Gripping, moving, and beautifully-wrought, McConagh’s tale of a woman stranded on a remote Antarctic island is a literary eco-thriller like no other. The island is many things: the locus of a threatened seed-vault, a nature sanctuary, a kind of prison – and the home of a grieving family whose members are not what they seem. Throw in a heart-breaking love story, a ruthless antagonist and vivid depictions of endangered wildlife, and the stage is set for a story that builds to fever pitch.
Carrie is a Scottish rescue swimmer out of her depth in the High Arctic is pitted against Ross, the owner of an oil rig with a guilty conscience. While Amaruq, an Inuvialuit oil-rig worker is caught between two worlds.
Stranded on the Arctic ice with a starving polar bear and a half-dead stranger is Carrie’s left with nothing but deadly choices, while Ross and Amaruq face their own crossroads. Lives hang on their decisions. An intelligent, urgent, white-knuckle ride through the brutal Canadian Arctic, this is a novel that will get you thinking, keep you guessing – and leave you reeling. Whitehead’s vivid depiction of the hazards of ruthless extractivism couldn’t be more timely – and if there’s a Nerves of Steel Award, its heroine, Carrie Essler, would win it hands down.
From the cruel Arctic to the corporate backrooms of shady Big Oil, White Road is an authentic and gripping eco-thriller of survival, battled out at the edge of everything.
What will the world look like tomorrow, what will it feel like tomorrow? In this gripping debut novel, Cass has to survive and parent three children in a time when everything seems to be catching fire. Her husband has abandoned her to work as a doctor in an overseas war, and she is thrown on her own resources of courage, love and initiative. The startling intimacy of Roz Dineen’s prose coupled with her ability to paint a convincing picture of impending ecological and social dangers make this an immersive and deeply troubling vision of what lies ahead for all of us. – Natasha Walter