January Nominations...

[Michelle]

Ok, we're looking for books with 'Winter' in the title, for the January Reading Circle.

let us know any ideas that you have, and don't forget to second those you like the look of. :)

[Michelle]

How about The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell..

Derfel, once a captain in Arthur's warband, recalls the days of Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and Bishop Sansum. But, above all, it tells the story of Arthur, the only man who can hold Uther's throne for its infant heir, and unite Britain's squabbling kingdoms against the enemy.

This has lots of good reviews on Amazon, and I know a few members here have already recommended it. :)

[Michelle]

I spotted this one on Amazon the other day, and I'd like to try it...
The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
This is another strong, satisfying novel, full of rich storytelling, by the author of the favourite "The Tea Rose". Set in London and Africa in the early days of the twentieth century, "The Winter Rose" introduces some remarkable new characters. India Selwyn-Jones is one of the rare new breed: a lady doctor.

Her family, her eligible, ambitious fiance, the male medical establishment all object but she insists on defying convention and finds a post in London's East End. There she meets a gangland boss called Sid Malone. Criminal he may be but he also has a hidden charm, and a devastatingly attractive personality, and when India is called to treat him after a dockside brawl, their friendship becomes more intense. But Sid Malone is not his real name: and he has a past and enemies by the score, including India's determined and ruthless fiance whose intention is to marry into the family money as well as becoming a leading political figure.

The stormy, noisy, brawling docklands are a natural home to the political fight as the fledgling Labour Party gets underway, and the struggle for the women's vote becomes more strident. But the East End is also a place for those who have a past to hide, a new beginning to find. And so the complicated strands of betrayal and pretence, of ambition and family, are woven again into a new drama, in a new country.

Jennifer Donnelly, author of "A Gathering Light" as well as "The Tea Rose", has a wonderful gift for sweeping storytelling, with a lively cast of vivid characters, rich and detailed backgrounds. Her writing has a warmth and energy that takes all readers completely into her world.

[Kell]

I'd like to second The Winter King as it would give me the perfect excuse to read it - it's been waiting on my shelf for a little while now...

i'd also like to nominate this one that i happened across:

Winter by Len Deighton
Peter and Pauli Winter are two very different brothers born into a time when the horrors of war engulf and extinguish the Germany that is. Yet for all their differences, the destinies of the two brothers are forever bound to the madness that lies ahead. From their sheltered childhood through their violent coming of age in the Great War... from the chaos of 1920 Berlin to the spreading power of Hitler... the brothers are wrenched apart by conflicting ideals and ambitions. Now mortal enemies, they are trapped in a holocaust that threatens to tear them - and the world - to pieces.

[Kell]

Have just realised I'm tending towards books with a war theme lately for some reason - LOL!

[Purple Poppy]

I'm tempted to say Winter Solstice Rosamunde Pilcher, since Inver said it is so good.

Amazon.co.uk Review
One time actress Elfrida Phipps retires to a country cottage but is almost immediately reactivated through the personal tragedy of a comparatively new friend, Oscar Blundell, with whom she moves to an imposing old house, his shared inheritance, in Scotland. As Christmas approaches they are joined by a lovelorn cousin, Carrie, and her 14-year-old niece, Lucy, who is currently bothersome to the progress of her mother's new found love, and to her grandmother's hedonistic lifestyle. Sam Howard, troubleshooter in the textile industry, recently separated from his wife, arrives on the doorstep and finds himself unwittingly part of the soon-to-be snowbound family over Christmas. "Are you still snowed in with us, Sam? I hope so," says Edwina. "It would be such fun for all of us to be together." And so they all live happily ever after.
Lynn Redgrave, a good reader, voices the characters well but there's a recurrent smugness of expression that neutralises feelings of sympathy for this assortment who are destined by too many coincidences. A story without tension, the burdens of bereavement and finance and pleasures of romance and companionship are determined by unlikely turns of fate and the benefit of acquaintances who facilely solve the problems. --Running time 6 hours
--Lyn Took --This text refers to the Audio Cassette (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1840323612/ref=dp_proddesc_1/202-7853519-8780641?ie=UTF8&n=266239) edition.

Peterborough Evening Telegraph
'A gentle tale of everyday happenings to a set of well-drawn and believable characters' --This text refers to the Paperback (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0340767472/ref=dp_proddesc_2/202-7853519-8780641?ie=UTF8&n=266239) edition.

http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/common/orange-arrow.gifPP

[Purple Poppy]

Or.
Winter House Carol O'Connell (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/202-7853519-8780641?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-uk&field-author=Carol%20O%27Connell)

Synopsis
When a serial lady-killer is found with shears sticking out of his chest and an ice pick in his hand, Kathy Mallory and her NYPD Special Crimes partner Detective Sgt. Riker are called in to investigate. One of the occupants of Winter House, the scene of the crime, is 70-year-old Nedda Winter, who immediately confesses to the killing, claiming it was self-defence. Murder solved, case closed. It's even poetic justice. But Winter House is the site of a massacre that took place 50 years previously and doesn't give up its dead so easily. Mallory and Riker will have to reopen the original investigation in order to try and stop the murderer from finishing what they started.

(Amazon)

or Winter's Tale Mark Helprin (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/202-7853519-8780641?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-uk&field-author=Mark%20Helprin)

No Synopsis, but the following reviews make sound like a worthwhile read.

1 Thank you other reviewers for agreeing with my first-impressions feelings: yes M Helprin makes me think G G Marquez too, and yes I also loved the way he transforms NYC into an oniric sort of big marsh, keeping it wild and dirty at the same time.
I also read this book because of its cover, during winter 1995 while studying in cold Montreal.
This book is in my "top 10"...
What is striking with Helprin's talent is that he takes you to known places and makes you enter unheard of rooms that belong to there: he has the capacity of building worlds around you which is outstanding. The fertility of his imagination is awesome.
Like a soft & sweet spider he builds a web of images, of smells, of hazes and vegetation that are unlike anything you've read before, and he unfoils it in a move that just looks like it's just-for-you-that-I've-written-this...
Gd prix de Rome M Helprin should write more, if he ever read these lines...
Too bad I can't find more of his books whenever I'm in the UK

Mr. Benoit Guitaut (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pdp/profile/A3DROLUURH23B8/ref=cm_cr_auth/202-7853519-8780641)

2 I couldn't believe how this fantastic book made me feel. It is the first time i have longed to be part of a story and meet these characters. After destroying my dads copy of the book (his favourite also) i am so pleased to have found it again as i don't think i could cope without knowing it was safe on my bookshelf incase i fancy a flight with Anthasor.
My favourite book......EVER!, 3 Jan 2001
Reviewer: A reader

3 The basic concept behind Winter's Tale -- of a man trying to bring back the woman he loves through the course of a century -- had some appeal. There's some beautiful prose here, and some great ideas -- some interesting fantasy concepts -- but it all falls apart after the first section is finished. The following two-thirds of the book are boring, hard to follow and serve as a thinly-veiled allegory to Helprin's Conservative ideals. The battle between the newspapers -- the Sun and the Ghost -- represents to Helprin the battle between Conservative and Liberal, and guess who the good guys are and guess who's crazy? In many ways, the mix of fantasy and reality reminds me a great deal of Latin American literature. But Helprin's narrow beliefs and heavy handed tone undermine what's good in this book. It reached the point where I was averaging only a chapter a day on the subway, because I couldn't bear to read it otherwise. Peter Lake, Beverly Penn, and Pearly Soames are compelling characters -- but alas, they're overshadowed by the poorly painted caricatures who dominate much of the book. Proof that it takes a subtle touch to integrate a political message into literature. Unfortunately, Helprin's about as unsubtle as they come. Stay away -- stay far, far away ...
A muddled, predictable, thinly-veiled Conservative fantasy, 16 Jul 1999
Reviewer: A reader

4 This is the only novel I have ever read which, while one reads it, makes the reader feel as though they are literally dreaming. Winter's Tale is quite simply the greatest novel I have ever read. I can't put it any other way.
Astonishing., 6 Jul 1999
Reviewer: A reader

5 Helprin's prose is breathtaking - entire pages I have earmarked as I would a favorite poem. The words are rich and the effect is enrapturing, and the storyline is mystical and creative, while remaining firmly rooted in the grit of New York over a century of development. This book demands a second reading (at least) to really absorb the panorama painted through Helprin's soaring text.

One of the most amazing uses of language I've ever read!, 4 Jul 1999
Reviewer: A reader

There are 34 reviews...I didn't go further than this. See what you think.

PP








..

[Pilgrim]

Winter and Night by S.J. Rozan

Crime and mystery...

From the critically acclaimed, award-winning S. J. Rozan comes her finest novel to date -- an explosive novel about the corrosive power of secrets and corruption in a small town.

In the middle of the night, private investigator Bill Smith is awakened by a call from the NYPD. They're holding a 15-year-old kid named Gary -- a kid Bill knows. But before Bill can find out what is going on, Gary escapes Bill's custody into the dark night and unfamiliar streets. Bill, with the help of his partner Lydia Chin, tries to find the missing teen and uncover what it is that led him so far from home. Tracking Gary's family to a small town in New Jersey, Bill finds himself in a town where nothing matters but high school football, where the secrets of the past -- both the town's and Bill's own -- threaten to destroy the present. If Bill is to have any chance of saving Gary and preventing a tragedy, he has to both unravel a long buried crime and confront the darkness of his own past.

Though, I must say, King Arthur sounds good to me.

[kernow_reader]

I wish to nominate C. J. Sansom's "Winter in Madrid" declared : "A vivid and haunting depiction of wartime Spain" . . . Hmm might suit Kell's current theme? ;) Don't know if I'm supposed to write my own review or precis from the book??? Anyway the bookcover more or less says :

"Winter in Madrid" is an intensely moving love story, a remarkable sense of history unfolding and it reveals the profound impact of impossible choices.

It is likened to the writings of Sebastian Faulks (Birdsong and Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Shadows of the Wind). :readingtwo:

[madcow]

I'll vote for The Winter King seeing as i was half way through it then started reading something else then something etc etc ....so it's given me the incentive to finish it (even though i was enjoying it before i put it down) before xmas :readingtwo: .

[Michelle]

Thank you everyone. :)