A novel by E. M. Curnow COMING
The quiet book. Boats laid up, money short, the parish council's darkest meeting — and love deepening in the cold. The village at its lowest ebb, and at its truest.
In Winter Work, Polperran enters its stillest season: boats laid up, pockets tight, and the harbour's usual bustle softened to a hush. Around the parish council table, choices feel heavier than gossip, and the village faces one of its darkest meetings. Yet through the cold, affection and loyalty deepen, making this quiet novel glow with hard-won tenderness.
Older readers will recognise the book's honest wintry pressures: adults worried about money, public arguments with no easy answers, and feelings that grow more serious when life is difficult. E. M. Curnow's steady, musical prose gives twelve to fifteen-year-olds space to think, with warmth enough to reassure and tension enough to matter. Its peril is emotional and civic, never sensational.
As part of the Polperran novels, Winter Work shows how readers can grow up alongside the village: the same lanes, quay and council concerns seen now with teenage seriousness. It draws particularly on the Politics and Marina threads, where local decisions and harbour life shape private hearts. For families following Polperran across the age-banded series, it is a low-tide volume: sober, intimate, and true.