I adored this book // Thank you @prh for an advanced listening copy.
Summary - The extraordinary new novel by Jonathan Evison, about a married couple in their golden years, from when they met across big ups, deep downs, and survive-it-all, opposites-attract love.
I love stories that showcase a marriage through the years and in this case, seventy.
I don’t know exactly why I love these types of books so much – probably because I didn’t grow up seeing what long and healthy marriages look like, none of my grandparents stayed married and both of my parents have been married multiple times.
So long and healthy (I say healthy because just because two people have been married a long time doesn’t mean it is healthy) marriages are fascinating to me. What were some of the struggles? How did they make it through those struggles? How did they grow as individuals? How did they grow as a couple? What are some things they learned?
I could go on but I’ll just saw that a lot of those questions are answered in this gem of a book.
Big trigger warning: cancer. While it doesn’t solely focus on this throughout it does build up to it (although it wasn’t the component that made me personally sob the hardest).
Have you read this yet?? If you enjoy books about marriage, I highly recommend this one. I have another book by Jonathan Evison on my shelf that I’m going to have to bump up now!
Find The Heart of Winter at the publisher →
Toni Rocchetti is a copy editor helping authors strengthen their narratives, deepen character arcs, and find the story that is already in the draft. She reads 80+ books a year across literary fiction, memoir, and nonfiction — and writes about what she is learning along the way. Work with Toni →
