AustLit

'Inspired by the story of Svalbard’s first female trapper, Cold Coast is a gripping portrayal of survival within the stark beauty and perilous wilderness of the high Arctic

'In 1932, Wanny Woldstad, a young widow, travels to Svalbard, daring to enter the Norwegian trappers’ fiercely guarded male domain. She must prove to Anders Sæterdal, her trapping partner who makes no secret of his disdain, that a woman is fit for the task. Over the course of a Svalbard winter, Wanny and Sæterdal will confront polar bears, traverse glaciers, withstand blizzards and the dangers of sea ice, and hike miles to trap Arctic fox, all in the frigid darkness of the four-month polar night. For Wanny, the darkness hides her own deceptions that, if exposed, speak to the untenable sacrifice of a 1930s woman longing to fulfil a dream.

'Alongside the raw, confronting nature of the trappers’ work, is the story of a young blue Arctic fox, itself a hunter, who must eke out a living and navigate the trappers’ world if it is to survive its first Arctic winter.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Freya has come to Antarctica ostensibly to undertake a photographic expedition to pay tribute to Frank Hurley's iconic images - but also to escape a stifling relationship. Once she is there, though, living in the cramped and close confines of Davis Station, the extraordinary world of Antarctica gets under her skin and she starts to unfurl, finding her world change in ways she would never previously have thought possible.

Weaving a vivid re-creation of Douglas Mawson's ill-fated 1911-14 Antarctic expedition into the contemporary story of a woman coming to terms with the breakdown of her marriage, The Nature of Ice is a poetic, multi-stranded novel of present and past, hope and tragedy, love and loss. It is both a love story of place, bringing to vivid life the haunting landscape of Antarctica, the frozen continent that intrigues us all. (Publisher's blurb)