A Long Winter

 by Colm Toibin

A novella first published in a collection called Mothers and Sons in 2006(?) this is set in the Pyrenees as winter starts to set in. A family that for historic reasons is disliked by the rest of the small isolated village has to come to terms with the mother going missing in a snow storm as she walks out one day having argued with her husband and son regarding her drinking. Sombre and bleak it was a good read which I undertook as storm Goretti battered the south west of England. Very appropriate! 8/10

Little Dorrit

 by Charles Dickens

My Christmas book for this year. Every time I reread a Dickens I enjoy it more I think.

This one was no different as Arthur Clennam returns from China after his father's death, to be confronted with his cold domineering mother and a whole host of intertwined mysteries. One of these, of course, involves our eponymous heroine and her father who is imprisoned in the Marshalsea-a debtors prison.

Full of humour and biting satire this is a long but enjoyable feel good read. 9/10