Winter

The Story of a Season

By: Val McDermid

Narrated by: Val McDermid

In this radiant work of creative nonfiction, internationally beloved novelist Val McDermid delivers a dazzling ode to a lost world, ruminating on a single winter in her life as she journeys into the heart of the season’s ever-evolving community-based traditions

Val McDermid has always had a soft spot for winter: the bitter clarity of a crisp cold day, the crunch of frost on fallen leaves, and the chance to be enveloped in big jumpers and thick socks.

In Winter, McDermid 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. Recalling in parallel memories from her own childhood—of skating over frozen lakes and carving a "neep" (rutabaga) for Halloween to being taken to see her first real Christmas tree in the town square—McDermid offers a wise and enchanting meditation on winter and its ever-changing, sometimes ephemeral, traditions.

A hygge-filled journey through winter nights, McDermid reminds us that it is a time of rest, retreat and creativity, for scribbling in notebooks and settling in beside the fire. A treat for the hunkering-down, post-holiday listening season, Winter is a charming and cozy celebration of the year's idle months from one of Scotland's best-loved writers.

©2026 Val McDermid (P)2026 W. F. Howes Ltd

Outstanding, engrossing and dreamy

Ah Scotland. Val made me so homesick for the land where I've visited several times, but have never lived.

As winter is also my favorite season, I would find myself tearing up as I too remembered those very same years, and the marks they've made upon my psyche and soul.
Val and I are the same age, and share some of the same world memories, and her spoken winters brought me back to this frozen season of my youth. Winter brings on universal experiences from bare trees to crunchy snow, but the way she writes brings it all back. Her voice is perfect for this memoir, and I can't imagine hearing it with any other.

I loved this book. I will probably listen to it several more times. I love Scotland, Robert Burns poetry, good single malt, and art... Yes, I know The Skating Minister by Raeburn. A favorite of mine, which I've gazed at many times.

Thank you Val.