In our weekly look at books, we focus on October’s fiction novel of the month…

From the masterful pen of Andrew Miller comes The Land in Winter, a painfully acute dissection of resentment and betrayal.

Two couples find themselves cut off from the rest of the world during the devastating winter of 1962.

Local doctor, Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage.

Across the field, in a farmhouse impossible to heat, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore.

He’s been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm he bought, a place where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that’s already faltering.

There is affection – if not always love – in both homes. These are marriages that still hold some promise.

But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards – a true winter, the harshest in living memory – the couples find their lives beginning to unravel.

Where do you hide when you can’t leave home? And where, in a frozen world, can you run to?

Top ten chart with Waterstones of Norfolk Street, in Lynn:

1. The Secret of Secrets – Dan Brown

2. Eat Yourself Healthy – Jamie Oliver

3. Murder at the Black Cat Cafe – Seishi Yokomizo

4. The Hallmarked Man – Robert Galbraith

5. The Frozen People – Elly Griffiths

6. The Impossible Fortune – Richard Osman

7. The Great When – Alan Moore

8. Our Evenings – Alan Hollinghurst

9. Katabasis – R.F. Kuang

10. The Secret Painter – Joe Tucker