A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore

★★★☆☆

A Spell of Winter tells the story of teenage siblings, Cathy and Rob, living in Edwardian England. Their parents are dead, and they are raised by their grandfather – often mentioned but rarely seen – in a crumbling house somewhere in the English countryside. We follow Cathy as she comes of age, navigates her increasingly fraught relationship with her brother, and decides what she wants from life.

I am a sucker for gothic novels and historical fiction generally, so this ticked a lot of boxes for me straight away. The idea of a house and a family full of secrets was always going to appeal to me. There were many things throughout the book that were hinted at, but never explicitly told, and those mysteries, as well as the question of what we were supposed to take from the book, made for a really interesting book club discussion.

I also really enjoyed how the book subverted some of the original tropes of Victorian Gothic novels. In those, women tend to be subjected to all sorts of horrors; locked in attics, exiled from society, forced into loveless marriages, etc. While Cathy’s story is not without its struggles and horrific elements, it was refreshing to see her, and also her mother, rise about their circumstances, escape their situation and build a life for themselves, without the narrative punishing them for it.

While the pacing of the novel felt somewhat uneven at times – the beginning is very slow, then everything seems to happen in a flurry – it was made up for by the writing, and how satisfying the narrative turns are once they start to happen. The world of the estate feels so real, and all the characters, from Kate, the servant girl, to the family who live, nearby, are so well developed that you can imagine what the rest of their lives look like. 

A Spell of Winter is not always the easiest book to read; abuse, trauma, mental health issues and damaged families are forever lurking in the background. But I really enjoyed its writing, characters, and development of the protagonist as well as the gothic genre. If you like a creepy, twisted classical family drama, this is the book for you.

Review by Ciara