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Praise for Sally Gardner

‘This heartbreaking, brilliantly written novel is the most original publication for years’

The Times

‘Shades of Sarah Waters…irresistible’

Guardian

‘Arresting and original and written in a singular voice’

Telegraph

‘The prize-winning Gardner is a dab hand at literary world-creation’

Observer

‘This is an inspirational piece of writing’

New Statesman

‘A truly original voice…a thrilling read’

Spectator

‘Beautiful, twisted and dark. A masterpiece’

Big Issue

About the Author

SALLY GARDNER is an award-winning children’s novelist who has sold more than two and a half million books worldwide and been translated into 22 languages. This is her third adult novel.

@TheSallyGardner

Also by Sally Gardner, writing as Wray Delaney

AN ALMOND FOR A PARROT

THE BEAUTY OF THE WOLF

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Dedication

To my great friend and mentor, Jane Fior, who has given me so much love and support. When I told her I didn’t think I could write a book about snow, she wisely said,
‘You can.’

So here it is.

I have used the term ‘gypsy’ in this story as it’s appropriate for the time the story is set in. I mean no disrespect to the Roma who where called Tzigane in Transylvania. But whatever name is used, the Roma people have suffered prejudice and discrimination throughout the history of the world.

Epigraph

This is the Hour of Lead –

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –

First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

EMILY DICKINSON

Chapter One

Snow Song

It was the sound of his violin that first cast a spell on Edith. Even before she saw him, the restless notes of his melody drew her to him. The musician was sitting on a bench outside the cobbler’s, a pair of new boots beside him. The morning sunshine illuminated his outline, striking against the burnt orange of the cobbler’s house. The violin looked to Edith as if it were made of liquid honey so polished was its surface. The rhythm of the song with its languid melancholy echoed her own feelings. His music danced into her heart to free her troubled soul from its cage, and she stood mesmerised.

When he had finished he looked up at her, his eyes the colour of a blue winter sky, his hair dark like her own, his face elegant in its composition. Generous lips, a straight nose – unlike the young men of her village with their blond, dumpling faces that lacked definition, as if they had all been baked in the same oven.

‘What’s the music called?’ she asked.

‘Snow Song,’ he said.