IN THE BLEAK MID WINTER

December in England is perceived to be a dreary month. Storms batter the land, which is sodden and littered with leaves. Trees shiver in the cold, their naked branches silhouetted against flat grey skies and fading light. Songbirds have left our shores - it appears that only crows, pheasants and magpies remain to brave the wind and rain, and they seem to be, much of the time, grounded. On the coast waves crash against rock, mist hangs low over the water, drizzle blurs the edges of everything. And yet, I find beauty in the wildness of winter.

Sure, when snow lies thick and white upon the ground and puddles freeze, and the earth hardens to glittering stone, the beauty is more obvious. Ruby red berries peep out of the frost on the yew hedges and Jack works his magic etching enchanting pictures on glass, which slowly melt in the shine of the weak winter sun. Pale skies, icy clouds, a circling Kite, the scampering of hares, the mysterious silence of the wood. On days like those there is beauty in the bleakness.

In my cottage in Hampshire, I like to lie in bed and listen to the wind moaning about the chimney stacks. Sometimes I keep the curtains open so I can see the spindly black branches of the lime trees waving against the night’s sky, and clouds scudding in front of the moon, lit up like ghosts. I long to be by the sea, in a lighthouse perhaps, snug beneath the covers as the waves roar and break, then break again. It’s dramatic. It’s romantic. Cold and wet outside, warm and dry inside, while nature reminds us that however powerful we think we are, we will never be as powerful as her.

In London where I live most of the time the pavements are wet, the cherry trees that line my street have shed all their leaves in the recent winds that tore through them. They gather in piles against walls and railings, along with takeaway coffee cups and cans. But fairy lights twinkle in the windows and when the cloud parts, stars twinkle too, along with the odd aircraft and satellite orbiting the earth.

When I walk through nature, whatever the season, whatever the weather, and listen and look – really listen and look with all my attention - there’s beauty in it, in all of it. Walking my dog round the block at night should be a chore. Often it is. But the other night, while he stood transfixed by a fox, who stared boldly back at him, I looked up at those black branches, moving quietly and silently in the wind. One or two leaves remained and were oscillating gently. I gazed up and after a while I no longer saw branches and leaf and indigo blue sky behind, I just saw beauty. It was magical.

The fox loped off and my dog went crazy. But I realised that that nightly duty needn’t be a bore.

My favourite spiritual teachers talk about living in the moment, but it’s hard to stop the mind from straying, just as it’s hard to stop the tongue from finding the aching tooth. Many dread winter with the shorter days and the dark and cold, but it needn’t be bad if one only looks and listens and finds the beauty that is always, unfailingly there.

When Pixie Tate is summoned to the wild Cornish coast to investigate a mystery at St Sidwell Manor she senses that something malevolent is hiding in its shadows.

Over one hundred years ago, in the deepest night, a little boy vanished from his bed – and Pixie must find out what happened to him.

But Pixie is no ordinary detective. She has a unique gift: she can travel through time. As she slips back to 1895, secrets are revealed, love affairs exposed and, ultimately, Pixie will be forced to make a devastating choice that will change her life forever...

Shadows in the Moonlight is a sweeping and devastatingly romantic time-travel mystery, and the first book in Santa Montefiore’s sensational new series.

The second novel in the series, Secrets of the Starlit Sea, will be published in July 2025. Book 3 in summer 2026.