The Winter Guest
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The Winter Guest
Pre-order Now for £9.62
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Narrated by:
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Niamh Cusack
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By:
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Sarah Moss
A perfectly crafted, brief, tense tale of two strangers on a winter’s night in a quiet, secluded hotel and the stories they tell each other, from the acclaimed author of Ghost Wall and Summerwater.
Tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done.
One winter’s night, in a hotel on Ireland’s west coast, a man and a woman meet for the first time. As a snowstorm gathers outside, the hotel windows twinkle with fairy lights and they share a meal. The waiter pours wine and someone proposes a toast.
Janice and Gerry are strangers. In that casual, glancing space afforded to travelers who know they will never meet again, they each take their turn.
What makes a story a confession? In Sarah Moss's The Winter Guest, the storm outside is no match for the tension building within, and a playful icebreaker creates a surprising sort of fireside tale―charged, ticking, and ready for the spark.
Critic reviews
“As in Ghost Wall (2018), Moss proves herself master of the short form, this time with an elegant parlor game of a novella, filled with the fun of its own creation . . . Like a chef preparing a tasting menu to show many specialties in a single sitting, Moss fits so much in here—brilliantly natural dialogue, knowing humor, luxurious atmosphere, themes of isolation, aging, and changing mores, the delightful character of Janice, and, of course, the disconcerting complications raised by the moral question at the novel’s core. Curl up with this delectable literary morsel on a chilly winter night.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
“Atmospheric, engaging and twisty. It’s a little book but it packs a big punch.”
—Sara Lawrence, The Daily Mail
“Deliciously twisty, both whip-smart and playful, this is destined to be one of those Christmas Eve classics you come back to every year as soon as darkness falls and the mince pies hit the table.”
—Rachel Joyce, author of The Homemade God
“The Winter Guest is a perfectly measured serving of expert storytelling with a deliciously dark twist. I inhaled it in a single sitting. This is classic Sarah Moss.”
—Jan Carson, author of Few and Far Between
“I love Sarah Moss's work. The Winter Guest was pure pleasure from start to finish; funny, gripping and sharp—I read it in a single, gleeful sitting.”
—Katherine Rundell, author of Super-Infinite