WINTER: The Story of a Season, seasonal celebration of hygge...in tartan

WINTER: The Story of a Season
VAL McDERMID (illus. Philip Harris)
Atlantic Monthly Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$22.00 all editions, available now

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Non-Fiction For the week ending January 25, 2026

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In this radiant work of creative nonfiction, internationally beloved novelist Val McDermid delivers a dazzling ode to a lost world, ruminating on a single winter in her life as she journeys into the heart of the season’s ever-evolving community-based traditions

Val McDermid has always had a soft spot for the bitter clarity of a crisp cold day, the crunch of frost on fallen leaves, and the chance to be enveloped in big jumpers and thick socks.

In Winter, McDermid takes us on an adventure through the season, from the frosty streets of Edinburgh to the windblown Scottish coast, from Bonfire Night and Christmas to Burns Night and Up Helly Aa. Recalling in parallel memories from her own childhood—of skating over frozen lakes and carving a “neep” (rutabaga) for Halloween to being taken to see her first real Christmas tree in the town square—McDermid offers a wise and enchanting meditation on winter and its ever-changing, sometimes ephemeral, traditions.

A hygge-filled journey through winter nights, McDermid reminds us that it is a time of rest, retreat and creativity, for scribbling in notebooks and settling in beside the fire. A treat for the hunkering-down, post-holiday reading season, Winter is a charming and cozy celebration of the year’s idle months from one of Scotland’s best-loved writers.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: See, that's the thing about "traditions"...they start, and change, and then vanish. They're human-made decisions, all of them. Collective loss of interest is killing awards shows on TV, which were a staple of my own TV-blighted childhood. It felt immutable: Watching the Oscars was a ritual. It might've been the only time our TV was tuned to ABC until the late 1960s. It was a ritual in my teens, too, among the theatre kids I hung out with. Now Disney's taken it away from ABC to go onto Hulu, the corporate streaming service for things they don't think will earn much money.

A tradition of fifty years shifting?! Whaaat? Traditions shouldn't change! They make the framework of our lives!

They do indeed do that. As Val McDermid's compact essay on the rituals she's made and those she's inherited from her family (her mother's improvised soup a good example) of the cold season discusses, how exactly they do that is a matter of decision and choice. Her wintertime activities growing up in freezyfrosty cold Scotland could not've taken place in my contemporaneous Sun-Belt childhood...I've only seen frozen-over ponds maybe three times since moving to New York's heat island in the 1980s, but that's three more than I ever saw in Texas...my own winter rituals of shuffling up wet live-oak leaves to see what was living under them, and putting out the toad house, wouldn't've made her radar.

In remembering her own place in the march of the seasons, Author McDermid offers us many fresh bits and bobs to incorporate into our own seasonal traditions, appreciations of reading she's done while cozied away from cold and wind, foods that warm and comfort, poems she's written and read (nothing is allowed to be poetry-free in this decade, to my disgust) all offer the reader delights to consider adding to their own lives.

What a wonderful read, what a wonderful gift to (self-)gift to the resistant cold-hater and the delighted snugness addict alike. The illustration, not provided to reviewers for reproduction, are charming and atmospheric, though what I'd call pedestrian. I can't offer a fifth star to something that contains this much poetry. I'd probably knock a bit off even absent the poetry because the illustrations aren't that interesting to me, but I know many will enjoy them.

Author McDermid's fiction readers are strongly urged to pick the book up because it is so interestingly in tension with her very noir crime novels. It might very well have been my most enjoyable moment trying to put Karen Pirie into the time young Val sees her first xmas tree in the public square!

BONES UNDER THE ICE, Sheriff Jhonni Laurent series #1

BONES UNDER THE ICE (Jhonni Laurent #1)
MARY ANN MILLER
Oceanview Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$18.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Jhonni Laurent is the first female sheriff of Field’s Crossing, Indiana—and now she has her first murder case

Two days after a blizzard hits Field’s Crossing, Indiana, Sheriff Jhonni Laurent discovers the frozen body of a high school senior under a fifteen-foot pile of snow and ice. Murder is rare in farm country, and this death marks the beginning of Jhonni’s first homicide case.

Just as the investigation gets underway, Jhonni’s opponent for sheriff from four years ago wages a bitter reelection battle to oust her. Then, Jhonni finds another body, and further complications arise when a century-old feud between two families reaches its breaking point.

Soon, a slew of newspaper articles causes the Indiana State Election Board to doubt her credibility. Jhonni must fight to maintain her reputation, keep the small farming community together, and find the murderer at large—all while demons from her own past threaten to crush her. Can she find the killer and mend her battered spirit before it’s too late?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: There's a lot of nastiness in any murder. No one should take to themselves the responsibility for ending another person's life without facing consequences. In the meantime there's a lot of truly tedious legwork to do to make those consequences come about. Jhonni Laurent does that slogging work.

Of course it starts with the victim: who the heck would hate a high-school senior enough to kill her? Is she a victim of her own behavior...a popular way to discredit women of all ages...or is she simply a victim? It's a puzzle Jhonni is not getting any help making headway on. Her (male) deputy is harboring a grudge at the election defeat she handed him when they both ran for sheriff. He's well-connected in town and willing to call in his favors to get Jhonni either recalled or simply scupper her re-election bid.

Fate steps in, so to speak, when a local pooh-bah is found dead in his ice-fishing hut. So is this a murder as well? Is this the same killer if it is a murder? These are all vexing questions for any law enforcement agency, let alone one run by a complete tyro to anything like this level of crime. Jhonni's asking questions, getting lied to, figuring out how to go about this, while she's under constant pressure from the local reporter (a good buddy of her resentful deputy's) and coping with her past coming back to meet her...literally.

Small-town wintertime setting, woman fighting for her literal life and livelihood, and passels of nasty secrets suppurating for generations, all get their moment in the story spotlight. It does rather feel like a spotlight, though; I'm clear who's doing what, but without a lot of why until we reach the resolution. It is all drawn together, and there's a resolution had; there's clearly got to be another book because there are *major* threads left unresolved.

I'll be here next time, though. Jhonni won me over with her ability to learn on the job, deal with more ugliness than any one person should have directed against them, while reckoning with her past better than most ever could. A terrific way to get away for a few hours without feeling you've wasted your time.

A WORLD FULL OF WINTER STORIES: 50 Folk Tales and Legends from Around the World

A WORLD FULL OF WINTER STORIES: 50 Folk Tales and Legends from Around the World
ANGELA McALLISTER (illus. Olga Baumert)
Frances Lincoln Children's Books
$24.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Get ready for winter with this treasury of 50 frosty stories from around the globe.

Curl up beside the fire and uncover stories from all over the world with this rich resource of wintery folk tales, myths and legends. Featuring stories of Norse gods; hibernating bears; Christmas feasts and wicked witches, there is something for everyone in this collection of winter inspired stories.

The perfect anthology for Christmas, or any time you want to uncover chilly tales from lands near and far. Collected and retold by award-winning author Angela McAllister, with enchanting illustrations by Olga Baumert, this is an anthology to be read when the weather turns colder and the nights draw in.

Stories

The Spider and the Christmas Tree (Ukraine)

Mother Holle (Germany)

Shingebiss (Ojibwe, North America)

The First Rabbits (Japan)

The Girl and the Winter Whirlwinds (Bulgaria)

The First Evergreens (Mongolia)

The Snow Man (Denmark)

Why the Bear Sleeps All Winter (North America)

The Wind, the Clouds and the Snow (China)

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: As usual, a beautiful book filled with lovely art. Frances Lincoln, a UK-based imprint dedicated to aesthetic appreciation of beautiful artwork, gives us here a selection of winter-themed stories that neither focus on nor ignore the Western winter holidays. We're celebrating the season, as usual, with gifting. The need for stories to keep our young readers of school age entertained and challenged in the evening before the big gifts get opened is well served with this book:

I take off a half-star for one thing: I found the stories a bit saccharine, far too unchallenging, for eight-year-olds and certainly older than that. I don't think that does most readers that age a good turn. Better to make them stretch, fo all of me; but many others do not agree. Some readers more challenged by complexity will enjoy the stories. The artwork is technically irreproachable, if uninspiring to my jaded eye; again, perfect for a reader whose preferences aren't served by challenge.

A good gift indeed for the right reader.

DEAD OF WINTER, chilling in more than one way, plus tension and puzzles to think through

DEAD OF WINTER
DARCY COATES
Poisoned Pen Press
$15.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From bestselling author Darcy Coates comes Dead of Winter, a remote cabin in the snowy wilderness thriller that will teach you to trust no one. There are eight strangers. One killer. Nowhere left to run.

When Christa joins a tour group heading deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains, she's hopeful this will be her chance to put the ghosts of her past to rest. But when a bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps the region, the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic quarters and rapidly dropping temperature, Christa believes they'll be safe as they wait out the storm.

She couldn't be more wrong.

Deep in the night, their tour guide goes missing...only to be discovered the following morning, his severed head impaled on a tree outside the cabin. Terrified, and completely isolated by the storm, Christa finds herself trapped with eight total strangers. One of them kills for sport...and they're far from finished. As the storm grows more dangerous and the number of survivors dwindles one by one, Christa must decide who she can trust before this frozen mountain becomes her tomb.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

    If you need trigger warnings, this is not the read for you.

My Review: What you need to know is that this author's already famous, and has done this work for over twenty books now. This means there are Expectations from Darcy Coates readers, plus the hook is baited with care and attention to the creation of more Darcy Coates readers. This effort is successful, and pays off. The sentences flow past you, making perhaps only a modest impression separately. The cumulative effect, like the river's flow of my metaphor, is powerful and impressive. I'm not all that impressed with the author's effort until I step back and consider what the journey I've been on has left me to feel and think about.

There are always, always comparisons of "stranded together, death stalks them" stories to And Then There Were None. Inevitable; unfair. The standard-setter of the subgenre will usually win because that's the nature of literary analysis. When one is held up to a known standard, one is seldom going to be the one coming out on top in the comparisons. So let's get this out of the way: Darcy Coates isn't Dame Agatha. And you know what? That's just fine with me. I enjoy the set-up enough to get the story on its terms, not my literary snobby standards.

One of those standards is mysteries don't reveal the gore; thrillers do. Author Coates, then, delivers a thriller. Given a lot of her work is horror, that isn't in any way out of character. Also notable is the truism that thriller characters live to die, and more often than not aren't given a lot of development before or after their deaths. Another tick in the thriller column.

The freak-storm trope always decreases my pleasure in a mystery/thriller. If it was unexpected, how did the miscreant plan and execute (!) all these elaborate endings? How were these people, all with vile secrets that meant I was utterly indifferent to their murders (in a couple cases, actively pleased they'd died horribly), assembled with the assurance that they'd be incommunicado? That was always the flaw in my own pleasure when reading this particular set-up by anyone. It means I've literally never rated one of these reads above four stars.

Looking above, you'll see all four of those stars. I loved the experience of being chilled to the bone by Author Coates's wintertime evocation. I was, ironically, delighted with the murderer's choices of victims. The issue for me was there were too many of them for the sketchy characterizations to keep me interested in their fates. Being inside Christa's head made the technique inevitable. The use of very short chapters suits the need to keep the story moving but ultimately make that action, propulsive as it is, feel more repetitive than it should in order to propel the story to greater-than-the source heights. The tragedies, as I've said above, seem less effective as character establishing mechanisms than as justifications for the brutality inflicted on these rotters because there isn't the scope to do more than report them.

Cavils like these aside, I join the chorus of Goodreads readers wondering where the hell the movie is—I can already see it, done by (say) Guy Ritchie...it's got his blend of violence and moral ambiguity and visual power.

Do I know anyone who knows him? Give him a copy!