The winter ghosts Kate Mosse.

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The Great War took much more than lives. It robbed a generation of friends, lovers and futures. In Freddie Watson's case, it took his beloved brother and, at times, his peace of mind. Unable to cope with his grief, Freddie has spent much of the time since in a sanatorium.

In the winter of 1928, still seeking resolution, Freddie is travelling through the French Pyrenees - another region that has seen too much bloodshed over the years. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. Shaken, he stumbles into the woods, emerging by a tiny village. There he meets Fabrissa, a beautiful local woman, also mourning a lost generation.

Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories of remembrance and loss. By the time dawn breaks, he will have stumbled across a tragic mystery that goes back through the centuries.

By turns thrilling, poignant and haunting, this is a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

La Rue des Pénitents Gris He walked like a man recently returned to the world. Every step was careful, deliberate. Every step to be relished. He was tall and clean shaven, a little thin perhaps. Dressed by Savile Row. A light woolen suit of herringbone weave, the jacket wide on the shoulders and narrow at the waist. His fawn gloves matched his Trilby. He looked like an Englishman, secure in his right to be on such a street, on such a pleasant afternoon in spring. But nothing is what it seems. For every step was a little too careful, too deliberate, as if he were unwilling to take even the ground beneath his feet entirely for granted. And as he walked, his clever, quick eyes darted from side to side, as if he were determined to record every tiny detail. Toulouse was considered one of the most beautiful cities in the south of France. Certainly Freddie admired it. The elegance of its nineteenth-century buildings, the medieval past that slept beneath the pavements and colonnades, the bell towers and cloisters of Saint-Étienne, the bold river dividing the city in two. The pink brick façades, blushing in the April sunshine, gave Toulouse its affectionate nickname la ville rose . Little had changed since Freddie had last visited, at the tail end of the 1920s. He had been another man then, a tattered man, worn threadbare by grief. Things were different now. In his right hand, Freddie carried directions scribbled on the back of a napkin from Bibent, where he'd lunched on filet mignon and a blowsy Bordeaux. In his left-hand breast pocket, he carried a letter patterned with antiquity and dust. It was this--and the fact that, at last, he had the opportunity to return--that brought him back to Toulouse today. The mountains where he'd come across the document had some strong significance for him, and though he had never read the letter, it was precious to him. Freddie crossed the Place du Capitole, heading toward the cathedral of Saint-Sernin. He walked through a network of small streets, obtuse little alleyways filled with jazz bars and poetry cellars and gloomy restaurants. He sidestepped couples on the pavement, lovers and families and friends, out enjoying the warm afternoon. He passed through tiny squares and hidden ruelles , and along the Rue du Taur, until he reached the street he was looking for. Freddie hesitated a moment at the corner, as if having second thoughts. Then he continued on, walking briskly now, dragging his shadow behind him. Halfway along the Rue des Pénitents Gris was a librairie and antiquarian bookseller. His destination. He stopped dead to read the name of the proprietor painted in black lettering above the door. Momentarily, his silhouette was imprinted on the building. Then he shifted position and the window was once more flooded with gentle, yellow sunlight, causing the metal grille to glint. Freddie stared at the display for a moment, at the antique volumes embossed with gold leaf and the highly polished leather slip casings of black and red, at the ridged spines of works by Montaigne and Anatole France and Maupassant. Other, less familiar names, too, Antonin Gadal and Félix Garrigou, and volumes of ghost stories by Blackwood and James and Sheridan LeFanu. "Now or never," he said. The old-fashioned handle was stiff and the door dug in its heels as Freddie pushed it open. A brass bell rattled somewhere distant at the back of the shop. The coarse rush matting sighed beneath the soles of his shoes as he stepped in. " Il y a quelqu'un ?" he said in clipped French. "Anybody about?" The contrast between the brightness outside and the patchwork of shadows within made Freddie blink. But there was a pleasing smell of dust and afternoons, glue and paper and polished wooden shelves. Particles of dust danced in and out of the beams of slatted sunlight. He was sure now that he had come to the right place and he felt something unwind inside him. Relief that he had finally made it here, perhaps, or of being at his journey's end. Freddie took off his hat and gloves and placed them on the long wooden counter. Then he reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and brought out the small pasteboard wallet. "Hello," he called a second time. "Monsieur Saurat?" He heard footsteps, then the creak of the hinges of the small door at the back of the shop, and a man walked through. Freddie's first impression was of flesh, rolls of skin at the neck and wrists, a smooth and unlined face beneath a shock of white hair. He did not, in any way, look like the medieval scholar that Freddie was expecting. "Monsieur Saurat?" The man nodded. Cautious, bored, uninterested in a casual caller. "I need help with a translation," Freddie said, pushing the wallet across the counter. "I was told you might be the man for such a job." Keeping his eyes on Saurat, Freddie carefully slipped the letter out from its casing. It was a heavy weave, the color of dirty chalk, not paper at all, but something far older. The handwriting was uneven and scratched. Saurat let his gaze slip to the letter. Freddie watched his eyes sharpen, first with surprise, then astonishment. Then greed. "May I?" "Be my guest." Taking a pair of half-moon spectacles from his top pocket, Saurat perched them on the end of his nose. He produced a pair of thin, linen gloves from beneath the counter, pulled them on. Holding the letter gently at the corner between forefinger and thumb, he held it up to the light. "Parchment. Probably late medieval." "Quite right." "Written in Occitan, the old language of this region." "Yes." All this Freddie knew. Saurat gave him a hard look, then dropped his eyes back to the letter. An intake of breath, then he began to read the opening lines out loud. His voice was surprisingly light. "Bones and shadows and dust. I am the last. The others have slipped away into darkness. Around me now, at the end of my days, only an echo in the still air of the memory of those who once I loved. Solitude, silence. Peyre sant . . ." Saurat stopped and stared now with interest at the reserved Englishman standing before him. He did not look like a collector, but then one never could tell. He cleared his throat. "May I ask where you came by this, monsieur . . . ?" "Watson." Freddie took his card from his pocket and laid it with a snap on the counter between them. "Frederick Watson." "You are aware this is a document of some historical significance?" "To me its significance is purely personal." "That may be, but nevertheless...;" Saurat shrugged. "It is something that has been in your family for some time?" Freddie hesitated. "Is there somewhere we could talk?" "Of course." Saurat gestured to a low card table and four leather armchairs set in an alcove at the rear of the shop. "Please." Freddie took the letter and sat down, watching as Saurat stooped beneath the counter again, this time producing two thick glass tumblers and a bottle of mellow, golden brandy. He was unusually graceful, delicate even, Freddie thought, for such a large man. Saurat poured them both a generous measure, then lowered himself into the chair opposite. The leather sighed beneath his weight. "So can you translate it for me?" "Of course. But I am still intrigued to know how you come to be in possession of such a document." "It's a long story." The same half shrug. "I have the time." Freddie leaned forward and slowly fanned his long fingers across the surface of the table, making patterns on the green baize. "Tell me, Saurat, do you believe in ghosts?" A smile slipped across the other man's lips. "I am listening." Freddie breathed out, with relief or some other emotion, it was hard to tell. "Well then," he said, settling back in his chair. "The story begins some five years ago, not so very far from here." Excerpted from The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

In this spare, elegant novel, Mosse (Labyrinth; Sepulchre) follows a young man as he comes to terms with a devastating personal loss. Freddie Watson¿s life was forever altered in 1916 by the death of his older brother George, a captain in England¿s Royal Sussex Regiment. He is still mourning the loss 12 years later when he travels to France, hoping that a change of scenery will offer a reprieve from his crushing sadness. When a freak snowstorm strands him in the unforgiving landscape of the Pyrenees, he finds shelter in Nulle, a small, isolated town that also seems plagued by a deep melancholy. It is there that Freddie meets the beautiful and mysterious Fabrissa, who, for her own personal reasons, understands the depth of Freddie¿s grief. As Freddie learns of Fabrissa¿s tragic history, he finally finds the courage to let go of the past. VERDICT Although Mosse's third novel isn¿t spooky enough to recommend to die-hard ghost story fans, finely drawn characters and an evocative setting make this a fine choice for lovers of historical and literary fiction. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/10.]-Makiia Lucier, Moscow, ID (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

In Mosse's wisp of a new novel (after Sepulchre), Freddie Watson is a stilted young man who has not gotten over older brother George's disappearance on the Western Front during WWI. It is now 10 years since the Armistice, and Freddie, after a stay in a mental institution, has come to the French Pyrenees to find peace. While motoring through a snowstorm, he crashes his car and ends up in the small village of Nulle, where he meets a beautiful young woman named Fabrissa. In the course of an evening, Fabrissa tells Freddie a story of persecution, resistance, and death, hinting at a long-buried secret. By the next morning, she is gone, leaving Freddie alone to unlock a ghostly mystery hidden for 600 years. This is a staunchly old-fashioned story, taking fully 100 pages to get moving, and by the time things pick up, the gist of the narrative will be obvious to anyone who has ever sat through a Twilight Zone episode. Freddie's obtuseness does little to help along a gruel-thin story. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Slimmer than either of her previous titles, Labyrinth (2006) and Sepulchre (2008), Mosse's latest is set in the years after World War I. Devastated by the death of his older brother, George, in the war, Freddie Watson has traveled to France after recovering from a nervous breakdown on his twenty-first birthday. While driving through the French Pyrenees on a snowy afternoon, he loses control of his vehicle and nearly takes a fatal plunge off the mountains. After managing to free himself from the car, Freddie makes his way to the village of Nulle, where he finds lodging and is invited by the kindly hostess to a celebration that evening. When Freddie makes his way to the town gathering, he meets a beautiful young woman named Fabrissa, who urges him to open up about his grief over George's death, and shares her own tragic story. The next morning, Freddie awakens with a fever and an overwhelming desire to find Fabrissa, at any cost. Evocative, atmospheric, and mysterious, Mosse's ghostly tale is the perfect diversion for a chilly winter day.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Romantic spookery in a small village in southwest France in the 1920s, from Mosse (Sepulchre, 2008, etc.), co-founder of the Orange Prize for Fiction.Freddie Watson is a man on a mission. Parchment manuscript in hand, he goes to a bookstore in Toulouse to find someone able to translate Occitan, the medieval language of the region, into English. From that moment unfolds a tale that had begun several years before, on which one winter's night Freddie had found himself traveling through the remote area of Occitania. Freddie's recent past had been characterized by melancholia, a condition created by his distant and unloving parents as well as by the death of his beloved older brother George the day before the first assault on the Somme. For five years after he received news of George's death, Freddie tried to repress his grief, but he finally had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized. Even in 1928 he still feels traumatized by the war that had taken his brother away. When he finds himself stranded in a remote valley, he begins to enter briefly into the life of the village (appropriately called Nulle), which is about to celebrate thefte de St. Etienne, a fixture of communal life since medieval times. At the local Ostal he meets the inscrutable and mysterious Fabrissa, a lovely, delicate woman who seems to know more about Freddie's loss than is humanly possible. Freddie is of course dazzled by this bewildering and bewitching woman, and the townspeople are mystified as well when Freddie tries to tell them about his encounter, for they know of no one named Fabrissa. A story eventually emerges about a village tragedy that had occurred in the 14th century, when Catharism was rampant in the area and the villagers had taken refuge in some local caves. Fabrissaor her ghostly selfultimately helps Freddie deal with his painful present and serves as a redemptive force in his life.Mosse's prose has a gossamer quality well suited to the fantasy she spins.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.