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Freddie Watson has never recovered from the loss of his older brother, George, in the Great War. In 1928 he spins off the road during a snowstorm in the French Pyrenees and is obliged to spend the night in the unimposing little town of Nulle.

Kate Mosse, who has a home in south-west France evocatively recreates the landscape and mood of the area in this ghost story.

When Freddie accepts his landlady’s invitation to join in the traditional winter festivities, Freddie finds himself in the company of a lovely woman and they spend the night talking of love, loss and war. Fabrissa has her own story of loss.

As the novel progresses, we realize that we have travelled into the past and an earlier time of loss and sorrow – we are with The Winter Ghosts. When Freddie finds himself back in the inn, Fabrissa is no longer with him and he struggles to piece together the links between the fallen of the Somme and the earlier victims of religious persecution.

This is a haunting novel with a powerful French atmosphere.

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