A Boy in Winter cover art

A Boy in Winter

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

A Boy in Winter

By: Rachel Seiffert
Narrated by: Jilly Bond
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Early on a grey November morning in 1941, only weeks after the German invasion, a small Ukrainian town is overrun by the SS.

Deft, spare and devastating, Rachel Seiffert's new novel tells of the three days that follow and the lives that are overturned in the process.

Penned in with his fellow Jews, under threat of transportation, Ephraim anxiously awaits word of his two sons, missing since daybreak. Come in search of her lover, to fetch him home again, away from the invaders, Yasia must confront new and harsh truths about those closest to her. Here to avoid a war he considers criminal, German engineer Otto Pohl is faced with an even greater crime unfolding behind the lines and no one but himself to turn to.

And in the midst of it all is the determined boy, Yankel, who will throw his and his young brother's chances of surviving to strangers.

A Boy in Winter is a story of hope when all is lost and of mercy when the times have none.

©2017 Rachel Seiffert (P)2017 Little Brown Book Group Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction Crime

Listeners also enjoyed...

 My Own Dear Brother cover art
Little Exiles cover art
The Sheep Stell cover art
Dreamhunter cover art
One Day in Oradour cover art
A Child Called Happiness cover art
A Last Goodbye cover art
Citizens Creek cover art
Arlette's Story cover art
In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer cover art
A Thread of Grace cover art
The Silver Sword cover art
Medicus cover art
BBC National Short Story Award 2010 (5 Shortlisted Titles) cover art
This Rough Ocean cover art
The Ragged Edge of Night cover art

Critic reviews

A fine novel that locates small, flickering lights of hope in an otherwise desolate landscape (Nick Rennison)
Seiffert's cool tone never wavers - her spare, beautiful prose is a joy to read (Helen Dunmore)
Rachel Seiffert writes short, fast narratives about the big historical events that have shaped our time . . . The primal energy in this novel is a moral sore that will never heal. How could Seiffert's beloved Opa (grandad) not know what was going on? How, knowing, could he and her Oma not resist? Yet had they resisted, Seiffert would not be here, in 2017, to write for us. One closes this fine novel sensing the confused pain it must have caused Rachel Seiffert to write it (John Sutherland)
Rachel Seiffert's new novel A Boy in Winter stretches over only three days, through which you encounter all the emotions of the time, horror and instinct for survival, family loyalty, and above all perhaps, bravery (James Naughtie)
Completely captures those times in a vivid, precise, captivating and terrible way (Philippe Sands)
A spellbinding evocation of fear and threat tinged with the possibility of hope and change, (Philippe Sands, author of East West Street)
Rachel Seiffert's tale vividly evokes the Ukrainian landscape and the harrowing experiences of Jews at the hands of the Nazis (James Marriott)
This year's standout novel (Willy Maley)
All stars
Most relevant  

Would you consider the audio edition of A Boy in Winter to be better than the print version?

It's not better or worse just more convenient if you are driving a lot.

What did you like best about this story?

The period fascinates me, and her writing is very, very good

Did Jilly Bond do a good job differentiating each of the characters? How?

Unfortunately not, quite irritating reading, but the story was so good I could tolerate
the reading. I do usually like her reading but not on this occasion.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Absolutely!

Any additional comments?

Whether you read it or listen to it, you have to give this a go.

Superb, Seiffert does it again, must read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
found it a struggle at first due to the style but then it leaves you constantly with your heart in your mouth

heartbreaking tale

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Despite the bleak subject matter this is a rather cosy tale.
Stock characters - you can tell where it's all going once the main persona have all appeared on stage. Predictable - a few moments of angst - but really a comfy end to what was really a horror beyond comprehension.
The unconvincing nature of the tale was further heightened by Jilly Bond's insistence on using a cod accent for EVERYONE: Ukrainians, Nazis & Ukranian Jews all gett zee acszent layed onn reaaalleee thickkk.
Very annoying.
Mercifully short.

Cosy tale of the onset of the Holocaust

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.