Mosse, Kate The Winter Ghosts ISBN 13: 9781408486238

The Winter Ghosts - Hardcover

9781408486238: The Winter Ghosts
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
From the New York Times bestselling author of Sepulchre and Labyrinth-a compelling story of love, ghosts and remembrance.

 

World War I robbed England and France of an entire generation of friends, lovers and futures. In Freddie Watson's case, the battlefields took his beloved brother and, at times, his peace of mind. In the winter of 1928, still seeking some kind of resolution, Freddie is travelling through the beautiful but forbidding French Pyrenees. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. Freezing and dazed, he stumbles through the woods, emerging in a tiny village, where he finds an inn to wait out the blizzard. There he meets Fabrissa, a lovely young woman also mourning a lost generation. Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories. By the time dawn breaks, Freddie will have unearthed a tragic mystery that goes back through the centuries, and discovered his own role in the life of this old remote town.

By turns thrilling, poignant, and haunting, this is a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:
Kate Mosse is the author of the New York Times bestselling Labyrinth and Sepulchre and the Co-founder and Honorary Director of the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction. She lives in England and France.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
La Rue des Pénitents Gris

He walked like a man recently returned to the world. Every step was careful, deliberate. Every step to be relished.

He was tall and clean shaven, a little thin perhaps. Dressed by Savile Row. A light woolen suit of herringbone weave, the jacket wide on the shoulders and narrow at the waist. His fawn gloves matched his Trilby. He looked like an Englishman, secure in his right to be on such a street, on such a pleasant afternoon in spring.

But nothing is what it seems.

For every step was a little too careful, too deliberate, as if he were unwilling to take even the ground beneath his feet entirely for granted. And as he walked, his clever, quick eyes darted from side to side, as if he were determined to record every tiny detail.

Toulouse was considered one of the most beautiful cities in the south of France. Certainly Freddie admired it. The elegance of its nineteenth-century buildings, the medieval past that slept beneath the pavements and colonnades, the bell towers and cloisters of Saint-Étienne, the bold river dividing the city in two. The pink brick façades, blushing in the April sunshine, gave Toulouse its affectionate nickname la ville rose. Little had changed since Freddie had last visited, at the tail end of the 1920s. He had been another man then, a tattered man, worn threadbare by grief.

Things were different now.

In his right hand, Freddie carried directions scribbled on the back of a napkin from Bibent, where he'd lunched on filet mignon and a blowsy Bordeaux. In his left-hand breast pocket, he carried a letter patterned with antiquity and dust. It was this and the fact that, at last, he had the opportunity to return that brought him back to Toulouse today. The mountains where he'd come across the document had some strong significance for him, and though he had never read the letter, it was precious to him.

Freddie crossed the Place du Capitole, heading toward the cathedral of Saint-Sernin. He walked through a network of small streets, obtuse little alleyways filled with jazz bars and poetry cellars and gloomy restaurants. He sidestepped couples on the pavement, lovers and families and friends, out enjoying the warm afternoon. He passed through tiny squares and hidden ruelles, and along the Rue du Taur, until he reached the street he was looking for. Freddie hesitated a moment at the corner, as if having second thoughts. Then he continued on, walking briskly now, dragging his shadow behind him.

Halfway along the Rue des Pénitents Gris was a librairie and antiquarian bookseller. His destination. He stopped dead to read the name of the proprietor painted in black lettering above the door. Momentarily, his silhouette was imprinted on the building. Then he shifted position and the window was once more flooded with gentle, yellow sunlight, causing the metal grille to glint.

Freddie stared at the display for a moment, at the antique volumes embossed with gold leaf and the highly polished leather slip casings of black and red, at the ridged spines of works by Montaigne and Anatole France and Maupassant. Other, less familiar names, too, Antonin Gadal and Félix Garrigou, and volumes of ghost stories by Blackwood and James and Sheridan LeFanu.

"Now or never," he said.

The old-fashioned handle was stiff and the door dug in its heels as Freddie pushed it open. A brass bell rattled somewhere distant at the back of the shop. The coarse rush matting sighed beneath the soles of his shoes as he stepped in.

"Il y a quelqu'un?" he said in clipped French. "Anybody about?"

The contrast between the brightness outside and the patchwork of shadows within made Freddie blink. But there was a pleasing smell of dust and afternoons, glue and paper and polished wooden shelves. Particles of dust danced in and out of the beams of slatted sunlight. He was sure now that he had come to the right place and he felt something unwind inside him. Relief that he had finally made it here, perhaps, or of being at his journey's end.

Freddie took off his hat and gloves and placed them on the long wooden counter. Then he reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and brought out the small pasteboard wallet.

"Hello," he called a second time. "Monsieur Saurat?"

He heard footsteps, then the creak of the hinges of the small door at the back of the shop, and a man walked through. Freddie's first impression was of flesh, rolls of skin at the neck and wrists, a smooth and unlined face beneath a shock of white hair. He did not, in any way, look like the medieval scholar that Freddie was expecting.

"Monsieur Saurat?"

The man nodded. Cautious, bored, uninterested in a casual caller.

"I need help with a translation," Freddie said, pushing the wallet across the counter. "I was told you might be the man for such a job."

Keeping his eyes on Saurat, Freddie carefully slipped the letter out from its casing. It was a heavy weave, the color of dirty chalk, not paper at all, but something far older. The handwriting was uneven and scratched.

Saurat let his gaze slip to the letter. Freddie watched his eyes sharpen, first with surprise, then astonishment. Then greed.

"May I?"

"Be my guest."

Taking a pair of half-moon spectacles from his top pocket, Saurat perched them on the end of his nose. He produced a pair of thin, linen gloves from beneath the counter, pulled them on. Holding the letter gently at the corner between forefinger and thumb, he held it up to the light.

"Parchment. Probably late medieval."

"Quite right."

"Written in Occitan, the old language of this region."

"Yes." All this Freddie knew.

Saurat gave him a hard look, then dropped his eyes back to the letter. An intake of breath, then he began to read the opening lines out loud. His voice was surprisingly light.

"Bones and shadows and dust. I am the last. The others have slipped away into darkness. Around me now, at the end of my days, only an echo in the still air of the memory of those who once I loved.

Solitude, silence. Peyre sant . . ."

Saurat stopped and stared now with interest at the reserved Englishman standing before him. He did not look like a collector, but then one never could tell.

He cleared his throat. "May I ask where you came by this, monsieur . . . ?"

"Watson." Freddie took his card from his pocket and laid it with a snap on the counter between them. "Frederick Watson."

"You are aware this is a document of some historical significance?"

"To me its significance is purely personal."

"That may be, but nevertheless...;" Saurat shrugged. "It is something that has been in your family for some time?"

Freddie hesitated. "Is there somewhere we could talk?"

"Of course." Saurat gestured to a low card table and four leather armchairs set in an alcove at the rear of the shop. "Please."

Freddie took the letter and sat down, watching as Saurat stooped beneath the counter again, this time producing two thick glass tumblers and a bottle of mellow, golden brandy. He was unusually graceful, delicate even, Freddie thought, for such a large man. Saurat poured them both a generous measure, then lowered himself into the chair opposite. The leather sighed beneath his weight.

"So can you translate it for me?"

"Of course. But I am still intrigued to know how you come to be in possession of such a document."

"It's a long story."

The same half shrug. "I have the time."

Freddie leaned forward and slowly fanned his long fingers across the surface of the table, making patterns on the green baize.

"Tell me, Saurat, do you believe in ghosts?"

A smile slipped across the other man's lips.

"I am listening."

Freddie breathed out, with relief or some other emotion, it was hard to tell.

"Well then," he said, settling back in his chair. "The story begins some five years ago, not so very far from here."

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherWindsor
  • Publication date2010
  • ISBN 10 1408486237
  • ISBN 13 9781408486238
  • BindingHardcover
  • Number of pages197
  • Rating
Buy Used
Condition: Good
Used book that is in clean, average... Learn more about this copy

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.

Destination, rates & speeds

Add to Basket

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9781409156406: Winter Ghosts

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9781409156406
Publisher: HACHETTE, 2014
Softcover

  • 9780425245293: The Winter Ghosts

    Berkley, 2012
    Softcover

  • 9781409103394: The Winter Ghosts

    Orion, 2010
    Softcover

  • 9780399157158: The Winter Ghosts

    G.P. P..., 2011
    Hardcover

  • 9781409112273: The Winter Ghosts

    Orion, 2009
    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Mosse, Kate
Published by AudioGo (2010)
ISBN 10: 1408486237 ISBN 13: 9781408486238
Used Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Better World Books
(Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: Good. Large type edition. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 42497789-6

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 8.21
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Mosse, Kate
Published by AudioGo (2010)
ISBN 10: 1408486237 ISBN 13: 9781408486238
Used Hardcover Quantity: 2
Seller:
Better World Books
(Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: Good. Large type edition. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 42501097-6

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 8.21
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Mosse, Kate
Published by Windsor (2010)
ISBN 10: 1408486237 ISBN 13: 9781408486238
Used Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
WorldofBooks
(Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom)

Book Description Hardback. Condition: Fair. A readable copy of the book which may include some defects such as highlighting and notes. Cover and pages may be creased and show discolouration. Seller Inventory # GOR007189260

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 2.18
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 6.06
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Mosse, Kate
Published by Windsor (2010)
ISBN 10: 1408486237 ISBN 13: 9781408486238
Used Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
WorldofBooks
(Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom)

Book Description Hardback. Condition: Good. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine. Seller Inventory # GOR013450642

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 2.18
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 6.06
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Mosse, Kate
Published by Windsor (2010)
ISBN 10: 1408486237 ISBN 13: 9781408486238
Used Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Irish Booksellers
(Portland, ME, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: Good. SHIPS FROM USA. Used books have different signs of use and do not include supplemental materials such as CDs, Dvds, Access Codes, charts or any other extra material. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps. Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage. All images are Stock Photos, not of the actual item. book. Seller Inventory # 3-1408486237-G

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 12.75
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Mosse, Kate
Published by AudioGo (2010)
ISBN 10: 1408486237 ISBN 13: 9781408486238
Used Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Better World Books Ltd
(Dunfermline, United Kingdom)

Book Description Condition: Very Good. Large type edition. Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # 45555646-75

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 5.65
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 10.10
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kate Mosse
Published by Windsor (2010)
ISBN 10: 1408486237 ISBN 13: 9781408486238
Used Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
AwesomeBooks
(Wallingford, United Kingdom)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. The Winter Ghosts This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. . Seller Inventory # 7719-9781408486238

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 97.51
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 5.67
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Kate Mosse
Published by Windsor 06/09/2010 (2010)
ISBN 10: 1408486237 ISBN 13: 9781408486238
Used Hardcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Bahamut Media
(Reading, United Kingdom)

Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Shipped within 24 hours from our UK warehouse. Clean, undamaged book with no damage to pages and minimal wear to the cover. Spine still tight, in very good condition. Remember if you are not happy, you are covered by our 100% money back guarantee. Seller Inventory # 6545-9781408486238

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy Used
US$ 97.51
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 8.81
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds