Enjoy: Winter (by Val McDermid)

#Winter #NetGalley

I have long been a fan of Val McDermid’s crime fiction. I truly think that she is one of the very best writers of Tartan Noir. This book, though, is something different. It is personal.

In these pages (complete with woodcut illustrations), McDermid muses on winter. The prose is quite evocative. Reading these pages, McDermid may just change a person’s mind about a season that some find cold and bleak.

I read this book in small increments. I wanted to savor it. It is short and I wanted it to last.

Whether or not a person has read this author’s other books, they are in for a treat with this one. So, come to Scotland this winter. The (meditative) journey will be worth it.

Many thanks to Grove Atlantic-Atlantic Books and NetGalley for this title. All thoughts are my own.

Pub date: 13 January 2026

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Description:

From the U.S. publisher

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 winter: 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.

From the Publisher

From the British edition