Description
The year is 1910, and two Antarctic explorers, Watts and Heywoud, are racing to the South Pole. Back in London, Viola, a photo-journalist, harbors love for them both. In Terra Nova, Henriette Lazaridis seamlessly ushers the reader back and forth between the austere, forbidding, yet intoxicating polar landscape of Antarctica to the bustle of early twentieth century London.
Though anxious for both men, Viola has little time to pine. She is photographing hunger strikers in the suffrage movement, capturing the female nude in challenging and politically powerful ways. As she comes into her own as an artist, she's eager for recognition and to fulfill her ambitions. And then the men return, eager to share news of their triumph.
But in her darkroom, Viola discovers a lie. Watts and Heywoud have doctored their photos of the Pole to fake their success. Viola must now decide whether to betray her husband and her lover, or keep their secret and use their fame to help her persue her artistic ambitions.
Rich and moving, Terra Nova is a novel that to challenges us to consider how love and lies, adventure and art, can intersect.
Samara Mills @iparker_506
January 25, 2023
5
An incredible story that introduces three characters and their love triangle—though that rom-com term doesn't begin to explain all of their complexities. The tangled web forces us to reconsider what loyalty really means, explores the limits of human starvation (both voluntary and forced by circumstance), and shows the challenges of balancing work and relationships—especially for women in the early 20th century. The descriptions of the Antarctic were so realistic, I was shivering even under a down comforter. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys an adventure, a literary love story, or pretty much anything in between.