I’m not going to claim that I have distinct memories of Rachael Mead from her time researching this book at the National Library of Australia in 2019, but given the team I was working in at the NLA at the time, I probably met her at some point. Fast-forward to 2023, when Rachael got in touch with the NLA to ask a few questions prior to publication, and I was assigned her enquiry. It was connected to this book, and on reading her description, I was intrigued enough to hunt it out and request a review copy. I was not disappointed!

The Art of Breaking Ice is a reimagining of the life of Nel Ward, the first Australian woman to set foot on Antarctica. She was smuggled aboard the ice-breaker Mugga Dan by her husband, Philip Law, in 1961. As a talented artist, she kept a record of her time there, and also rediscovered herself in a land away from everything she’d ever known.

To be honest, the only thing that dragged this book down a bit for me was that I felt it lagged a bit in the middle. There were lots of observations of life on Mawson station, descriptions of the landscape and Nel’s feelings and experiences, but it didn’t feel like the plot was going anywhere for a while.

However, this wasn’t a huge issue. For the most part, I enjoyed watching Nel’s excitement, I cringed and shuddered when she experienced sexism or worse from the ship full of men, and cheered when she realised she could be a wife and still put herself and her art first. Smiled at the friendship that formed between Nel and an ornithologist called Harris, then felt her frustration and embarrassment when she thinks that maybe he used that friendship to his own advantage. And the shock of seeing a different side to the husband she thought she knew.

Given its unique setting, this book feels quite different to a lot of historical fiction, and I learned a lot from it. I definitely recommend for historical fiction fans who enjoy stories of unique and intrepid women.