:
There are times your body just follows you around, like a dog or a younger brother.

Taking action is painful and hard, and lives literally fall apart along the way, that much Miller makes clear.
And even if life changes, do people really change?
A finely drawn portrait of a time and how people deal with their agency.

Quotes:
To what extent was thought circumstance

Whether the past was something eventually you just recovered from, green grass over rubble.

He was young still but already so much was irrecoverable

Conscience is there to make us smaller, he understood that much

She liked people who knew how to be unhappy

So much dying and no one know what it is for

You go mad among familiar things. What you learn, you learn too quickly.

A week ago I was happy

[Christy fictional_traits · Rating 4 out of 5]

'There's always a bloody price tag...Nobody gets away with anything'.

As 1962 draws to a close in rural southwest England, we're introduced to four people who make up two neighbouring couples. As couples, they have two very different dynamics: one more traditional and the other trying to do things a bit differently, but as individuals, their lives are very divergent. Caught between a sense of duty and a desire for change, haloed by the ongoing impact of WW2, they all seem frustrated. When the New Year brings some of the coldest temperatures in recent history and the snow traps them, tolerance for their mundane ways begins to untether.

Short-listed for a Booker prize. The prose in The Land in Winter is lovely and immersive, dropping into the early 60s in rural England - trapped between tradition and modernity. However, the story is most definitely literary fiction, and it will have you mulling over the characters, their lives, and choices, throughout. This is a slow read, yet you will still be intrigued by the characters and their lives. The book is best suited to readers who enjoy literary fiction and can cope with the thoughtful yet plodding pace.

'Time would level it out, for that, he had learned (quite recently), was what time did'.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lines of Andrew Miller’s historical novel, “The Land in Winter,” fall as peacefully and lethally as snow. His plot — loneliness and adultery in a small English village — would seem to offer all the surprises of an old sweater, but in Miller’s exquisitely written book, every scene is hypnotic.

If you’ve got British parents, they may remember the Big Freeze that swooped down after Christmas in 1962 and kept swaths of the country locked up for months. That ordeal serves as the blank white backdrop of Miller’s story, rendered with such fidelity to the times that “The Land in Winter” won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

On Monday, it might win the Booker Prize, too.

For longtime fans of Miller’s work, the only mystery is why his reputation remains so faint on this side of the Atlantic. Here is a writer of such intimate and insightful prose that stealing away with him for a few hours in another world feels closer to trespassing than reading.

“The Land in Winter,” Miller’s 10th novel, opens in silence, the silence of nighttime, the silence of death. A young man soon to be released from a mental asylum has swallowed a fistful of pills, clipped a note to his tie and faded away on a laundry table. His motives will remain entirely unknowable, but Eric Parry, the doctor who prescribed him two months of sleeping pills, realizes with a start that he may have acted carelessly, even negligently.

Thus begins the unraveling of Eric’s life, though not in the way he fears.....

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Land in Winter is the story of two couples: Eric and Irene, and Bill and Rita. The author deftly interrogates each character, exploring their hopes and fears, and uncovering the fractures in their relationships that threaten to split wide open. Set in a remote part of the West Country, there’s a real feeling of isolation not just physical but also emotional.

Bill is the epitome of a good man struggling against the odds. His father wanted him to join the family business but Bill’s determined to strike out on his own and make a success of his dairy farm. But it’s hard work involving long hours out of the house and every day seems to throw up a new problem, such as a recalcitrant bull. Bill starts to realise that doing things the way they’ve always been done is not going to work; he needs to think differently, to take a leap of faith in himself.

It’s no wonder that Bill’s wife Rita, already in a fragile mental state, is struggling with the hours she spends alone in their draughty farmhouse and the drudgery of the chores that need doing. And her fears about her pregnancy are becoming overwhelming. It’s all very different from her former untamed lifestyle even if that has come with consequences. I thought Rita the most deftly drawn character in the book. There’s a real sense of constrained wildness about her you feel will be released at some point.

Irene, the wife of Eric the local doctor, is also concerned at the prospect of motherhood, although for different reasons. Despite Irene’s efforts to make a comfortable home her marriage to Eric has become stale. Sometimes she wonders how much she really knows him, or he her. She and Rita find themselves thrown together because of the proximity of their two houses and gradually they form a bond through visits to the local cinema and the sharing of Rolos.

Eric has his own problems but they are entirely of his own making and I found him a largely unsympathetic figure. Having said that, there are glimpses of the compassionate man he might have been.

The author is particularly good at the minituae of domestic life. There’s humour in the book, notably the Boxing Day party Eric and Irene host for their neighbours which could give Mike Leigh’s play ‘Abigail’s Party’ a run for its money when it comes to social pretension and awkward moments. Cheese sticks and Acker Bilk on the record player anyone?

As the weather turns colder and the feeling of isolation intensifies so does the sense of foreboding. A crisis is coming and for many it will be life-changing.

The legacy of war is an element in both the previous books I’ve read by Andrew Miller. In Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, Captain John Lacroix is haunted by an atrocity he witnessed during the Napoleonic War, whilst in The Slowworm’s Song a man dreads his daughter learning about an incident when he was a young soldier in Northern Ireland. The Land in Winter has links to war too, in this case the Second World War. For instance the now disused Anderson shelter in the garden of Bill’s family home has become a place of retreat for Bill’s father. And the psychological impact of things that once seen firsthand can never be unseen becomes apparent in the final chapters.

Although things do happen, some of them quite dramatic, The Land in Winter is essentially a beautifully crafted, character-led novel.

[Mark Cornelius · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t like to be too critical of books. Writing one is a difficult task, a large chunk of somebody’s life devoted to the pleasure of others. But I really did not like this book. That in itself was a surprise. The reviews in newspapers and on websites have been almost uniform in their praise. So I could be the problem and not the book.

It is a tale of two couples set mainly in Somerset as 1962 turns into 1963. It was a horrendous winter, one of the coldest on record in the United Kingdom. Also that was just before the sixties really took off, and society’s values started to change. The Beatles’ Please Please Me album had not yet been released. So many of the manners and attitudes in the book come from a different age, or least one that is only just beginning to change – a contraceptive pill makes a brief appearance. Some of the descriptions of life in those times are quite interesting. Andrew Miller and I are of a similar age, and those passages presumably contain memories from both of our childhoods.

However, the writing is pedestrian. It is full of unnecessary asides and descriptions that slows the pace right down and sends the reader off to sleep. One which particularly stuck in my mind was, “He had his soup (was there any difference between mulligatawny and tomato? There didn’t seem to be)”. There are many more examples like that, weighing the book down with their tediousness.

The characters are two dimensional. That is odd. There are only four main actors in the book, and yet you don’t really get to know them that well or care what happens to them. In fact, not much does happen to them until nearly the end of the book. And then there is a burst of activity that almost sparked a bit of interest and injected some tension. But sadly by that stage I had no emotional investment in the fates of Eric, Irene, Rita and Bill. It was a blessed relief when the Kindle said, “Discover more by Andrew Miller here”. I won’t be doing that naturally!

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5, rounded up. #5 of the Booker 2025 longlist for me to have read.

At first glance one could be forgiven for thinking this just a UK version of the classic The Ice Storm, since the premise/setup are extremely similar. But then Miller takes off on his own track and veers in several unexpected directions. It basically follows two couples - Eric and Irene - a country doctor and his pregnant wife; and Bill and Rita, the farming couple who live close by and are also expecting a child - through the pivotal blizzard season of 1962.

There's a LOT happening within a few short months, but the characters are all extremely sharply defined, if not always likeable, and the story is presented in fast-moving, specific and unfussy prose; I was surprised I got through the 365 pages in a mere 3 days, always eager to find out what happened next.

A few quibbles - I didn't feel Miller QUITE stuck the ending, and there are a few melodramatic moments that felt a bit out of place - but I wouldn't be at all surprised if this made the shortlist and perhaps even took the top honor - it would seem to have an appeal across a wide range of readership, much like Shuggie Bain

PS: Undoubtedly my theatre background, but I couldn't stop thinking this was actually entitled The Lion in Winter!! :-O!

[Ari Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize

4.5, rounded up. I'm delighted that this was longlisted for this year's Booker. This is probably the most traditional English novel on the longlist, and it's the kind of meat-and-potatoes offering could have made the list at any point in the past three or four decades.

I've read and enjoyed nearly novel that Andrew Miller has published, and his body of work has unfairly flown under the radar. He's usually described as a historical novelist, but he works on a miniaturist's scale, creating precisely-engineered chamber pieces with psychologically acute characterization.

Here, he's written an intimate quartet, a domestic drama about two mismatched married couples living in a rural town in Somerset, during the hellishly cold winter of 1962-3. The descriptions of the desolate and icy landscape are bleakly atmospheric, and I imaginatively projected myself from an Atlanta August into a freezing and drafty farmhouse, and nighttime walks across icy fields.

The real strength of this novel is the finely-tuned characterizations, observed with acute social realism, especially the class and gender differences that undermine these marital relationships through mutual incomprehension. Imagine an early Mike Leigh or Ken Loach film...

And for me at least, the nature descriptions are an objective correlative for the emotional repression and isolation of all four main characters. Eric, a local physician from working-class roots has been conducting a torrid affair during his rounds of house calls, while his posh wife Irene is at home pregnant with their first child, her richer inner life circumscribed by bourgeois domesticity and marital loneliness.

Their next-door neighbors are Bill, a London-born son of a now-wealthy Hungarian immigrant family who has impulsively bought an unproductive dairy farm he's unskillfully running into the red-- note the ridiculously feckless bull on the premises-- and his pregnant wife Rita, a former Bristol nightclub dancer whose mental instability has been exacerbated by prescription drug abuse.

Irene and Rita establish a short-lived friendship based on proximity and their shared experiences of pregnancy, but most of the novel sends the characters out into the cold, on solitary trajectories that become increasingly unpredictable and emotionally perilous. This novel builds atmosphere much more than momentum. Miller takes his time establishing the scene and inhabiting his characters, but stick with it: the payoff of the devastating final scenes was stunning.

Very highly recommended. US publication date: November 4, 2025.

Many thanks to Europa Editions and Netgalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

[4.5 stars]

Set during the Big Freeze of winter 1962-1963, Andrew Miller's tenth novel, and 2nd to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, follows two couples in the West Country: Irene and Eric, and Bill and Rita. Both women are pregnant, but early on in their pregnancies. Eric is the country doctor, and Bill, a farmer who comes from wealth but shuns it to make his own way in the world. Over the course of a few frigid months in England, with the effects of WWII still lingering in their consciouses and the freedom of the 1960s starting to take off in society, these two couples must reckon with what it means to be happy, find meaning, and put to rest the darkness that threatens to blanket them.

I found this novel utterly engrossing. I've never read Miller before, but his prose was delicious. It avoided being flowery, yet his descriptions were vivid, surprising, and transportive. I felt present in the room with each of these characters, and the way he moved between each storyline, creating tension and releasing it at the right moments was spell-binding. I could really imagine them walking right off the page and into the country night, full of stars and blanketed in a whisper of snow.

There's somehow a sense of urgency in the plot while also being a very quiet, meditative read. It's by no means a thriller, but because the character work is so strong (if you can get past the first 5-6 chapters of introduction) I had to keep reading to find out what happened to them all. By the end I was reluctant to finish because I didn't want to be done reading about these characters, though I think he landed the ending quite well.

I am eager to go back to Miller's previous books now and see how they compare. If they are anything like this one, I assume they are rich in setting and characters, with plots that center around the struggle to survive in a world bent on making every step forward a struggle, regardless of where you come from or who you are.

[Neale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.

4.5 Stars!

After Audition, and Endling it feels kind of nice to step back and read a more traditional form of novel from the Booker longlist. Ha, I never thought I would write that!

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel but maybe not for the same reasons as others. This story is set in England, in the sixties, during the coldest winter in history. Living in a climate where I seldom see rain let alone sleet or snow, the blizzard and the snow fascinated me. It amazed me to almost feel the snow encroaching upon the character’s lives almost like an enemy army encircling an exhausted weakened foe. I have never experienced the sheer levels of cold which are brutally but beautifully written. The narrative centers around two couples with both women pregnant. Women who become friends despite their different background and lifestyle.

I have never read Miller before, but I like his style. The way that he slowly reveals information about the characters. Ancillary characters waiting in the wings just outside the spotlight, waiting to advance the story. This works for the main characters as well. We slowly learn that one of the main characters, Rita, hears voices in her head. No spoilers but we very slowly find out just why she may have mental problems. Miller builds the atmosphere with each chapter as he slowly reveals more of the character’s history and past. Miller’s writing is exquisite. He manages to imbue a feeling of suspense and even panic to slices of everyday life.

For me personally this book is very much about the writing and prose.

[Ilenia Zodiaco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libro davvero bello, peccato per il finale inconcludente, si poteva osare di più.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in a small country village near Bristol, England during the brutal winter of 1962-63, The Land in Winter is a character driven novel that unfolds slowly. I was immersed in the atmosphere that felt both beautiful and bleak. Miller’s writing is wonderfully descriptive — you can practically feel the frost settling over the land and the quiet desperation in the air.

The story follows two neighboring couples, Eric and Irene, and Bill and Rita, as they navigate the cold both outside and within their marriages. Irene, feeling detached from her London roots, finds comfort and connection in her friendship with Rita, a former nightclub dancer. A neighborly bond forms between them through their shared pregnancies, one of the more compelling aspects of the story for me. Eric, a local doctor wrestles with an identity crisis and an affair, and Bill struggles from inherited trauma and the relentless demands of farm life.

Miller takes his time revealing these lives, exploring themes of class, resentment, isolation, and societal expectations. There’s also an unspoken residue of World War II that lingers in each character — a sense that they’re all haunted in quiet, deeply personal ways.

I was impressed with the atmospheric writing, but the pacing dragged at times, maybe a little too quiet for me. I thought the main characters were fleshed out but I would’ve liked more plot. Also, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the open-ended conclusion. Even so, this novel is a thoughtful exploration of isolation, endurance, and the invisible scars people carry long after the end of war.

I listened to the audiobook, read by the author who did a fine job in bringing these characters to life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an early audiobook copy in exchange for my review.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars // The lives of two married couples in the early 60s under the backdrop of the winter cold (that last part could be a refresher considering we’re currently going through an unbearably heatwave summer —I love summer but this is crazy)


This novel is the slowest of slow burns (not an exaggeration). Unhurried domestic minutiae that builds and builds until it busts at the seams, emitting a fiery release. You can sense that it’s going to end tragically.


Very character-driven: two neighboring married couples where both wives are pregnant. Both women early become friends despite their social and class differences. All of these principal characters are looking for something more. Bill is a good man struggling to create a grander future for his family. Rita is in a fragile state due to her newfound isolation. Eric is a self-serving weasel, who tends to take his blessings for granted. Irene is in a passionless marriage and asking herself some existential questions.


THE LAND IN WINTER is an extremely well-written domestic drama. But what gives it the edge is atmosphere. You can feel the frost, the mental suffocation, the lingering loneliness. Some readers won’t gel with this novel because nothing happens (except for maybe the last section), but if you’re into well-rounded prickly characters who earn your empathy, this one should be the right fit.

[Tania · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The Land in Winter is a beautifully written novel set during the harsh winter of 1962–63. It follows two neighbouring families whose lives slowly overlap as the snow deepens and isolation sets in. I usually enjoy quiet, character-driven stories, but I never really connected with these characters. Not a bad read, just one that probably won’t stick with me for long.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is always a moment towards the end of a film in which everything has been gathering up on the horizon like a storm, where I sit up a little straighter in my seat in the movie theater, bracing myself for the ending and staring a little more intensely at the screen. Sharpening my gaze and taking it all in.

Think “Remains of the Day” and “The Ice Storm”. “Days of Heaven” and “American Beauty”. Films that stir the quiet desolation of unspoken feelings until the dam breaks and the river floods. Lower your hands and feel the water rising.

(Or “Revolutionary Road”, because there are definitely echoes of Richard Yates here, whose masterpiece of the Age of Anxiety happened to be published in… 1961.)

This is what this book felt like.

A novel where everything sits still, right on the surface, snowed out, frozen in place. A novel where everything flows like lava underneath, unexpressed, unlived, dying to burst out.

Just like the land, in the heart of winter.

Andrew Miller gives us the infinitely delicate portrait of a country caught between the ghosts of the Second World War and the social upheavals of the 1960’s.

The impossibly moving portrait of two young married couples caught between the fervor of youth and the compromises of adulthood.

Devastating. Understated. Soulful. Elegiac.
Restrained. Sly. Cunning. Rebellious.
Quintessentially British.

Lower your hands and feel all the madness of our inner lives pushing against the ice.

[Trudie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, hushed, and very cold. I would have enjoyed more Irene and Rita shenanigans and less futzing about in the snow. What was all that about farming cows in a hangar ?

That opening chapter though- perfection.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025

I have read all of Andrew Miller's previous novels, but I was still a little surprised to see his name on the Booker longlist. This is definitely one of his most accomplished works, a tale of two fragile marriages set in a North Somerset village during the notoriously harsh 1962-1963 winter. I won't predict whether it will make the shortlist, but wouldn't begrudge it a place there.

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two couples who live close to each other - Eric and Irene, Bill and Rita - are the main protagonists of this novel, set during one of the coldest winters in UK history. The story follows their lives as Rita and Irene navigate their early months of pregnancy.

Not a huge amount happens during the novel but when the writing is excellent it barely seems important. Andrew Miller has written a beautifully evocative novel which is people with interesting and diverse characters. He has also managed, in Eric, to produce one of the most repulsive characters I've come across in a while.

The weather plays a central part in the novel, leaving the village inhabitants stranded and often in danger. All the main characters have interesting back stories and I fell in love with Rita and Bill. I felt sorry for Irene and I yelled a lot at Eric, an egotistical, narcissistic snob of a man who really got up my nose. Brilliant writing.

The Land in Winter would (so far) be my choice for the Booker Prize in 2025 but my choice is never the same as the judges.

I was lucky enough to receive an advance review copy of both the text and audiobook. I alternated between the two but the audiobook was my favourite narrated, as it was, by the author. Andrew Miller has a great voice for narration - even and clear, no doing "voices" and no melodrama despite there being some extremely moving scenes.

An excellent novel. Highly recommended.

Thankyou to Netgalley, Europa Editions and Dreamscape Media for the audio and ebook advance review copies. Most appreciated.

[Scott Baird (Gunpowder Fiction and Plot) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just like a Claire Keegan novel... If Claire Keegan had middling to no talent.

Is there a single author on this booker longlist who can create a character?

Full Review Here - https://youtu.be/Nj00wbSgU9o?si=TgZAL...

[Iryna Chernyshova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Вірджинія Вулф навпіл з Антонією Баєтт, а написано чоловіком. Дивина.

Згадки про війну, Другу світову, зроблені так, що серце зіжметься і в 1962 році (час дії твору) і зараз.

[Anita Pomerantz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be wonderful on many levels. Miller has incredible command of his whole enterprise: the language, the characters, the atmosphere, all of it. Those who need an exciting plotline, are probably going to be disappointed, but the characters were so well done and the writing so beautifully engaging while not being excessive at all, I was enchanted.

This book ended up being my second favorite on the Booker Prize longlist (I have now finished 12/13).

The ending was a bit heartbreaking, but consistent with the bleak wintery atmosphere. Definitely looking forward to trying more from this author.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging, contemplative, character based story about two married couples, Eric and Irene, Bill and Rita, living in the English countryside in 1962 and the legacy of the Second World War on the couples. It is the British winter of 1962-63 and one of the coldest and longest on record, with blizzards, and lakes and rivers freezing over. The bad weather prevents the local medical practitioner, Eric Parry, from visiting his clients. Eric is cheating on his pregnant wife, Irene. Irene has a good education, but finds herself at home planning her husband’s meals. Their close neighbours are Bill and Rita. Bill has decided to become a farmer, taking a gamble in buying a farm property and cows. Rita is an ex-showgirl who feels out of place in a cold, isolated farmhouse. The two couples have a tentative relationship.

A well written novel exploring the themes of confinement, loneliness, the past and the breakable nature of relationships over a harsh, isolating winter. None of the characters are in control of their lives.

This book was short listed for the 2025 Booker Prize.

[Read By RodKelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

Andrew Miller’s work here is so satisfying and impressive. I was completely absorbed in this narrative, immersed in the atmospheric, emotional world of his characters and the historical setting he conjures with such beauty and confidence. I could feel the cold, somber sobriety of winter as I read, and it felt strange not to have a mug of something warm in hand each time I returned to the story.

What really stood out to me was the quality of the writing. Miller pays attention to the smallest details: the crackle of a fire, the scratch of a pen, even the sound of silence in a room. Every description felt exact, chosen with care and a precise visual and aural acuity. He leans often on metaphor, and they always felt surprising, yet perfectly spot-on. I found myself smiling a lot while reading.

The characters are all searching, sometimes desperately, for a sense of purpose, and more often than not, they fall short. But that’s life, and I loved how the narrative, whether dealing with major events or minor ones, stayed grounded in a recognizable sort of everydayness. I felt I could know these people. Miller finds profound moments in the mundane corners of his characters’ lives, whose outward simplicity belies a deep inner complexity.

The imagery of doors and gates recurs throughout the novel, tying into one of its central ideas of life as a series of thresholds—some opening, others closing—and the uncertainty of knowing which is which, or realizing too late. The characters are restless, always searching for horizons they may never reach. But that searching is exactly what makes them feel so real. They are just people trying, failing, sometimes succeeding, but always wanting more. I loved it, and I can’t wait to read more of Andrew Miller’s work.

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this calm, melancholic and very atmospheric novel set in the 1960s in the English countryside - I can see it win the Booker this year (even though Flesh is my personal favourite of the shortlist). There are secrets and a lot of tension under the surface. Two couples live next door to each other, one husband is a doctor, the other trying his hand at farming. The wives are both pregnant and strike up a friendship. In the background the remnants of the war are still palpable.

I listened to the audio read by the author and it took me quite some time to get used to his voice and style - ultimately it fit well though and I can see how it made a difference knowing the book better than any narrator could.

[Nat K · Rating 4 out of 5]

*** Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize ***

“You go mad among familiar things.”

I’m finally getting around to writing this review because truthfully I had no idea where to begin. It’s one of those rare books that you feel rather than view with an intellectual eye.

It’s December 1962 and in a small village just outside of Bristol we meet two young couples. Eric and Irene (both well to do) and Bill and Rita (working class). Neighbours, they can view each other’s homes if they stand on tiptoes and look out of their bathroom window. Small fields span the distance between. Eric is a doctor wanting to make a difference in a small community, to be a true family doctor in every sense of the word. Irene is well educated but hasn’t had a job. No real reason. It’s just that women of a certain means didn’t have to go out and work. Bill has left the city to make a fresh start, wanting to work on the land and get his hands dirty. Rita reads lots of sci-fi fiction and used to have a job of sorts that isn’t spoken out loud about. Before the one where she worked at a real estate agent where she met Bill.

Both men have complicated relationships with their fathers which is relected through their chosen careers and decision to move to the countryside. Though neighbours, they are simply on friendly nodding terms. Irene and Rita strike up a friendship of sorts, bonding when they discover they are both pregnant and due within weeks of each other. Though very different in upbringing and life experience, they are drawn to each other through the sheer boredom of being stay-at-home wives with the same four walls containing them. And both are anxious about becoming mothers for a myriad of reasons.

Despite the countryside idyll, there are secrets.

“ ‘There’s always a bloody price tag,’ she said. ‘Nobody gets away with anything. Or perhaps it’s just the women who don’t.”

By the time we move into the new year the snow flurries which were pretty to look at a month earlier have now become an endless stream of white. Roads are impassable and the weather impacts everyday life for everyone. This is based on a real life weather event that occurred where winter and snow were relentless for months on end.

“Snow from the sky, snow from the ground where it had been lying for days.”

I loved this book as it is so character driven. We are privy to their thoughts, and gain an insight into their feelings and fears. What drives them and what their motives are.

I also enjoyed that this is a beautiful snapshot of a time and place that no longer exists. With the gender roles of men and women being clearly defined. And yet society was on the brink of change, which was even starting to be felt outside the city limits.

"To be held. Wasn’t that what anybody wanted? To be held, if only for a night.”

Such a beautifully contemplative novel that has a gentle strength to it.

The circle being closed between the opening and closing chapters is a nice touch, clever. I have to admit to being a bit confused by the ending. Though this is perhaps a reflection of the turmoil which Rita was going through with her emotional struggles.

Book 9 of my Booker Prize 2025 odyssey. Lucky number 9 (thank you David Mitchell and John Lennon). I managed to read most of this before the Booker prize was announced. Not only is this a personal best for me to have read so many, but it’s also such a beautiful novel to have ended this journey on. Which leaves me quietly happy. Regardless of not having taken out the prize, it’s special. So very special.

[Carmel Hanes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a slow, intricate read, almost deliciously suffocating in the details that describe several months in the lives of two couples during a relentless winter. The outside snow and cold rob the environment of color and comfort, adding layer upon layer of impenetrable iciness, bringing into focus the inner landscape of two marriages, mirroring that challenging outer landscape in many respects, depicted with revealing frosty prose.

"She saw them, she and Eric, either side of the kitchen table, each staring into the dark of themselves to say what no longer really mattered. It was, she supposed, unavoidable. It was what people did, people in their situation. And there was something shaming in that too, their being caught up in what they would once have thought of with contempt, or a shudder, as if considering an illness (the sort one didn't discuss at table) others might suffer from, but you knew you never would...."

"Bill, staring at an abandoned cheese stick on the tablecloth began to withdraw his heart. He did it as subtly as he could, an inching back that might, with luck, seem no movement at all, a disappearing act, a party trick (the corpse wrapped in a rug carried out under the very noses of the police), but all was glass to Gabby Miklos and he sensed it at once."

This is a character rich story where the "happenings" are primarily internal. Two couples, reflective of England in the sixties, wrestle with past influences and current challenges in the way people often did, privately, inwardly. Miller nonchalantly drops informational nuggets as the story progresses, adding layers to our understanding of these four interconnected and mismatched people.

The prose and descriptions elevated this book in multiple ways, as did the focus on the inner monologues that propelled the story forward. While I didn't "connect" particularly with any of the characters in an emotional way, I was quite absorbed in observing them from a distance.

[Tini · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The world was white and still, as if holding its breath."

In the bitter winter of 1962, two neighboring couples in the English countryside begin an ordinary day that will quietly change their lives. Local doctor Eric Parry tends to his patients while his pregnant wife, Irene, drifts through their old house, sensing the widening gulf between them. Next door, Rita Simmons - also expecting - tries to settle into the rhythms of farm life with her husband Bill. When Irene and Rita meet across the frozen field that separates their homes, something begins to shift. As the snow deepens and blizzards cut the village off from the world, unspoken tensions surface and fragile marriages start to fracture under the weight of isolation, longing, and regret.

Andrew Miller's "The Land in Winter" is a quietly devastating exploration of connection, loneliness, and the things left unsaid between those who share a life. His prose is spare yet luminous, the stark wintry landscape providing the perfect backdrop for the increased isolation of every character. The lingering trauma of war and the confines of domestic life echo beneath every page, building toward an ending that is both devastating and strangely beautiful.

This is a slow, beguiling novel - one to savor rather than rush. I listened to the audiobook, read by the author himself, whose calm, deliberate narration complements the novel's stillness, though occasional scene transitions were harder to follow in audio form.

A slow-moving, melancholic masterpiece: beautifully written, hauntingly atmospheric, and quietly powerful.

Many thanks to Dreamscape Media for providing my with a copy of the audiobook via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The audiobook of "The Land in Winter" is slated to be released by Dreamscape Media on November 4, 2025.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in England during the harsh winter of 1962-1963, this book focuses on two couples who live next door to each other. Rita is married to Bill, a man who bought a 32-acre dairy farm but is not skilled at farming. Rita had a lively life before marrying Bill but is now hearing voices. Her father is housed in the local asylum. Irene is married to Eric, the local doctor who is having an affair with a married woman. Both Rita and Irene are pregnant and discontented. The book opens with a dramatic scene set in the asylum, which sets the tone.

In the 1960s, times were changing rapidly but World War II was still within recent memory. Some people have been traumatized, and others want to try to forget all about it, but these experiences are found “between the lines” rather than stated overtly. It is an atmospherically written but slow-paced book (until near the end). I enjoyed the author’s prose style and psychological profiles of the characters, but I did not feel invested. In the end I wondered about the point of it all. It was my first time reading anything by Andrew Miller, and I plan to read more of his works, but this book is too bleak for my taste.