A Week in Winter

A Week in Winter is the final novel that Irish writer Maeve Binchy wrote before her death, first published posthumously in 2012. The novel’s events are set mainly in the fictional Irish coastal town of Stoneybridge, where the characters converge around a guest house named Stone House. The novel is structured as a series of short stories told by an omniscient narrator that come together to form a larger, interwoven whole. In every story, the characters struggle with self-acceptance, with the various ways they cross paths often influencing their respective journeys.

This study guide is for the 2012 hardcover edition from Orion Books.

Content Warning: This novel contains references to domestic abuse, drug use, murder, and suicide.

Plot Summary

A Week in Winter relates the stories of Chicky Starr, the proprietress of Stone House, and her guests in the new hotel in Stoneybridge, Ireland. Chicky, once she becomes the house’s new owner, builds her staff over the course of the novel; by the end, her staff includes Rigger, her manager, and Orla, her niece and general assistant. Each chapter mingles a central character or characters’ background with the present day at Stone House, with previous or upcoming characters often making appearances in other characters’ stories. The first three chapters establish Stone House’s main staff, with subsequent chapters turning to guests’ stories.

When Chicky is young, she leaves Stoneybridge against the advice of her family to run off with a married American man named Walter. After a brief and unhappy relationship, Walter leaves her. However, ever since leaving, Chicky has been manufacturing an elaborate artificial life for her family that included a wedding. When pressed to avoid a visit from her niece, Chicky then invents a tragic accident in which Walter is killed. After gaining valuable skills, Chicky eventually returns to Stoneybridge as a widow and opens Stone House.

One of the housekeepers at Stone House, Nuala, becomes pregnant by way of an affair. Though Nuala strives to raise her son well in Dublin, Rigger has one brush with the law too many; in a final effort to rehabilitate him, Nuala sends Rigger to Stone House as a troubled young man. What is intended to be a temporary measure becomes a fulfilling and stable career. While working at Stone House, Rigger begins seeing a woman named Carmel, who becomes pregnant. Rather than flee together, the two marry and begin a life together with their two twin children, with Rigger stepping into his role as Stone House’s manager. Later, Carmel helps heal the estrangement between Rigger and his mother.

Chicky’s niece, Orla, joins the house after a period away in London, where her friend, Brigid, meets and becomes engaged to a man named Foxy Farrell. Orla, however, has no romantic attachments. She comes to help her aunt with the opening of her new hotel, bringing a young and technologically aware perspective to its systems. Orla also helps field attempts to modernize Stone House from two dishonest interior designers.

The guests for the first week include two women named Winnie and Lillian; a movie star named Corry who’s traveling under the name of John; a pair of doctors named Henry and Nicola; a Swedish accountant and musician named Anders; a middle-aged couple named Ann and Charlie Wall; a retired teacher named Nell Howe; and a librarian named Freda.

Winnie and Lillian are traveling together because Winnie’s boyfriend and Lillian’s son, Teddy, wanted them to get to know one another better. Although their relationship is contentious, the women eventually come to an understanding. Corry missed a connecting flight while trying to salvage his movie career, and in response, he impulsively booked a hotel stay as a way to unwind. Henry and Nicola, who are struggling with guilt related to two profound traumas, feel they’ve been given a second chance when they prevent a young boy from dying by suicide. Anders has inherited his father’s accounting firm, but he would prefer to be a musician; Stone House helps him find the courage to live his own life.

The Walls have arrived to celebrate their anniversary after winning their stay in a competition, and Miss Howe has received her stay as a retirement gift. Freda, who is reeling from the end of a difficult romantic affair, learns to use her psychic gift to help the other guests find peace.