Dark yet life-affirming, endlessly inventive and heart-breakingly human - the next novel in the 'Seasonal' cycle, following the Man Booker-shortlisted Autumn.

Winter? Bleak. Earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. But winter makes things visible. And Christmas is a time for family reunions, unexpected guests and evergreen truths.

It's December in Cornwall and Art's mother is seeing things. Art has problems too. His girlfriend has left so he's paying Lux, a young immigrant he found on the street, to impersonate her - but Lux has no intention of sticking to the script. And Iris, Art's prodigal aunt, septuagenarian CND-er and black sheep of the family, is about to arrive with a car full of food and a throat full of protest songs. Four people, strangers and family, in a fifteen-bedroom house for Christmas - will there be enough room for everyone?

Winter casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, art, love and memory, protest and survival.

About the Author

Ali Smith is the author of Free Love and Other Stories, Like, Other Stories and Other Stories, Hotel World, The Whole Story and Other Stories, The Accidental, Girl Meets Boy, The First Person and Other Stories, There but for the, Artful, How to be both, Public library and other stories and Autumn. Hotel World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize and The Accidental was shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Orange Prize. How to be both won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Folio Prize. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.