Land in Winter : the 2025 Booker Prize-shortlisted 'word-of-mouth favourite' - Financial Times

Winter 1962. As Britain becomes engulfed in one the coldest and longest winters on record, the lives of two newly married couples are changed in surprising and irrevocable ways.

⭐ SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025 ⭐
⭐THE SUNDAY TIMES FICTION PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR ⭐

''Graceful, atmospheric, enormously satisfying''
SARAH JESSICA PARKER, BOOKER JUDGE 2025

''I love The Land in Winter so much... It''s really, really, really, really good''
GILLIAN ANDERSON

''A classic in the making''
ELIZABETH DAY

''Both funny and terrifying: Miller at his best''
ROSE TREMAIN

''One of the best writers at work today''
TELEGRAPH

''Has an uncanny beauty and depth''
GUARDIAN

''Money, class, love: all of life is in there''
SUNDAY TIMES


DECEMBER 1962, THE WEST COUNTRY.
Local doctor Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He''s been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that''s already faltering.

But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards, the two couples find their lives beginning to unravel.
WHERE DO YOU HIDE WHEN YOU CAN''T LEAVE HOME? AND WHERE, IN A FROZEN WORLD, CAN YOU RUN TO?

More praise for The Land in Winter

⭐ Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2025 ⭐
⭐ Winner of the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2025 ⭐

''Perfect''
OBSERVER

''Delicate and devastating''
I PAPER

''Incredibly satisfying''
FINANCIAL TIMES

''A novel of dazzling humanity and captivating, crystalline prose''
MAIL ON SUNDAY

''I loved The Land in Winter . . . There were moments I thought of Penelope Fitzgerald... A thing of rare beauty''
RACHEL JOYCE, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

''An exquisite achievement, luminously written, full of wonder at the diversity and strangeness of human experience.''
FRANCIS SPUFFORD, author of Golden Hill

Praise for Andrew Miller

''Andrew Miller''s writing is a source of wonder and delight''
HILARY MANTEL

''One of our most skilful chroniclers of the human heart and mind''
SUNDAY TIMES

''A writer of very rare and outstanding gifts''
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

''A highly intelligent writer, both exciting and contemplative''
THE TIMES

''A wonderful storyteller''
SPECTATOR