The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights
£14.20£16.10 (-12%)
FROM THE CREATORS OF THE HAUNTING SEASON COMES A DAZZLING COLLECTION OF NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN GHOSTLY TALES.
‘Terrific – every bit as good as an MR James collection’ ROSIE ANDREWS, author of THE LEVIATHAN
Featuring new and original stories from:
Bridget Collins, author of The Binding
Imogen Hermes Gowar, author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock
Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
Andrew Michael Hurley, author of The Loney
Jess Kidd, author of Things in Jars
Natasha Pulley, author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
Elizabeth Macneal, author of The Doll Factory
Laura Purcell, author of The Silent Companions
Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora
Laura Shepherd-Robinson, author of The Square of Sevens
Stuart Turton, author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Catriona Ward, author of The Last House on Needless Street
The tradition of a haunted tale at Christmas has flourished across the centuries. These twelve stories – authored by some of today’s most loved and lauded writers of historical and gothic fiction – are all centred around Christmas or Advent, boldly and playfully re-imagining a beloved tradition for a modern audience.
Taking you from a haunted Tuscan villa to a remote Scottish island with a dark secret,, these vibrant haunted stories are your ultimate companion for frosty nights.
So curl up, light a candle, and fall under the spell of winters past . . .
‘I absolutely devoured The Winter Spirits. Every story is a gem’ LAURA SHEPPERSON
‘Another dazzling collection. Chilling, moving and incredibly satisfying’ AMANDA MASON
‘Eerily macabre, hauntingly propulsive’ JOANNE BURN
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Additional information
| Publisher | Sphere, 1st edition (19 Oct. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 464 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1408727587 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1408727584 |
| Dimensions | 14.4 x 4.2 x 22 cm |
by Andrea
hank you NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group for the eARC!
A great collection of spooky stories, I really enjoyed them. I thought it was excellent how the authors managed to draw me in and make me care in just 30-ish pages!
There’s a great variety in the stories. They are not all ghost stories, some have other supernatural beings. A lot of the stories are also centered around bad people getting what they deserve, so they are quite satisfying.
There were a couple of stories that felt incomplete to me, or like I didn’t get enough information to make sense of what will happen. I also thought the link to Christmas was very flimsy in most of the stories – they could have been set in any winter day, but they worked either way.
Favourite stories:
Ada Lark by Jess Kidd
Banished by Elizabeth Macneal
A Double Thread by Imogen Hermes Gowar
Host by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Going to have to get that gorgeous Waterstones special editions now! XD
by mrs lesley mclean
A phantasmagoria of horror and mystery – perfect reading for dark, cold nights. Usually short story collections are a mixed bag, but this anthology of winter ghost stories ranked from good to nerve-shatteringly brilliant. Highlights included Stuart Turton’s The Master of the House and Laura Purcell’s Carol of the Bells and Chains. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc to review in my own words.
by tamaranth
A follow-up to last year’s The Haunting Season, this collection features twelve stories by contemporary authors working in the Gothic / historical / fantastical / weird milieu: the settings are historical and mostly British, though Catriona Ward’s ‘Jenkin’ is set in Maine, and Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s ‘Inferno’ takes place in late eighteenth-century Italy. Despite the subtitle, not all of the stories feature ghosts. Andrew Michael Hurley’s ‘The Old Play’ centres on a drama that is traditionally performed on New Year’s Eve: this year Committee have made some improvements, which they don’t explain to the actor playing the role of the Beggar. He’s haunted, true, but it’s by the memory of war, of Dresden and Hamburg burning. ‘Widow’s Walk’, by Susan Stokes-Chapman, is a slowly-clarifying story about vengeance — as, in a very different key, is ‘A Double Thread’ by Imogen Hermes Gowar. And Natasha Pulley’s thoroughly unnerving ‘The Salt Miracles’, set on a remote Scottish island where pilgrims can be cured (if they don’t simply vanish) centres on an angel rather than a ghost, though perhaps not the sort of angel one might expect in a winter-themed anthology.
No two stories are alike, even when they share a theme or a setting (such as Victorian spiritualism, which is the focus of both ‘Host’ by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Jess Kid’s ‘Ada Lark’: two very different perspectives). Some feel very much in the classic understated mode; others are nightmarish Gothic horrors. And the authors’ voices are distinctive, each with its own flavour. ‘Host’ has tempted me to read Hargrave’s longer fiction; ‘The Salt Miracles’ confirms my crush on Pulley’s prose; ‘Jenkin’, by Catriona Ward, is as chilling as any of her novels. Those are probably my favourites right now, but there isn’t a weak story in the collection.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy!
by Plucked Highbrow
I’m not really a fan of short stories but this collection intrigued me as it included works by many authors I really like so I picked it up. As with all anthologies there are excellent parts and slightly less so and this was no exception. I really disliked the stories with a horror element but some were absolutely wonderful – surprisingly most of these were set in Scotland.
I’m not saying I am a convert to the format but I was pleasantly surprised!
by Brida
I read The Haunting Season two years ago, which is the predecessor to this volume. Ever since I was a young girl, I have had a love of ghost stories, and this time of the year is obviously the perfect time to read them. This volume has 12 tales, written by mainly female authors.
As with all anthologies, there are tales which you will take to more than others. The majority of them have a similar feel to them, in that none are set in the present day. And all of them, to varying degrees, develop a sense of unease for the reader. All of the tales are set around Christmas, so this is the one common thread amongst them all. Reading these, you possibly won’t be scared witless, but they definitely all have a sense of foreboding.
My favourites were:
Inferno – Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Banished – Elizabeth Macneal
The Gargoyle – Bridget Collins
Jenkin – Catriona Ward
Widow’s Walk – Susan Stokes-Chapman
Carol of the Bells and Chains – Laura Purcell
For dark, cold, wintry nights, this was the perfect companion.