Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 372
Printing Date: May 01, 2001
Sale Popularity Level: 2423240
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
When Jo Harper falls in love with maverick archaeologist Doug Marshall, she also falls into Doug's obsession: the disappearance of the Franklin Expedition in 1845. But to truly follow her heart, Jo must retrace the uncharted trail that has claimed so many lives-not for glory or fame, but for love.
Amazon.com Review:
There are writers who meticulously research their subject but reveal only the tip of the iceberg to their readers. Then there's Elizabeth McGregor. It's not that she skimps on research--on the contrary, she has a very large iceberg of information at her disposal. But she doesn't hide a bit of it below the surface, and the result is a truly epic novel that glories in the details of two worlds: Victorian Arctic exploration and modern medicine.
Jo Harper is a contemporary London journalist saddled by her editor with a story she doesn't want. Namely: Douglas Marshall, an eminent archaeologist, has set out on a trek to research the (real-life) Franklin expedition, which disappeared more than a century ago during a hopeless search for the Northwest Passage. Now Marshall has gone missing too. In the course of her preliminary spadework, Jo finds an archived BBC program wherein Marshall describes the folly of Franklin's endeavor: Just a few short miles of ice. What was that to the greediest colonizing nation in the world? What were the months of darkness, and the strongest sea currents on the planet? The finest nautical minds of the age talked about it as if it were an afternoon jaunt, brushing aside a few natives, bears, and bits of tundra.
McGregour alternates Jo's story with a running account of the Franklin expedition, narrated by a 16-year-old sailour named Gus. Meanwhile, Marshall is found, and he and Jo pursue a clearly doomed romance. When their child is born with a rare blood disease, the distraught mother commissions a modern-day Arctic expedition to save the baby. Whether her characters are in the tundra or a hospital ward, McGregor's narrative has the momentum of a ship under full sail. Instead of bogging the book down, the carefully accumulated details propel it forward. Here is a large, complicated, lovingly made adventure that reads as easily, and as irresistibly, as a romance. --Claire Dederer
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This book was recommended to me because I am fascinated by the disappearence of the Franklin expedition. This book provides another possible outcome of the lost expedition. The Franklin material is interspersed with the tragic story of Jo Harper. Harper's story is timely in that her son is in need of a transplant, and the lack of bone marrow donors available. The ending was kind of predictable, but yet I never knew for sure if the donor would be found in time...or would Jo's son perish as those Franklin pioneers so long ago. I feel the author could have used less Franklin material and shortened the length of the book (433 pages in the paperback). Still, all in all, an exciting story.
Rated by buyers 
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This is one of those books that I've owned for a while because someone gave to me and I just never got drawn into the story or desire to read it, until recently. Call the synopsis and artwork uninspiring or whatever, but I just would pick it up time to time and never decide to read it.
It ended up that this fall, I was completely out of material to read in my home and decided to tackle this. I'm not sure why I had such a feeling of disregard going into this, and I will admit it may affect my overall review of the book and how I perceive the story.
I felt the story just lacking. The most interesting part for me were the Franklin expedition parts, it seemed like everything else was boring and then when she'd write about the goings on with Franklin crew there was intrigue and interest there. It also had an air of ickyness for me just from the description of the rotted meat and the fact that I have a weak stomach.
It reeked of depressing feelings and sadness, but in a lackluster boring way. I've read many sad stories before that told of triumph through crises and how people have overcome their turmoil. Over halfway through the book I realized that I was grimacing every night when it came to reading time. I actually said to my husband "God, time to pick my way through this horrid book again." To which he replied "You say that all the time, if it's THAT bad, why don't you just NOT READ IT!"
So, keep that in mind, I read only 1/2 of this book.
Maybe it does get better.
Maybe there is a story to learn or grow from.
Maybe it turns into the best heart-warming tale ever told.
But, the way I think of it is this. If you feel like gutting your neck for a whole book to get to the "good part", then the "good parts" aren't worth it.
Rated by buyers 
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Only three stars because there are 3 stories here, but the "main" one isn't as good as the others. I enjoyed it enought to stay with it until the end. Guys will really enjoy the jump back in time (Mid-1800's) to the story of a very young man sailing away to the north Atlantic on a journey expected to take 2-3 years. That was fascinating.
Rated by buyers -
I got this book at a book exchange grocery store in Arkansas. I enjoyed reading it and am with many of the other reviewers who had never heard of the Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The mix of present day with past and the incidental story of the polar bear kept the book fresh and one could never declare they were bored while reading it. I came away feeling the book would make a great movie and with an insatiable curiosity about this expedition. I loved and appreciated the authors footnote at the end of the story. I gave my book exchange book to my friends in Arkansas to read and now must get another one for my Northern Wisconsin friends.
Rated by buyers -
Although it's reasonably well-researched, this book never came together for me. The link between the modern story and the historical story of the Franklin expedition is tenuous at best. I kept expecting some real thematic connection to appear, and it never did. The modern story, with wooden characters and atrocious dialogue, is totally non-convincing. The story of the expedition is slightly better, but it grafts on unnecessary fictional elements to the very real drama of the actual events. Why bother to write a novel about a dramatic event if you're going to dilute the drama with poorly done fictional gobbledygook? There are scores of non-fiction books on the Franklin expedition and the fascinating aftermath that are far more gripping. (For starters, try Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton. It covers much more than the Franklin expedition, but when you see the story of the expedition placed in historical context, you get a much better sense of what happened and why, and a much better understanding of the characters as well.) Perhaps a good editor could have brought some unity to all this, but as it strands it's the movie-of-the-week version of a far more complex and intriguing subject.
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