Solace in Winter

'Utterly captivating' GRAHAM NORTON
'A beauty of a book' RACHEL JOYCE
'A masterpiece' JOANNE HARRIS
'The Canadian Elizabeth Strout' THE TIMES

The novel stealing readers' hearts this winter: A new friendship between two men and a dog ripples across a small-town community, thawing spirits, upending expectations and forcing difficult choices

It is deep winter, 1969. The quiet town of Solace is in hibernation. But as the Vietnam War drives young men north across the Canadian border, widower Jack's quiet life is overturned by two accidents that happen on the bend in the road into town. First comes a dog in a bad way. Next a draft-dodger, seriously injured, lying in the snow.

Suddenly, Jack's cabin is busy with a growing cast of characters - and all the baggage, dreams and desires they're carrying. But the atmosphere chills when Jack's daughter Sally drops by one day and doesn't like what she sees...

This exquisite snow globe of a novel is a refuge, a story of connection and moral complexity set in the remote, beautiful Canadian world that has made Mary Lawson's novels and characters so beloved.