Under a Pole Star

Under a Pole Star is a huge story but I loved every minute of it. I was attracted to this book as it was about explorers in the late 1800's and the work they had to do to get to the most inhospitable places on earth. This really fascinates me. It tells the story of Flora Mackie who at an early age is taken by her father on board his whaling boat sailing from Dundee, Scotland to Ellesmere Island spending most of her younger years living with the Eskimos. As she grows up she is sent back to England for a formal education. She becomes a meterologist and eventually leads her own expedition into the Artic circle. The novel covers many areas detailing the lives of Flora and Jakob de Bryn, an American geologist whom she met in Greenland, their passionate relationship and their shared obsession with the Artic. Flora is a wonderful character: strong, clever and determined. Throughout the book there are sections with Flora as a much older lady returning to the Artic having been married 3 times, detailing her life with a journalist and reminiscing about the great loves of her life - Jakob and the frozen north. The relationship between her and the explorers and the Inuit people was very interesting to read about, and most of all her descriptions about the vast, bleak yet beautiful landscape, the expeditions, and the explorers' obsession to push further and further north in such an unforgiving and brutal environment. Stef Penney has exceptional writing ability and I shall now look out for her previous novel "The Tenderness of Wolves". Jean