At the library, searching for a Mediterranean cookbook, The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison caught my eye. The font and no uppercase letters in the title were intriguing and the old couple dancing on the cover made my heart happy. January is blustery and cold and grey here in the Pacific Northwest, so why not read a book about winter and enduring love. Based on the cover… what else could it be about?

Turns out, the book was not about the season after Fall, preceding Spring, but my assumption about enduring love was spot on.

Set in the familiarity of the Puget Sound area, Abe Winter and his wife, Ruth, couldn’t have been more different. Abe, a pragmatic insurance agent and often oblivious husband, that voted for Ike. Ruth, an aspiring traveler and philosopher and ardent supporter of Kennedy who turned into a (sometimes bitter) housewife and farmer. The odds were not in their favor.

The Heart of Winter told one of the most honest interpretations of real life love that I have ever read. At times, I found it disappointing, because I WANT to believe Nicholas Sparks and Nora Roberts’ versions of love really exist, but I know that the ups and downs and difficulties and disappointments and compromises are more often the real deal.

The author did an excellent job of showing both main characters equal… both making potentially devastating choices, both giving grace, both growing and learning, and both loving the best they could. Evison also did a great job of letting situations land realistically rather than playing them up for more drama.

In a nutshell… this story is about unlikely college romance, hard knocks, marital issues, parenting hang-ups, disappointments, grief, aging, and devoted companionship.

Inspiring. Hopeful. Beautiful.

Who doesn’t want a love like this?

Now, this book was not without faults. The cancer subplot had too many holes and was both forefront and also a backdrop in the story. It did not deliver. I am unsure how I feel about the lack of interaction with the kids and never seeing the grandkids or great-grandkids. Was that realistic or was that just a lazy workaround for the author? And lastly, I think the publisher forgot to add the last few chapters… at least, that’s how the ending felt.

Did I enjoy the story of Abe and Ruth? Absolutely. Would I recommend it? Hmmm… I wouldn’t not recommend it.

But I can tell you one thing for certain… I CANNOT wait for the rest of my 2026 book adventures. Reading is just the best.

Happy New Year to my fellow readers. I would love to hear what your first 2026 book is…

“The audacity. The presumption. The indignity. It seemed a cruel arrangement that one’s children, the very nurslings who once drooled on your shirt collar and threw up on your lapel, who wet the bed and crapped on the floor, those helpless lumps of adipose who depended upon you for every little comfort, nay, for their very survival, one day grew into sanctimonious, domineering, irredeemable despots, hell-bent on infantilizing you as though it were the natural order. At what point did they reckon they’d surpassed you in wisdom and experience? When was the torch passed? At sixty, at seventy, at eighty? No, there was nothing natural about this order.” pg 206