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Solace in Winter
  • Published: 19 November 2026
  • ISBN: 9781807842956
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Narrators: James Downing, John Wamsley, Anne Van Leeuwen, Benjamin Blais
  • RRP: $34.99

Solace in Winter

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
10 Nov 2026
Hardback
19 Dec 2026
EBook
19 Nov 2026
Audiobook
19 Nov 2026
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The new novel in Mary Lawson’s beloved, bestselling prizewinning sequence set in the small-town community of Solace; a winter treat perfect for fans of Elizabeth Strout, Anne Tyler, Colm Toibin

Winter in the small Canadian town of Solace is a season of hibernation. But this year, the snowfall brings a series of accidental encounters that will shake up the lives – and loves – of an old man, a student on the run and an abandoned dog

It is deep winter, 1969. As the Vietnam War drives young men north across the Canadian border, widower Jack’s quiet life is overturned by two accidents that happen on the bend in the road into town. First comes a dog in a bad way. Next a draft-dodger, seriously injured, lying in the snow. Suddenly, Jack’s cabin is busy with a growing cast of characters – and all the baggage, dreams and desires they’re carrying.

The atmosphere chills when Jack’s daughter Sally drops by one day and doesn’t like what she sees. What Sally does next changes everything, for everyone but herself.

This exquisite snow globe of a novel is a refuge, a story of connection and moral complexity set in the beloved world of Mary Lawson’s bestselling, prizewinning Crow Lake, The Other Side of the Bridge, Road Ends and A Town Called Solace.
  • Published: 19 November 2026
  • ISBN: 9781807842956
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Narrators: James Downing, John Wamsley, Anne Van Leeuwen, Benjamin Blais
  • RRP: $34.99
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About the author

Mary Lawson

Mary Lawson’s first novel, Crow Lake, was loved by critics and readers all over the world; it was translated into 26 languages and published in 29 countries. It was a New York Times bestseller, won the McKitterick Prize and spent 75 weeks on the bestseller lists in her native Canada. Her second novel, The Other Side of the Bridge, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club. Road Ends, published in 2014, was described by the New York Times as ‘tender and surprising . . . a vivid and evocative tale’. A Town Called Solace was an instant bestseller in Canada and longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. Mary came to England in the 1960s, and lives in Kingston-upon-Thames.
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Also by Mary Lawson

A Town Called Solace
Road Ends
The Other Side of the Bridge
Crow Lake
See all

Praise for Solace in Winter

A wonderful book, written with a clear-eyed compassion and a fine eye for detail. A masterpiece of insight into what it means to be fully flawed and perfectly human. I loved it

JOANNE HARRIS

I don’t know how she does it. I was so emotionally invested in these characters from the very first page. Mary Lawson has the rare ability to find extraordinary beauty and warmth in the most unexpected places. She's one of my all-time favourite writers... utterly captivating

GRAHAM NORTON

A beauty of a book... A vivid, gracious, quietly suspenseful and life-affirming novel about the complications of kindness, small-town thinking and an old man’s discovery of new life just when he least expects it. I kept turning the pages, desperate to know how it would end. And oh! A dog to fall completely in love with.

RACHEL JOYCE

An out-and-out masterpiece; I was completely hooked after two pages

CRESSIDA CONNOLLY

A story about how we flourish when we embrace the unexpected and shrivel when we go the other way... The marvellous quality of Lawson's writing is its simplicity; everything just flows

Melanie McDonagh, Evening Standard

Having once discovered Lawson, you want more... The comparisons with Elizabeth Strout stand up. So too might ones to Ann Patchett, Claire Keegan, Marilynne Robinson and Annie Proulx for a captivating portrayal of a community and its characters, drawn with humane understanding, empathy and humour

Patricia Nicol, The Times