The Man Booker Prize 2010". 29 April 2010. Archived from the original on 3 January 2018 . Retrieved 5 June 2017. Oh yes, they had to do that. You can’t be burying bits of a body here and there. But for a long while no one moved, and the only sound was my grandmother drumming her heels against the flags in the scullery. Of course she knew nothing of what was happening, nor ever did, for no one told her. Not even the youngest child that was there that day.’ Kate held her empty toasting-fork up to the flames, forgotten. Helen Dunmore: facing mortality and what we leave behind". The Guardian. 4 March 2017. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 4 June 2017 . Retrieved 5 June 2017. Mother was gone, and Father was away. There was Kate to look after us, and Eileen in the sewing-room, and the kitchen warm and humming with people. There was Grandfather in London. There was nothing to be frightened of here. The fluttering shadows only startled me because they were sudden, like moths’ wings. Disturbing love and underlying horror govern the hermetic world of this Gothic novel set in early twentieth-century England. Catherine and Rob Allen, siblings two years apart, grow up in a world of shameful secrets. Their mother abandons them when they are young, and their father dies after being institutionalized. The children live with their grandfather in a crumbling country estate accompanied by their dependable maid, Kate, and a malicious tutor, Miss Gallagher. Together they forge a passionate refuge for themselves while the world outside moves to the brink of war.

A Spell of Winter is a difficult book to categorize and difficult to explain without giving too much away - but it follows siblings Cathy and Rob who have spent their lives in a quasi-abandoned manor in the English countryside which belonged to their parents; their father is now dead and their mother ran off when they were young. As adults, Cathy and Rob's relationship begins to develop into something forbidden, and it sets off a tragic chain of events that spread into the years of the First World War. But as I read, bits of the setting and characters started to come together, particularly the narrator Catherine. Once I got a feel for her, the book took off and became an enjoyable, compulsive read for me to the end.

Helen Dunmore

Dunmore was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, in 1952, the second of four children of Betty ( née Smith) and Maurice Dunmore. Everyone, including Cathy, compares herself to her mother. By the story’s end, do you think this comparison is warranted? Why or why not?

Give it to Mrs Blazer, she’ll hang it and roast you a fine saddle of hare for Sunday,’ said old Semple. Theodore looked intently at it, as if he were imagining what it would taste like. We often gave them rabbits, but hare was richer, different, darker meat. Because of this, and also the beauty of the prose, it reminded me very much of To the Lighthouse, which I loved the first time for its revelations, but found frustratingly hard to follow on my second read. It also reminded me of The Awakening. Like those books, this is about observations and relationships and development and the impact of trauma. Throughout the text, the reader encounters graphic descriptions of smells-numerous flowers, perspiring bodies, dry rot, lemons, the fresh sweat of a horse, and so on. What literary purpose do these all these olfactory references serve? When telling Cathy a story about their father, Rob says: “I remember…because when I came in you were sitting by the fire and room smelled of rosemary” (p. 111). Clearly, smells assist (and can trigger) memory. What else boosts memory in this story and why is it so important? There is a war mentioned in this book and while they don't actually name the war at all, I'm guessing it may be world war one??

Scenes of madness are prominent plot devices in this novel. From the helpless father to the domineering governess, or even the exuberant Mr. Bullivant, the reader encounters off-kilter behavior. Give examples of when Cathy’s sanity could be called into question. Which characters are the most stable? Which character is accused of madness without the reader experiencing it firsthand? a b c d Kellaway, Kate (5 June 2017). "Helen Dunmore obituary". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 June 2017 . Retrieved 9 June 2017. Although I was expecting more plot, and more revelation, this is more a study of sadness or an exploration of family. The entire extent of their secrets never was revealed to me, and my nose for scandal was never fully rewarded. The scandal I did see, however, was enough to ensure my nose returned pointing firmly at my feet, and I’m sure my eyes and ears tried to close themselves at certain points also.