REVIEW: Fireflies in Winter by Eleanor Shearer

Fireflies in Winter by Eleanor Shearer: This story drops you into 1796 Nova Scotia — bitter cold, endless wilderness, and survival that feels fragile at best.

Cora has just arrived from Jamaica and nothing about this frozen landscape feels survivable, let alone welcoming. Then she sees tracks in the snow… and discovers Agnes, a young woman hiding deep in the woods, running from a past that could cost her everything. What unfolds is a story of two women carving out a fragile sanctuary for themselves in a world that isn’t built to protect them. The wilderness is harsh, isolating, and unforgiving — but it’s also the one place where they can attempt to choose their own future.

FIREFLIES IN WINTER by Eleanor Shearer is historical fiction layered with tension, quiet resilience, and a love story that feels both dangerous and necessary.
What pulled me in wasn’t just the danger or the historical setting — it was the fragile hope that grows between Cora and Agnes. Their connection feels delicate, almost flickering (like the title promises), but it carries so much emotional weight.

This isn’t a sweeping romance. It’s survival. It’s trust built slowly. It’s love that feels both like sanctuary and risk. And watching them carve out even a sliver of safety in such a harsh world had my heart in a constant ache.

Tropes & Themes:

• Survival in the wilderness
• Forced proximity
• Isolation & belonging
• Forbidden love
• Freedom at a cost
• Identity & displacement
• The price of safety
• Secret sanctuary
• Resilient heroines

FIREFLIES IN WINTER isn’t a light read. It’s tense, atmospheric, and at times heartbreaking. But it’s also about resilience and the kind of love that refuses to disappear, even when everything around it says it should. Recommended for readers who love immersive historical settings, atmospheric survival stories, and love stories rooted in strength and sacrifice.

QOTD: Do you prefer love stories set in quiet, intimate settings — or ones with big, sweeping drama?

Book Info:

Publication: February 10, 2026 | Berkley |

A gripping novel of two young women fighting for survival on the edge of the wilderness, and the love that simultaneously sustains them and threatens their very existence, from the author of the Good Morning America Book Club pick River Sing Me Home.

Nova Scotia, 1796. Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, has never felt cold like this. In the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together in their homes to keep warm. So when she sees a shadow slipping through the trees, Cora thinks her eyes are deceiving her…until she creeps out into the moonlight and finds the tracks in the snow.

Agnes is in hiding. On the run from her former life, she has learned what it takes to survive alone in the wilderness. But she can afford no mistakes. When she first spies the young woman in the woods, she is afraid. Yet Cora is fearless, and their paths are destined to cross.

Deep among the cedars, Cora and Agnes find a fragile place of safety. But when Agnes’s past closes in, they are confronted with the dangerous price of freedom—and of love….

With evocative prose and immersive storytelling, Fireflies in Winter is a powerful novel about love—love for the wilderness in all its unforgiving beauty, and love between two women who risk everything to be together.