January, 1937. Twenty-eight-year-old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to be the wireless operator on an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Five men and eight huskies, cross the Barents Sea from Norway by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp. Gruhuken. But the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He has to decide, stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, the point of no return - when the sea will freeze. And Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Something walks there in the dark.
My Thoughts: I read this as a pre-publication proof. Upon first putting this book down, I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it. Not much had happened. It wasn't really scary. It wasn't really suspenseful.
But when I continued to contemplate upon the matter, I realised that I actually really enjoyed it. It has a picturesque setting; it has a moody atmosphere; the characters are realistic (and there's a nice little twist to one of them that is revealed more fully towards the end).
I think I may have been unsure in the first instance because I was looking to get the wrong experiences out of it. This isn't a horror story and it doesn't have any action at all - it's one to sit back, relax and enjoy without any preconceptions.
I RATED THIS 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment