The Solitude of Thomas Cave: a haunting tale of survival in the Arctic - Tapa blanda

'Harding's exquisite novel is a masterpiece of mood and location ... a profound meditation on survival, atonement and faith' Daily Telegraph 'Her descriptions of scenery are outstanding ... Thomas Cave's ordeal should hold readers fast in an icy grip' Independent 'Deeply affecting ... The tale of his isolation contains scenes of devastating pathos' New York Times 'Divine and mesmerising ... rouses the spirits of Defoe, Hawthorne and R. L. Stevenson' The Times

August, 1616. The whaling ship Heartsease has ventured high into the Arctic, but now must begin the long journey home. Only one man stays behind: Thomas Cave makes a wager to remain here, alone, until the next season. No man has yet been known to survive a winter this far north. As the light recedes and the ice begins to close in, Cave pits himself against blizzards, avalanches, bears - and his own demons. For in this wilderness that is without human history his past returns to him: the woman he had loved, the grief that drove him to the ice.