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|summary=In the early years of the 20th Century, Harry Cane is a man bound by duty and the constraints of society. Exiled to Canada, he finds himself amongst the barren landscapes and harsh winters, and encounters a happiness that is only threatened by the rapidly approaching war, and the machinations of an evil man. In his first real foray into historical fiction, Gale uses the Canadian plains as the backdrop to a stunning new novel. The characters leap off the page and dive well into the mind, making this not only on a par with his contemporary novels, but easily one of his finest.

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Patrick Gale has a substantial backlist, and several of his books have been bestsellers - [[Notes From An Exhibition by Patrick Gale|Notes From an Exhibition]], ''The Whole Day Through'', and ''A Perfectly Good Man'' the most recent. ''A Place Called Winter'' is his latest, and is his first full length novel that delves into the realm of historical fiction.

I can't deny that I have rather a large bias when it comes to Patrick Gale. I stumbled upon a copy of Rough Music as a teenager, and promptly read everything else by him. Somehow, his characters all felt like people I knew well, and the fact that he wrote about interesting, layered characters, some of whom happened to be gay, some did not, helped me immeasurably as a confused teenager, longing for relatable characters in books.

''A Place called Winter'' is the story of Harry Cane, a young man in Edwardian England. Left with a sizeable inheritance, Harry follows tradition, marrying and raising a young child. A passionate affair, however, forces Harry into exile, separated from all that he knows, and forced to try his hand as a farmer in the plains of Canada.

[[The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch]] is obviously well worth a read, and much like Gale, Murdoch excelled at writing complex characters and seemed to have an innate ability to grasp the psychology of a character.

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