To the Bright Edge of the World
by Eowyn Ivey
4 stars
Eowyn Ivey, writes again about her native Alaskan state, taking the reader on a gripping tale of a real-life historical military expedition set in the Alaska Territory in 1885. The story is about Colonel Allen Forrester who has been asked by the U.S. government to travel along the Wolverine River and survey the surrounding land and the local native tribes while his pregnant wife, Sophie, has stayed behind in Vancouver. The book starts out with Colonel Forrester’s great grandnephew giving all of the expedition papers, which are private diaries, journal entries, military reports, personal letters, sketches, and small objects to a museum curator. As the story unfolds, the reader is transported to the beautiful sights and sounds of this harsh environment in which the expedition encounters in this epic adventure story. They encounter some “downright fantastical” events leaving the reader wondering about their sanity. Meanwhile, Sophie, his wife, explores her world by learning photography and learns how to escape social norms that go with the rigid boundaries of being a women in a man’s world. I thought the book was so well researched you felt like a character in the book walking alongside the expedition. Great unexpected twist at the end.
Read-alikes
Under a Pole Star by Stef Penney
Letters from Yellowstone by Diane Smith
Green Alaska: Dreams from the Far Coast by Nancy Lord
