The Winter Guest

A short novel to gulp down in one sitting, The Winter Guest, from Sunday Times bestselling author, Sarah Moss, is an enthralling story about how the past will always come to find you in the end. 'Deliciously twisty. Destined to be one of those Christmas Eve classics' - Rachel Joyce 'Pure pleasure from start to finish' - Katherine Rundell Tell me the worst thing you've ever done. On Christmas Eve, in a hotel on Ireland's west coast, a man and a woman meet for the first time. As a snowstorm gathers outside windows twinkling with fairy lights, they share a meal, pour wine, propose a toast. Janice and Gerry may be strangers to one another, but they each have a confession to make. As the blizzard howls, the night will take an unexpected turn, and their conversation will have consequences far beyond the candlelit table . . . 'A perfectly measured serving of expert storytelling with a deliciously dark twist. I inhaled it in a single sitting. This is classic Sarah Moss' - Jan Carson, author of Few and Far Between Readers love The Winter Guest: 'Powerful, provocative and a classic in the making. One of my best reads of 2026' * 'The Winter Guest then is a perfect novel for a cold winters evening, preferably beside a warm fire' * 'Sarah Moss has crafted a perfect tale spun out beside a hotel fireside in the snow-swept darkness of an Irish Christmas' * 'This short novella by Sarah Moss was a delectable feast' * 'The writing is beautiful and will transport you to a stormy winters night' *

Sarah Moss has written several novels including the Sunday Times top ten bestseller Summerwater, Ghost Wall, which was longlisted for the Women's Prize, and Ripeness. She has also written two memoirs, My Good Bright Wolf - winner of Non-Fiction Book of the Year at The Saltires, Scotland's National Book Awards - and Names for the Sea, which is an account of her year living in Iceland. She was born in Glasgow and grew up in the north of England. After moving between Oxford, Canterbury, Reykjavik, west Cornwall and the English Midlands, she now lives in Dublin.