The Woods in Winter

<p><em>...for the first time in her life, she was living as she had always unknowingly wanted to live: in freedom and solitude, with an animal for close companion. Her new life had acted upon her like a strong and delicious drug.</em></p><p>Ivy Gover, a curmudgeonly middle-aged charwoman with some slightly witchy talents, inherits a rural cottage in Buckinghamshire and takes up residence near the tiny village of Little Warby. Having settled in with a rescued dog and a pet pigeon, she manages, despite her anti-social instincts, to have surprising effects on her new neighbours, including Angela Mordaunt, a spinster still mourning her dead beau, Coral and Pearl Cartaret, ditzy sisters who have just opened a tea shop, the local vicar, and wealthy Lord Gowerville, whose devotion she earns by healing his beloved dog. But her biggest challenge will likely be the 12-year-old runaway who shows up at her door...</p><p>Blending vivid characters and a deep knowledge of human nature, this is also a funny and poignant tale of the challenges and freedoms of old age and solitude. <em>The Woods in Winter</em> was first published in 1970 and was the last novel Stella Gibbons wrote for publication. This new edition features an introduction by twentieth-century women's historian Elizabeth Crawford.</p><p>'Stella Gibbons sees people as they really are but she observes them so lovingly as well as acutely that one loves them too' <em>Elizabeth Goudge</em></p>