Synopsis mix from various sources: ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
It’s 1928. Freddie Watson is still grieving for his brother lost in the Great War ten years previously. Driving through the foothills of the Pyrenees, his car spins off the road in a snowstorm. Freddie stumbles down from the hills to an isolated village nearby. There he meets a beautiful captivating young woman who is also mourning a lost generation. They spend the night talking of love and loss and war and the story of the fate of her family moves his deeply. But by daybreak, Fabrissa has vanished and Freddie realises he holds the key to an ancient mystery that leads him deep into the mountains, above the village, to a cave that has concealed an appalling secret for 700 years…

By turns thrilling, poignant and haunting, this is a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage. The Winter Ghosts is a gripping adventure from the number-one bestselling author of Labyrinth and Sepulchre.

‘A wonderfully haunting winter’s tale. Stop the clock and read it in one sitting’ SHE
‘A great read…Mosse writes movingly abut loss and atmospherically about France’ DAILY MAIL
‘It takes much of what appeals about her best-selling novels – and adds a heart-breaking story’ THE TIMES

THE WINTER GHOSTS by KATE MOSSE (2009)

Stories of remembrance, loss and reflection, sad and tragic, I found this enthralling and was going to pass it on as a Christmas read once-upon-a-time… Clearly forgot.

The points for discussion at the books end are worth a read too, i.e.
- ‘I did understand this need to move forward and forget.’ Why can’t Freddie do so?
- ‘Memory is an unreliable friend.’ Is it?
- ‘The sunlit days of childhood, nothing fractured, nothing spoiled.’ What does The Winter Ghosts tell us about growing up.
- ‘The idea of love to me had always seemed a matter of submission.’ What does this mean?
- ‘I had been brought to bear witness, both to the manner of their dying and to the nature of the prison I’d fashioned for myself.’ Are the two related?
- ‘Without understanding there can be no redemption’ Do you agree?
- ‘Life is not, as we are taught a matter of seeking answers, but rather learning which are the questions we should ask.’ Has Fabrissa alone taught Freddie this?

I’ll agree that driving through the lands and ruined settlements once occupied by the Cathar’s can be haunting. I certainly found it so, what a fabulous area it was to visit utterly memorable. Tarascon is an amazing walled city well worth the visit, even though as I understand it was over-imaginatively restored [disneyfied] by a prominent, late 1800s architectural historian.

Gosh, found this and have to quote it as I thought this tale exemplifies this aim;
“A theme running through all my writing is that landscape itself has a deep and profound memory, which passes from generation and generation, [and] is capable of telling its own tales.” Kate Mosse

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