I so adored River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer which I reviewed here, that I could not be more excited to be part of the cover reveal for her second novel, Fireflies in Winter. My huge thanks to Caitlin Raynor at Headline for inviting me to participate.

Fireflies in Winter will be published by Headline Review on 10th February 2026 and is available for pre-order from all good bookshops and here. 

Fireflies in Winter

A breathtaking novel of two young women fighting for love and survival on the edge of the wilderness from the author of 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….

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I think that sounds so atmospheric and cannot wait to get my hands on a copy!

About Eleanor Shearer

Eleanor Shearer is a mixed-race writer and the granddaughter of Windrush generation immigrants. She splits her time between London and Ramsgate so that she never has to go too long without seeing the sea. For her Master’s degree in Politics at the University of Oxford, Eleanor studied the legacy of slavery and the case for reparations, and her fieldwork in St. Lucia and Barbados helped inspire her first novel.

For further information, follow Eleanor on Twitter @eleanorbshearer, or find her on Instagram.