Publisher's Weekly Review
This rich, thoroughly satisfying historical tale from Penney (The Invisible Ones) binds together adventure, passion, and love. The story opens with a frame sequence in 1948, as the elderly Flora Cochrane and young Randall Crane are set to fly to the North Pole as part of an American expedition. Randall is fascinated by Flora, so she recounts for him the Arctic explorations that she led a half-century before, a tale that makes up the bulk of the novel. It is on that earlier expedition that she met American geologist Jakob De Beyn, and a spark was struck between them. Though the two parted ways after the expedition, they carried a flame for each other despite living on opposite sides of the Atlantic and Flora's marriage to another man. Penney's prose is rapturous, whether she is describing the "overwhelmingly rich-glorious and unnecessary" landscape, or in her detailed and richly imagined passages on the attraction and intimacy between Flora and Jakob. By telling their story through recollection and the letters that they send, Penney imparts an additional layer of suspense, with neither the reader nor the characters knowing what may come, resulting in an exciting and transportive novel. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Exhilarating in its scope and imagery, Penney's third novel, after The Invisible Ones (2012), conjures the adventurous spirit of the late nineteenth century, when the remote frozen North compelled the daring and ambitious. Flora Mackie, a Dundee whaling-captain's daughter, spends much of her adolescence above the Arctic Circle, via her father's ship, and feels most comfortable there. Her tale unfolds alongside that of Jakob de Beyn, who comes of age in fin de siècle New York. When they first meet, in northwestern Greenland in 1892, she's a serious-minded meteorologist leading a British expedition, while he has joined a rival American party as a geologist. Their unspoken attraction later blooms into a complicated love affair, relayed with candid intimacy. Competition for new discoveries leads to heightened tensions, and a mystery emerges after a tragedy occurs and suspicions of deceit arise. Serious issues like gender bias and exploitation are adeptly handled, and the icy Arctic setting comes alive in passages of shimmering beauty. Penney conveys both the elation and fear evoked when crossing into unfamiliar territory, be it geographical or emotional. She also delves into the customs and beliefs of the Inuit, whose generous hospitality to the Westerners is indispensable. An exceptional epic about an unconventional woman's life and loves.--Johnson, Sarah Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
It's 1948, and for the first time, explorers will stand on the North Pole. Among those on the flight is an elderly British woman once called the Snow Queen. Flora first crossed the Arctic Circle at age 12, when her newly widowed father took her with him on his annual whaling voyage. The rough conditions and the freezing cold might have deterred a weaker woman, but Flora was enthralled; growing up, she heads to university, determined to return to northern Greenland as an explorer. When her first romance fails and her lover, American geologist Jakob de Beyn, leaves the Arctic for a more conventional life, Flora marries a fellow explorer who is crippled in a terrible accident. Unwilling to stay at home and be his nursemaid, the unconventional Flora becomes one of the first truly modern women, leading her own team north, writing about her discoveries, and not marrying. Penney does a masterly job of melding Flora's story with the more factual accounts of polar expeditions, and many of her characters are taken from the pages of history. VERDICT Penney's third novel (after The Tenderness of Wolves; The Invisible Ones) is a gripping tale about the men and women who were driven to conquer the Arctic. Bound to appeal to admirers of Eowyn Ivey's To the Bright Edge of the World.-Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage P.L., AK © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
