Winter

Winter is the time to snuggle indoors without guilt; to curl up on the sofa with a good book or a box set, a hot drink or a wee whisky to hand.
Val McDermid has always had a soft spot for winter: the bitter clarity of a crisp cold day, the vivid skies over the Firth of Forth, the crunch of frost on fallen leaves and the chance to be enveloped in big jumpers and thick socks.
In Winter, she takes us on an adventure through the season, from the frosty streets of Edinburgh to the windblown Scottish coast, from Bonfire Night and Christmas to Burns Night and Up Helly Aa. She remembers winters from childhood, the thrill of whizzing over a frozen lake on skates, carving a 'neep' (swede) for Halloween and being taken to see her first real Christmas tree in the town square, lights twinkling bravely in the dark Scottish winter night.
Above all, she shows us that winter is a time of rest, retreat and creativity, for scribbling in notebooks and settling in beside the fire. This is a charming and cosy celebration of the winter season from one of Scotland best-loved writers.

Val McDermid has sold over 19 million copies of her novels to date worldwide, her work has been translated into more than forty languages and adapted for radio, theatre and television. Her contribution has been recognised with awards including the CWA Gold Dagger, the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger, the Grand Prix des Romans D'Aventure, the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award, the LA Times Book of the Year Award, the Stonewall Writer of the Year, the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime and the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction award at the Theakston's Old Peculiar Harrogate Crime Festival. Uniquely, she has been shortlisted in five different categories in the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards. She is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, Professor of Scottish Studies and Crime Fiction at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and the recipient of seven Honorary Doctorates. She has served as a judge for the Man Booker Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Wellcome Book Prize.