Solace in Winter

An Oprah's Book Club Pick

"Beautifully written and deeply moving, Solace in Winter reminds us that even in our loneliest moments, unexpected connections can open our hearts, heal old wounds, and change our lives in ways we never imagined." -Oprah Winfrey

"The comparisons with Elizabeth Strout stand up. So too might ones to Ann Patchett, Claire Keegan, Marilynne Robinson and Annie Proulx for a captivating portrayal of a community and its characters, drawn with humane understanding, empathy, and humour." -The Times

Winter in the small Canadian town of Solace is a season of hibernation. But this year, the snowfall brings a series of accidental encounters that will shake up the lives-and loves-of an old man, a student on the run and an abandoned dog.

It is deep winter, 1969. As the Vietnam War drives young men north across the Canadian border, widower Jack's quiet life is overturned by two accidents that happen on the bend in the road into town. First comes a dog in a bad way. Next a draft dodger, seriously injured, lying in the snow. Suddenly, Jack's cabin is busy with a growing cast of characters-and all the baggage, dreams and desires they're carrying.

The atmosphere chills when Jack's daughter Sally drops by one day and doesn't like what she sees. What Sally does next changes everything, for everyone but herself.

This exquisite snow globe of a novel is a refuge, a story of connection and moral complexity set in the beloved world of Mary Lawson's bestselling, prize-winning Crow Lake, The Other Side of the Bridge, Road Ends and A Town Called Solace.

1. Jack's life changes when he encounters two vulnerable strangers on the road. What motivates him to help them, particularly when doing so disrupts his comfortable routines? Is kindness always a choice, or can it become an obligation once we recognise someone else's suffering? Are there limits to our responsibility toward other people?

2. Solace in winter is a treacherous landscape where children slip through the ice, men are knocked sideways by muskies, and cars hurl off the road into trees. In some respects, intimacy comes easily, as community members like Ellie and Tomas offer a helping hand to whomever is in need-yet Jack is alone for a long time, drawn up North by his wife who was desperate for solitude. What can a small 1970s Canadian town teach us about connection and isolation? To what degree do disposition and location shape a person's sense of belonging?

3. How would you describe Jack's relationship with his daughter, Sally? Why might Sally react so strongly to the changes in her father's life? To what extent are her concerns justified?

4. What do we owe people whose choices conflict with our own values? Does the novel offer an answer? How does the novel distinguish between empathy and approval?

5. In the wake of Hannah's death, Jack's cabin becomes a rotating exhibition for her tapestries. The cabin is also haunted by an image from Jack's war photography: a boy he couldn't save. What role does art play in maintaining a person's presence? How might it alter or transform the memory of those in the story who have passed?

6. Grief is not solely for the departed in Solace in Winter. More often, grief arises at what cannot be: Patrick's love for Chris (Jack sees his "mask of grief") or Chris leaving Lola and Jack behind ("there was a stab of pure grief"). Which unfulfilled desire left the strongest impression on you?

7. Ellie grapples with growing older and the feeling that she may be losing a part of her identity as a woman. Particularly, her sense of being attractive, desirable, and seen beyond her role as a mother and Karl's wife. How does her attraction to Chris speak to the tension between motherhood, femininity, aging, and maintaining a sense of self?

8. Jack and Chris both struggle to ask for what they need. Though firmly attached to Lola, Jack can't quite tell Tomas outright that he couldn't bear to see her go to another family, while Chris hesitates to ask Patrick for money, even though Patrick drops everything to be at Chris's side. What do you think makes each of them so reluctant, and is this a similarity or a point of distinction between them?

9. How did Chris's draft-dodger storyline affect your understanding of courage, conscience and the consequences of refusing to follow an established path?

10. What role does the harsh Northern Ontario winter play in the novel? Does it function primarily as a physical obstacle, an emotional atmosphere or something more?

11. Does the novel suggest that a single act of kindness can change a life, or that meaningful change requires a series of smaller choices?

12. What does it mean to make room for another person in your life and what might it cost us to do so? Consider how Jack's experiences challenge the comfort of solitude, the boundaries of family loyalty and the assumptions we make about people we barely know.

An Oprah's Book Club Pick - Named a Best Book of Fall 2026 by The Walrus

"The comparisons with Elizabeth Strout stand up. So too might ones to Ann Patchett, Claire Keegan, Marilynne Robinson and Annie Proulx for a captivating portrayal of a community and its characters, drawn with humane understanding, empathy, and humour." -The Times

"Beautifully written and deeply moving... Solace in Winter reminds us that even in our loneliest moments, unexpected connections can open our hearts, heal old wounds, and change our lives in ways we never imagined." -Oprah Winfrey

"I?don't?know how she does it. I was so emotionally invested in these characters from the very first page. Mary Lawson has the rare ability to find extraordinary beauty and warmth in the most unexpected places.?She's?one of my all-time?favourite?writers... Utterly captivating."?-Graham Norton

"A story about how we flourish when we embrace the unexpected and shrivel when we go the other way... The marvelous quality of Lawson's writing is its simplicity; everything just flows." -Evening Standard

"Like the landscape, [Solace in Winter] is a beautifully drawn and deceptively simple story of family bonds, empathy and newfound friendship." -Zoomer

"I?kept turning the pages, desperate to know how it would?end."?-Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

"A wonderful book, written with?a clear-eyed compassion and a fine eye for detail. A masterpiece of insight into what it means to be fully flawed and perfectly human. I loved it."?-Joanne?Harris, author of Chocolat

"An out-and-out masterpiece; I was completely hooked after two pages." -Cressida Connolly, author of Bad Relations and After the Party

"Empathy abounds in Lawson's text: each character's perspective becomes a narrative weft coloured by their traumas and prejudices ... Her prose also lays bare how decorum-whether expected or volunteered-runs a rural community." -The Walrus, 'The Best Books of Fall 2026'

"This is a majestic piece of work, a perfect self-contained domestic drama that plays out over a winter... Lawson's effortless skill at conveying the emotions and thoughts of her characters is so masterful that you almost forget you're reading a novel." -Cambridge Edition