It's that time of the year when we prefer to stay indoors. We like to snuggle up under a cozy blanket with a cup of hot beverage and a good book. A good scented candle and some snacks will be an added attraction to it. So let me recommend to you five books which are just perfect to read in this season:
1. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys- This is a historical fiction novel set against the backdrop of World War II. In 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a pact of non-aggression and the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia went to Stalin. These countries were annexed by USSR and they disappeared from the map of the world. Stalin drafted lists of people he considered anti-Soviet like teachers, doctors, military personnel, lawyers and even children. They were arrested and the men were separated from women. All of them were stuffed into cattle cars and the men were sent to prison whereas the women were sent to labour camps in Siberia. In this book, one day a fifteen year old Lithuanian girl called Lina is arrested along with her mother and younger brother by the Soviet police and sent to a labour camp in Siberia. Her father had already been arrested before. They are forced to work under harsh conditions with meagre food. Lina is an artist with immense will-power who uses her art as message in the hope that one day they will reach her father's prison and he will know that they are still alive. This is an incredible story about love, hope and survival.
2. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent- It is also a historical fiction about the last execution in Iceland in the year 1829. It tells the story of a woman called Agnes who is accused of murdering her lover and is counting her final days just before her sentence. She is housed at a farmer's residence where the residents are not comfortable in giving shelter to a murderer. However, as there is always another side to the same coin, they start changing their mind after getting to know her. The story is dark and captivating. Though the pace is slow, still it has the capacity to hold the attention of the reader till the very end. It is so atmospheric that it will make you shiver with cold while reading. Thus, it makes a perfect read during this time of the year.
3. The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave- On Christmas Eve, in the year 1617, a devastating storm wipes out most of the men in the fishing village of Vardø including Maren's father and brother, a time when it is believed that "a woman has no place in a boat". With dwindling food supplies Kirsten and Maren along with some other women summon the courage to go fishing resulting in a rift with the orthodox women. Things take a different turn when Absalom Cornet, a "witch hunter" from Scotland is appointed as the Commissioner of Vardø. Being an outsider, Absalom is not used to the Sami traditions which the people of Vardø adhere to despite being Christians, nor does he approves of women who go to the sea, so he eyes them with suspicion. His Norwegian wife, Ursa, shares a strong friendship with Maren and does not approve of his doings but is too intimidated by him to stop him. As the setting of the novel is Vardø (Norway) which has a cold climate and during winters, the sun does not rise for months, this is a perfect time to read this book.
4. The Snowman by Jo Nesbø- It is November in Oslo and the first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes up in the night to find his mother gone. From his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother's pink scarf. Detective Harry Hole who is investigating the case finds a eerie connection between disappearance of Jonas's mother and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of the first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised and constantly revised by the killer. This thriller novel is sure to give you winter vibes.
5. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey- Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.
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