Never underestimate the drama in seemingly ordinary lives. That's a lesson English novelist Andrew Miller (The Crossing) reinforces to brilliant effect in The Land in Winter, a work that, like the legendary U.K. winter of 1962-63 that is the novel's setting, starts quietly but gathers immense power as it proceeds. Two married couples dominate the narrative: Eric and Irene Parry, an adulterous doctor and his pregnant, London-transplant wife; and Bill and Rita Simmons, a would-be farmer whose immigrant father got rich as a vile slumlord, and his wife, also pregnant, who used to dance at a club called the Pow-Wow and isn't thrilled about her new life among chickens and dairy bulls.
There's little plot here, but Miller expertly unearths many layers of raw emotion. Booker Prize-shortlisted and Walter Scott Historical Fiction-winning The Land in Winter exemplifies patient, thoughtful, and generous storytelling. The second half of the novel includes a magnificent extended sequence with multiple characters on multiple trains, shifting among their perspectives as the snow falls. Fans of the literary slow build will be dazzled. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer