#FF : Favourite Winter Setting

After coming across Feature & Follow Friday on Closet Geek Book Group earlier today, I couldn’t resit heading over to check out the link and what others had to say.  Then, as I wasn’t sure what to post today, I decided I had to in; it looks fun and ’tis the season after all…

The question that caught my eye was…

What is your favourite book set in a winter world?

The first thing that popped into my mind?

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, one of my favourite books from childhood (in fact the whole series but given the theme, this had to be the one I chose) and one I’ve read way more than once.

I remember reading it and loving the idea of being able to escape the real world and enter one where I could be someone else, someone brave and clever and world-saving.  The escapism sums up why I still love reading books.

I also remember really liking the white witch, which I know I shouldn’t but she was pretty compelling and oh so evil.  Of all the characters, she’s the one I have an image of that I can never shake and that no TV show or film has ever managed to match.

The only downside – all that winter but no Christmas!

As an adult, I don’t read fantasy books or books set in other worlds very often but every now and again one catches my eye and imagination.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey is one of those and has the perfect winter setting, remote Alaska in the 1920s and the perfect character in Faina, a girl who seems to have been made from ice and snow and who changes the life of a lonely, childless couple.

The setting was beautiful, the language gorgeous, and the story one I hadn’t read before, drawing me in and not letting me go until the end – when I may have shed a tear or two (but don’t tell anyone).

For a woman who mainly reads about murder, it is one of those books that was a welcome change but it is also one that has never left me and I often find myself recommending to others.

And there they are my favourite winter settings in book form.  What are your?

Emma