The Year Without Summer

  • Author Guinevere Glasfurd
  • Narrator Genevieve Swallow
  • Publisher John Murray Press
  • Run Time 10 hours and 36 minutes
  • Format Audio
  • Genre Historical fiction.
Get in the xigxag app
This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book.
Pre-order Buy Now £{{ price }}
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

'A STRIKINGLY SHARP AND SUBTLE WRITER' Guardian
'SUPERB...BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN...UNFORGETTABLE' FT Weekend
'SKILFUL' Sunday Times
'RICH, INTRICATE, IMPRESSIVELY REALISED' Observer
'VIVIDLY REALISED' The Times
'A VISION OF THE PAST AND A VISION OF THE FUTURE' Irish Times
'A VIVID SLICE OF HISTORICAL FICTION' Sunday Express

1815, Sumbawa Island, Indonesia
Mount Tambora explodes in a cataclysmic eruption, killing thousands. Sent to investigate, ship surgeon Henry Hoggcan barely believe his eyes. Once a paradise, the island is now solid ash, the surrounding sea turned to stone. But worse is yet to come: as the ash cloud rises and covers the sun, the seasons will fail.

1816
In Switzerland, Mary Shelley finds dark inspiration. Confined inside by the unseasonable weather, thousands of famine refugees stream past her door. In Vermont, preacher Charles Whitlock begs his followers to keep faith as drought dries their wells and their livestock starve.

In Suffolk, the ambitious and lovesick painter John Constable struggles to reconcile the idyllic England he paints with the misery that surrounds him. In the Fens, farm labourer Sarah Hobbs has had enough of going hungry while the farmers flaunt their wealth. And Hope Peter, returned from the Napoleonic wars, finds his family home demolished and a fence gone up in its place. He flees to London, where he falls in with a group of revolutionaries who speak of a better life, whatever the cost. As desperation sets in, Britain becomes beset by riots - rebellion is in the air.

The Year Without Summer is the story of the books written, the art made; of the journeys taken, of the love longed for and the lives lost during that fateful year. Six separate lives, connected only by an event many thousands of miles away. Few had heard of Tambora - but none could escape its effects.

'VIVID, VIBRANT, HARD TO PUT DOWN' Hilary Spurling
'THOUGHT-PROVOKING, BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND VERY COMPELLING' Harriet Tyce
'INGENIOUS AND ABSORBING' Kirsty Wark
'ASTONISHING, RIVETING, MASTERFUL, POETIC' Emily Rapp Black
'A WORLDWIDE CANVAS BROUGHT TO LIFE IN VIVID, HEARTBREAKING DETAIL' Marianne Kavanagh

(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Critics Review

  • Glasfurd is a strikingly sharp and subtle writer who finds beauty in the bleakest situations. She has the rare ability to conjure characters vividly in a few deft strokes and the gift, rarer still, of making us care deeply about them . . . an angry and tender interrogation of tangibly real lives . . . Glasfurd’s hard-hitting admonition deserves to find its mark.

    The Guardian

  • Superb . . . a stay-up-all-night page-turner . . . a beautifully written, angry, unflinching and unforgettable novel.

    Financial Times

  • Glasfurd is a skilful writer and the book offers much to enjoy

    Sunday Times

  • Vividly realised . . . this second novel does not disappoint

    The Times

  • Guinevere Glasfurd’s follow-up to her 2016 Costa-shortlisted debut The Words in My Hand is another superb saga, rich in both historical detail and human interest . . . [Glasfurd] combines her intricate storyline with an impressively realised sense of a world being dragged into the modern age

    Observer

  • A rich, well-written, and entirely convincing work of historical fiction. Each story adds a dimension to the exploration of climate disaster across social class and geography … in The Year Without Summer we are offered both a vision of the past and a vision of the future

    Irish Times

More from the same

Author

Narrator

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to get tailored content recommendations, product updates and info on new releases. Your data is your own: we commit to protect your data and respect your privacy.