Publisher's Synopsis
It is August 1616, and in the Arctic, the crew of the whaling ship HEARTSEASE must return home before the winter ice closes in. All, that is, save Thomas Cave. He makes a wager that he will remain there alone until the next season. So, left with provisions, shelter, and a journal, Cave's lonely contest with the realities and the phantasms of the Arctic winter begins. He is vulnerable to blizzards, avalanches, bears - and his own demons: his fear and his memories. In this wilderness his past returns to him: the woman he'd loved, and the grief that drove him north.
