I had not read any of Jonathan Evison's previous works so I was not sure what to expect. From reading others reviews, I am definitely in the minority with my review. Maybe it is just the stage of life that I am in but this was a huge miss for me.

The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison is a novel that, despite its beautifully written prose, ultimately left me feeling both bored and depressed. The story centers on themes of loss, isolation, and the struggle to find meaning in difficult circumstances. While these are important topics, the execution felt overly heavy and sluggish.

The characters are well-crafted, with realistic and deeply human flaws, but their journeys often felt too bleak without much hope or redemption to balance the narrative. The pacing was slow, making it challenging to stay engaged, and the constant undercurrent of melancholy weighed down the reading experience.

Evison’s talent for descriptive writing is evident, painting vivid pictures of the harsh winter landscape and the internal struggles of the characters. However, the unrelenting somber tone made it hard to find moments of light or inspiration.

The Heart of Winter might appeal to readers who appreciate introspective, melancholic stories, but for me, it was a difficult and depressing read that lacked the dynamism needed to keep my interest.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Is it too early to declare my favorite book of 2025?

This is the third of Jonathan Evison's novels that I've read and I shouldn’t be surprised by how much I loved this story of Abe and Ruth Winter. In The Heart of Winter we meet Abe Winter and Ruth Warneke who met on a blind date back in college. Abe was smitten from the start and Ruth found him annoying. Seventy years later Abe is about to turn ninety and Ruth is eighty-seven and they look back at the highs and lows of their marriage.

Jonathan Evison explores a couple who are now in their twilight years looking back at their courtship, marriage and raising their children. Their achievements and highlights, struggles and mistakes they made, and how two people who are the complete opposite of each other can live together for seven decades and not without heartbreak and drama.

Evison displays a deep knowledge of the ways of the heart and the importance of connection and community.

This book is EVERYTHING I love about reading. Quiet moments filled with meaningful thoughts. Deep connections. Themes of forgiveness and redemption. An authentic portrait of relationship. Real life.

The Heart of Winter is a beautiful look into a long marriage with ups and downs and so many in between moments. Enduring marriages are fascinating to me, and it was lovely to read about these well-developed characters. Cannot recommend this book enough!!!

The book not only opens during the winter season, but Winter is also the main characters’ last name.

This novel is a tender story of a 70-year relationship between Abe and Ruth Winter. Set in Washington state on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, the story reflects upon a beautiful life built together not without pain, loss, and trials. The story captures the struggles of maintaining a marriage and parenting, as well as the indignities of aging.

Abe and Ruth’s story begins in the present and flashes back to various stages of life. The story is moving at times, especially near the end, and includes some beautiful descriptive and reflective writing.

If you like family stories and you appreciate the perspectives of octogenarians and nonagenarians, as well as the points of view of both a husband and wife, you should pick up The Heart of Winter.

This review will be shared on Instagram and Facebook @beginandendwithbooks and on Goodreads Michelle Beginandendwithbooks

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

🥰Thank you so much to @duttonbooks for the gifted book

📖Title: The Heart of Winter
✍️Author: Jonathan Evison
📅Pub date: January 7, 2025

❄️This book was everything 😭😭

🎶Hey Google, play REMEMBER WHEN by Alan Jackson 😭😭 "Remember when 30 seemed so old, now looking back, it's just a stepping stone to where we are, where we've been, we said we do it all again, remember when" 🎶

💙This sweet and tender book shares the story of Abe and Ruth Winter and their 70 year marriage to each other.

❄️The book starts in 2023 and then jumps around in the timeline of their relationship as far back as 1953. Throughout the 70 years, readers are shown the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of their relationship. We watch them meet, fall in love, raise a family, meet unimaginable hardships, and learn about themselves and each other along the way.

💙I lost count after a certain point of the number of times this book made me tear up. There's nothing particularly extraordinary or unique about this couple, but I think that's what made it so relatable to me. It was a portrayal of an ordinary love through the difficult course of life and choosing each other over and over again. That alone made it feel extraordinary to me.

❄️This is one that will stick with me for a long time. I'd highly recommend for readers of Tracey Lange!

Jonathan Evison has become one of my favorite authors. I've read Lawn Boy and The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, which are two of my favorite books. I was looking forward to reading The Heart of Winter and once I started, I couldn't put it down. This is the story of a marriage between two people who at first glance, seem incompatible. The narrative alternates between the present, as the wife battles a devastating diagnosis, and the past, a journey of family life, of love and loss, and perseverance. Evison completely nails this one--his portrayal of the wife in particular was spot on. This one will get you in the feels. I'm not crying, you're crying.

As Abe Winter begins his tenth decade of life, he is certain he will die before his beloved wife, Ruth, but when she unexpectedly faces a health crisis, Abe finds himself in the role of caregiver. Through their nearly 70 years of marriage, Ruth has always been the caregiver--to their children, their pets, their house, and Abe himself. Abe can run a business and sell insurance, but at the age of 90, he is not sure he can be a caregiver.

With multiple points of view, the story is told through the lens of the present time with flashbacks to earlier parts of their lives--their courtship, early marriage, and times of significant challenge. As Abe realizes belatedly, there is more to being a good husband and father than simply providing for your family.

This is a touching, affecting story about family, love, and confronting your mortality. #TheHeartofWinter #NetGalley

4.5 stars.

✨What an absolutely lovely story of a husband and wife, utterly opposite in temperament, dreams, politics and personality, who find a way across the course of many decades to establish a long and enduring marriage. We meet them as college students and follow the course of their lives into their elder years.

✨This is a character-driven narrative, and we see Ruth and Abe grow and evolve over a lifetime – both in their own lives and as a couple. We see firsthand through our story that lasting love is not something that just happens but is rather the result of choosing one another over and over again through the different seasons of life, through the mundane, through the struggles, through the tragedies. The story illuminates the value of choosing to stay the course, and I was absolutely mesmerized.

✨This is a book for everyone, but I think it will really strike a chord with readers of a certain age, like me, who find themselves in middle age and contemplating what’s to come.

✨An absolutely lovely story that I highly recommend.

🌿Read if you like:
✨Stories of long, enduring marriages
✨Family dynamics
✨Pacific Northwest settings
✨Stories that span many decades

An atmospheric. poignant emotional novel about a marriage and the people who make it. A sudden and shocking diagnosis for Ruth is a crisis not just for Ruth but also her husband Abe. Now in their late 80's they've been together since college, raised four children on Bainbridge Island and been through the ebb and flow of life. But this is big. The novel shifts between 2023/2024 as Abe and Ruth cope with the change in their lives and the story of their marriage told from both of their perspectives. It's a good device to allow the reader to see how they evolved. These characters - and others especially the women at the diner-leap off the page. And there are many small moments that will resonate especially as Ruth and Abe navigate their new normal. Then there's the tragedy. The writing is wonderful; I kept feeling echos of Wallace Stegner (that's a good thing). My only quibble-and it's a big one- is with the last chapter (no spoilers). Thanks to the publisher for the arc. I thoroughly enjoyed this and highly recommend it.

I wanted to love this one so much. But there are HUGE trigger warnings here for cancer/terminal illness and it was just too much. Message me if you want more details. The writing style was excellent, the content was just too heavy.

Going to be honest here--I looked ahead to the end because I HAD to know if Ruth was going to be OK. My mom passed away from cancer and it's so triggering for me. But then I see THE DOG DIES? Are you kidding me?! I get that the dog was old and lived a long life, but thank goodness I didn't read the entire thing to get to that.

Enjoyed this. It’s slow and moody. Atmospheric. Solid storytelling and strong character development. I’m not often one to really enjoy literary fiction but I do respect it and I respected this read.

The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison tells a compelling story of a marriage. Set in alternating narratives between now (when an unexpected diagnosis has brought Ruth to an unexpected health precipice) and the history of their marriage. I found the couple's story to be compelling, though two people this opposite attracting and lasting was a bit hard to swallow (though doing so in that era was perhaps more likely). I think the major "events" were worked into the story well. My only concern with the fidelity of the story was how kids (and hence grandkids) totally dropped out of the narrative once they were out of the house. All told, though, this is a lovely account of a relationship weathering both anticipated and unanticipated challenges.

This was a story about a marriage that I loved, except for the parts I didn't. Overall, though, it was a lovely story and I especially loved the ending. It is a testament to what a marriage really is all about.

4.75 stars

While I have several of Jonathan Evison’s books on my list, his upcoming release THE HEART OF WINTER is the first novel I’ve read by him. I was so blown away by it!

In this novel, we are introduced to an elderly (on the cusp of 90 years old) married couple Abe and Ruth. Ruth discovers a loose tooth in 2023, and that leads to a cancer diagnosis. The reader is then taken through the journey of them meeting and their marriage from the 1950s through 2024. This is a study of these two people as individuals and their marriage together. They had a tough early marriage with a child right away, causing Ruth to feel saddled by domesticity, and Abe making decisions for both of them without talking to his wife. When things evened out some, they lost their second daughter. Life was often bumpy, but these two stuck it out.

I felt like I identified with each Ruth and Abe in some ways, and I felt that Evison drew the characters so well. There were specific scenes toward the end that broke my heart - and one that also made me laugh when Abe was looking for prune juice at Safeway.

Character-driven readers who enjoy reading about a character over a lifetime (think THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES) are the target demographic for this book. I think this will strike a chord for middle-aged readers, like me, as well. They can identify with the life decisions these characters experienced for much of the novel, and they can also see a preview of what’s coming in the future or perhaps identify with what their parents are dealing with. I loved how the author created scenes, but sometimes there was more narration when I thought a scene or longer scene would make the point better.

“Sometimes we need a complement, a contradiction, a counterpoint to be our best selves.”

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton Books for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

THE HEART OF WINTER publishes January 7, 2025.

The description of this novel made me anticipate a heart-felt and endearing story. Rather, I found this to be a bit choppy and characters weren't well developed. This should definitely come with a trigger warning about a dog passing away at the end. For anyone who is an animal lover, and has ever put a dog down, this is a sad thing to read about and was upsetting.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for access to this eARC.

The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison is about couple Abe and Ruth Winter who met in college and had been married seven decades. They lived on a lovely farm in Washington. The story alternates between 2023-2024 and their years before, including meeting at college, their children and their marriage. Abe was dependable, reliable and steadfast; Ruth a free spirit and highly intelligent. Transparency, trust and comfort in routine served them well as they aged. Their intertwined lives were filled with joys and sorrows, ups and downs. When in her late 80s, Ruth's toothache became something far more, she had to rely on her husband for help as her caregiver. Worry and deep love for each other caused mental and physical slips which concerned their older children. Priorities shifted with new routines and realizations.

The author writes cleverly and thoughtfully about human nature and what a marriage partnership means. Abe and Ruth had to learn how to let go of what they knew while keeping their individuality, an excellent lesson for every human. This tender book is chock full of thought-provoking life lessons and pieces of wisdom. I really enjoyed the couple's evolution as college students to middle age to old age. The writing is gentle and sweet in the face of heartache and the characters are endearing.

My sincere thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this heartwarming and poignant novel. My parents are ageing and many aspects of this story are relatable in a bittersweet way. This book is a special one and was so easy to get lost in.

I think this book was beautiful. In a world full of unrealistic romantic novels; this one is real life. Love. Friendship. Sadness. Joy. Heartbreak. All of the emotions people who are together for years and years experience. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this arc.

The story of the marriage of Abe and Ruth as they approach the age of 90. The book goes back and forth between 2024 and other years of their marriage, beginning with their meeting in college. The ups and downs of their lives are visited with beautiful writing. Although this could be considered a depressing book, it's done so well that anyone who is married will find beauty in the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review!

This book follows a couple that has been married for almost seven decades. We alternate between present day, where they're dealing with health crises and facing the ends of their lives, and following their relationship over the years. It's slow, meditative, and gorgeously introspective. It's a really honest portrayal of what it takes to make a partnership work throughout the many different stages of life, from Ruth struggling with her identity as a homemaker and wife to Abe figuring out how to be emotionally present even though it wasn't the norm for men of his generation. At times it read a bit like a history lesson, but I was touched by how Ruth and Abe navigated their differences and overcame the obstacles inherent in having four kids. I enjoyed their thoughts about how their relationship with their kids changed, and the ending felt sweet and lovely.

A touching story of a long marriage, and a particularly intimate look at two people dealing with what are likely to be the final years of their lives. I don't think we see that enough in fiction and there's such drama there, as we approach those big decisions. I'm not sure the dual timeline was as effective as it might have been, though it's difficult to cover so many years in a substantive way. Overall, an enjoyable and touching read.

This is the third of Jonathan Evison's novels that I've read, and as with the others, he displays a deep knowledge of the ways of the heart and the importance of community and of connection. All of his people are in relationships that while not conventional, harbor similarities, and feature growing appreciation for others who may not be on the same page at all, gaining a wider world view in the process. In this exploration of a 70-year-old marriage, Evison has created two characters, Abe and Ruth, and has trained his focus completely on them. Unlike other authors who branch out their works by giving inner lives to supplemental characters, Evison presents the story of the couple only from each of their point of view, much the same as he did in Small World. Wonderful use of Bainbridge Island where they own a farm, as well as the part of the Puget Sound locale. Highly recommend.