This is one of those books I couldn't stop reading, it literally kept me glued to the pages.
Fantastic story, so well written.
A beautiful adventure.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

Maybe reading a book about a cruise ship going down in Antarctica wasn’t such a great idea when I’m just about to go on an Alaskan cruise – but I have lots of tips now about what to do if stranded on the ice! I thoroughly enjoyed this original and really quite gripping novel. Deb and Keller, young scientists, are drawn to each other but equally to Antarctica, and their research there. But this is no simple romance tale. By following the couple on their various trips, the author covers many issues – global warming, tourism to Antarctica, the natural environment and man’s impact on it, pollution of the oceans, conservation – but never in a didactic way and I enjoyed learning more about these issues. Although I’m a tourist too, and no doubt contribute to many of the problems Raymond explores, I didn’t feel preached to – just made more aware. Cruise ships in Antarctica really aren’t a good idea, and the catastrophe that happens in the novel (highlighted at the beginning, so this isn’t a spoiler) is worth considering. I enjoyed everything about this novel – the story, the descriptions, which are vivid and give an excellent sense of place, the issues examined, and the knowledge I gained about penguins and other wildlife. Raymond integrates all the different strands of the novel well, and the pace is expertly maintained. The narrative shifts backwards and forwards in time, quite considerably, with every chapter set at a different time and although this is signified clearly with the chapter headings, a drawback to reading an electronic version means it’s not so easy to flick back to check exactly where you are – which occasionally I needed to do. However, that’s a small point and overall I found the book absorbing and often moving, and I recommend it highly.

"An unforgettable debut with an irresistible love story, My Last Continent is a big-hearted, propulsive novel set against the dramatic Antarctic landscape—“original and entirely authentic love story” (Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project).

It is only at the end of the world—among the glacial mountains, cleaving icebergs, and frigid waters of Antarctica—where Deb Gardner and Keller Sullivan feel at home. For the few blissful weeks they spend each year studying the habits of emperor and Adélie penguins, Deb and Keller can escape the frustrations and sorrows of their separate lives and find solace in their work and in each other. But Antarctica, like their fleeting romance, is tenuous, imperiled by the world to the north.

A new travel and research season has just begun, and Deb and Keller are ready to play tour guide to the passengers on the small expedition ship that ferries them to their research destination. But this year, Keller fails to appear on board. Then, shortly into the journey, Deb’s ship receives an emergency signal from the Australis, a cruise liner that has hit desperate trouble in the ice-choked waters of the Southern Ocean. Soon Deb’s role will change from researcher to rescuer; among the crew of that sinking ship, Deb learns, is Keller.

As Deb and Keller’s troubled histories collide with this catastrophic present, Midge Raymond’s phenomenal novel takes us on a voyage deep into the wonders of the Antarctic and the mysteries of the human heart. My Last Continent is packed with emotional intelligence and high stakes—a harrowing, searching novel of love and loss in one of the most remote places on earth, a land of harsh beauty where even the smallest missteps have tragic consequences—“Half adventure, half elegy, and wholly recommended” (Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves)."

Something about the Arctic and human turmoil just has me sold on this book.

It took me a while to get into this one but I am so, so glad I stuck with it! The movement in the beginning left me a little confused but once I fell into the rhythm of the story it was perfection. This is absolutely a book I know I'll return to over and over again.

Also, brave to the author for giving us a book set in Antarctica! The setting alone sold me on the story because it was so unique and really took me away.

During my first novel's long journey from my mind to existing in the world as an actual book (and e-book), I continued reading good novels by other authors.

Often, while reading, I would get an idea for a better way to handle a flashback or a new way to show action in a mostly-talk scene. Or something tiny would excite me, such as one single gorgeous word that I sensed would fit perfectly at a particular spot in my own work-in-progress.

And each time this happened, I'd get newly motivated to dive back into and add to or revise my work.

In that spirit, here are some excellent recent novels that may motivate you and help improve your own writing.

8 NOVELS FOR WRITERS WHO READ

My Last Continent by Madge Raymond is a delight for those of us who can enjoy cold weather but who are not going to brave time in the Antarctic. Raymond's imagination lets us experience the intensity of frigid days and nights, while, as a bonus, demonstrating the many ways there are to describe an environment.

Fiction set within the context of science is a fine way to learn, I find, so long as you don't take all the science bits too literally. In Raymond's novel, you need not be the outdoorsy type to relish putting yourself in the place of a committed scientist who spends much of the year alone in a most unforgiving place, adding to science's knowledge of endangered penguins.

When romance enters the story, choices must be made—not only "your tent or mine" but, before a possible future can happen, "your half of the world or mine." Plus weather always dictates timing.

These facts were new to me:

Antarctica is not a country; it is governed by an international treaty whose rules apply almost solely to the environment. There are no police here, no firefighters, no medical examiners. We have to do everything ourselves.

And this:

It seems like there are two kinds of people who come to Antarctica. Those who have run out of places to go, and those who have run out of places to hide.