Feeling festive this fall? Check out our new title picks for the season.

Book Summary and Reviews of The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison

The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison

The Heart of Winter

A Novel

by Jonathan Evison

  • Publishes:
  • Jan 7, 2025, 368 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book 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.

Abe Winter and Ruth Warneke were never meant to be together—at least if you ask Ruth. Yet their catastrophic blind date in college evolved into a seventy-year marriage and a life on a farm on Bainbridge Island with their hens and beloved Labrador, Megs. Through the years, the Winters have fallen in and out of lockstep, and from their haunting losses and guarded secrets, a dependable partnership has been forged.

But when Ruth's loose tooth turns out to be something much more malicious, the beautiful, reliable life they've created together comes to a crisis. As Ruth struggles with her crumbling independence, Abe must learn how to take care of her while their three living children question his ability to look after his wife. And once again, the couple has to reconfigure how to be there for each other.

In this bighearted and profound portrait of a marriage, Jonathan Evison explores seventy years of big moments in subtle ways, elegantly braiding the Winters' turbulent history with their present-day battles, showing us how the oddly paired college kids became parents, fell apart and back together, andgrew into the Abe and Ruth of today. Endlessly heartwarming and moving, The Heart of Winter is a reminder that true love lives in small, everyday moments.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Jonathan Evison, the brilliant American storyteller, has written a novel for the ages. Abe and Ruth Winter are in a long marriage, having experienced all the joy and pain that comes from living in a lifelong partnership. Ruth is a resplendent character, a mother and wife with dreams of her own, while Abe has to reinvent himself when the worst happens. Love, forgiveness and redemption built the soul of this story. A must read." —Adriana Trigiani, author of The Good Left Undone

This information about The Heart of Winter was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Jonathan Evison

Jonathan Evison is the author of the novels Again and Again; Small World; All About Lulu; West of Here; The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving; This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!; Lawn Boy; and Legends of the North Cascades. He lives with his wife and family in Washington State. He hosts the podcast A Fresh Face in Hell.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    Murder by Degrees
    by Ritu Mukerji
    Lydia Weston is among the first wave of female physicians and professors in the United States. ...
  • Book Jacket: Women's Hotel
    Women's Hotel
    by Daniel M. Lavery
    In the 1920s–1960s, the Barbizon Hotel for Women was a residential hotel where respectable ...
  • Book Jacket: Intermezzo
    Intermezzo
    by Sally Rooney
    In 2022, Sally Rooney delivered a lecture that later ran in The Paris Review, in which she stated ...
  • Book Jacket: Final Cut
    Final Cut
    by Charles Burns
    Illustrator and writer Charles Burns is no stranger to the horror circuit. Most prominently known ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

Who Said...

Second hand books are wild books...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.