Homeland

In this "thoughtful, deeply atmospheric novel" by the author of Wolf Winter, a Polish refugee faces suspicion after a death in rural postwar England ( Daily Mail).   After World War II ends, soldiers are pouring back into Britain, and in 1946, the country is on the brink of the harshest winter in a hundred years. Blizzards rage and everything is in short supply: jobs, coal, food.   In the Somerset wetlands, a Polish veteran named Wladyslaw Malinowski seeks work as a laborer. The soldiers of the Second Polish Corps are reluctant to leave, and many of the locals view them with uncertainty, but Malinowski manages to find employment on a farm. He also finds a potential romance in the local schoolmistress, Stella. But when murder rocks the small community, suspicion falls on the outsider.   From the international bestselling author of A Dark Devotion and Betrayal, Homeland is an insightful look at how hardship and social upheaval can shape—or shatter—everyday lives, "a very fine novel indeed" ( The Independent).