The Arctic fury (edició 2020)

In the mid-1800s, Virginia is asked by Lady Franklin to head up a women’s expedition to the Arctic to find her husband and his two lost ships. But it is to be a secret as to who hired her. And Lady Franklin chooses the majority of the women who are going… and one of the women she chooses is a rich spoiled girl, Caprice. Unfortunately (this is not a spoiler, as we know this at the start of the book), Caprice died while on the expedition and her parents have accused Virginia of murdering Caprice. Virginia is now on trial for Caprice’s murder, but Virginia insists she didn’t kill the girl, though they really didn’t get along.

This goes back and forth in time between Virginia’s trial and the expedition. Caprice is a character who is easy to dislike, so I was surprised at my reaction (of course, I knew it would come) when she finally died – it still hit me. Leading up to her death, Virginia and Caprice were coming around and learning to get along. There were some other unlikable characters in the book, as well.

I listened to the audio, and although initially I wasn’t sure if the narrator would keep my attention, I was kept interested. As I skim through other reviews, I see that Virginia was based on a real person. It’s unfortunate that was no author’s note to tell me that. I do like author’s notes in my historical fiction so I know what really happened and what didn’t. I know about the Franklin Expedition and I could have guessed that there was never a women’s expedition to find Franklin, his ships and crew. ( )

What really happened on the ice?...
As a fan of Franklin's Lost Expedition, the story of an all female crew to the Arctic to find answers had me drawn in immediately. Greer Macallister does a fantastic job of weaving different timelines, backgrounds, cultures, and characters into an addicting read. Fans of Arctic expeditions and Lady Franklin, as well as strong literary female roles, will appreciate this masterfully written story. ( )

This was a good historical fiction set in the US/Canada during the 1850's. The premise of the story, a woman only expedition to the Canadian North, is not plausible, but some of the characters are based on real characters, as is the missing Franklin expedition. This is a difficult book for me to review. On the one hand, the historicity kept me glued to the pages. On the other hand, the implausibility of some of the situations as well as the ending made the book just average. ( )

The premise here is intriguing: when the two groups that set out to rescue the possible survivors of Franklin's Arctic expedition come back having failed, Lady Franklin puts together a new team, this time made up entirely of women. She promises riches and fame to the participants of a successful venture, but that she will disavow all knowledge of one that fails. For Virginia Reeve, chosen to lead this venture, that chance is enough. And while some of the women chosen to be in this group give her pause, she's willing to take the opportunity. The reader knows immediately that things went tragically wrong and the book alternates between the story of the venture and the subsequent trial, where Virginia is charged with murder.

There's no question that, despite the fact that it takes a very long time before the expedition even sets out, Mcallister writes with such forward momentum that it was hard to set this book down. There's not a lot of subtlety here and the shocking revelations were not at all surprising, nor was the ending, but somehow those flaws never stopped me from beginning the next chapter. I'm not the ideal audience for mainstream historical fiction, but despite the implausibility, I enjoyed this one. ( )

Virginia Reeve is a woman with a hidden past known to very few people. Lady Jane Franklin believes she's the kind of woman necessary to succeed in finding what has become of her husband and his expedition in the North. Four previous hunting parties have failed, four parties of men, that is. So Virginia takes her own expedition of women off into the ice and snow, their lives in her hands. Will they succeed? Will they come back alive?

This book was told in alternating chapters between the past and the present. Usually that annoys me but it did not here. I really, really enjoyed it. I read nearly 200 pages in the first session and I haven't done that in quite a long time. I have a fondness for expedition tales: Admiral Byrd, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, to name few. Was this like those? No, those were true and this is fiction but this book gave me that same feeling. I love reading "cold" books in winter, especially as our winters here are so mild. I will definitely read more by this author. ( )