The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke

From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of  Piranesi  and  Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell , an enchanting and haunting Christmas short story, with exquisite illustrations by Victoria Sawdon.

'A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.'

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees - and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst - and the path of her life is changed forever.

'Like Hilary Mantel, Clarke has made the very notion of genre seem quaint'  Guardian

'A miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling' Madeline Miller