His pregnant wife, Sophie Forrester, stays behind in Vancouver Barracks, destined to have adventures and heartbreaks of her own. Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester must lead a dangerous, seemingly impossible expedition through the fictitious Wolverine River Valley deep in the Alaskan wilds of 1885, a journey no one has ever survived. It’s a great love story, a wilderness tale of a hero and heroine’s quests infused with magical realism, and a flawlessly researched portrayal of 19th century Alaska. Like The Snow Child, To the Bright Edge of the World takes place in Ivey’s native Alaska. I loved Eowyn Ivey’s first novel, The Snow Child, which was selected for If All of Rochester Reads the Same Book in 2014. Her words spoke to me because they are my sentiments about the novel, too, and I couldn’t have said it better. I was browsing on Goodreads and found Jane’s endorsement of To the Bright Edge of the World. “I fell in love with this book it captured both my head and my heart, completely and utterly.” – Jane, Beyond Eden Rock. A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter is another fine book, a memoir, in the same vein. The novel and short stories of Anthony Doerr come to mind as well when I read Eowyn Ivey’s writing, which is lyrical and replete with exquisite detail. To the Bright Edge of the World reminds me of one of my all-time favorite novels, Voyage of the Narwhalby Andrea Barrett. Many of you know that I’m partial to nature and wilderness stories, especially historical ones. I would rather have been run through with a spear than face this long dread.”Įowyn Ivey’s novel, To the Bright Edge of the World, is truly a standout for me, a cut above the rest.

I am not afraid of death but instead of the passage from here to oblivion, of being aware of its coming.

They scream and cry so that it is hard to think to put these words on the page. I do not know if we will survive the night. “Pruitt keeps shouting above the storm–Do you feel that? Can’t you feel that?

To the bright edge of the world