A gripping and intense journey through the darker corners of the human soul. Mills' sharp writing and complex characters create a riveting narrative that keeps you on the edge of your seat. This novel is a powerful exploration of survival, morality, and the choices we make in the face of adversity.

This story mainly follows Adams and Robinson, who are part of an expedition to the arctic to look for Captain Franklin after he and his crew disappeared looking for the northwest passage. The story is at least somewhat based on the actual events taking place after Captain Franklin's disappearance, but having no prior knowledge of that I cannot say how accurately the events are described in the book.

I found the story to be unexpectedly gripping, given that from the beginning it is difficult to like either of the main characters. They are at odds with each other throughout the book, and it is difficult to find a clear line on who is right and who is wrong about a lot of their disagreements. The characters are essentially walking through a vast space for much of the book, dealing with the harsh conditions of the land and the lack of available food. There is a great sense of struggling throughout, and the book gives a lot to think about in terms of human psychology. The pace of the book is often quite slow, which adds to the atmosphere really well, but there are also quite a few moments of action which come up quite suddenly and remind you of the dangers these characters are in.

A lot of the situations Adams and Robinson find themselves in are unbelievable to me, but for the most part it feels more that the writer is trying to highlight the kinds of situations and dilemmas people would have actually faced rather than just trying to shock for the sake of it.

I enjoyed reading this book. It had a good story to it. I liked the variety of characters in it. It was a well written book. It is my first book that I read by this author.

I love Endurance so I was excited to read this one. It was a bit slow at times, I had to drag through it at times (it's not as attention grabbing as Endurance was for me), but it's a decent read for someone who enjoys epic exploration stories. It's definitely not for everyone, there's a specific niche audience for this story.

Was really interested in this book as it’s not my go to genre. Enjoyed the different style and pace of writing and the opportunity to learn as I was reading. A welcome change from my usual crime and thriller/mystery picks.

This is not the typical story I would pick up and read and I will say it took a bit to get invested, but once I was in, I was IN. The cover art is absolutely beautiful and drew me to the book in the first place. This survival story follows two men on one shared mission with two varying personal purposes. I like the way the author, Colin Mills used the harsh settings and personality differences of the men to create tension building and a sense of dread. I felt unsettled most of the book, which as an avid horror fan I am not complaining! I would've liked more backstory on how the characters came to be themselves but the book is titled, Bitter Passage and that it was.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy for an honest review.

While it took a little bit of time to get into enjoying the book, I felt so entranced during the story that I didn’t want to put it down. It is a work of fiction; however, it did give more non-fiction vibes but read more like fiction. I would say it read similar to The Wager by David Grann.
Also, I really enjoyed the dynamic relationship between Adams and Robinson and both of the characters fluid by stern actions and morals.

I'm sad to say this book did not work with me.
I was intrigued by the icy polar exploration (the art cover is, by the way, stunning!) and the whole setting, landscape and ambience.
But the characters fell flat to me, the 'shock' events were not shocking at all to me, and even though this a fairly short book, it felt so much longer.
I guess this one isn't just really memorable to me.
Other readers might enjoy it.

Awesome concept! And the ideas and theories and themes were definitely there which is why this is such a difficult one to review. I recently read the ministry of time, so i've been absorbed in the whole expedition story, doing research on my own from pure interest. But something in the writing style of this one didn't affect me unfortunately, I think this was mainly due to the slow writing pace, which fit well for the themes I will admit, but not well for my reading experience.

I would like to return to this one in the future though, I feel like it had a lot of potential and maybe I will sit down and do a slower read.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for this ARC! I have always been interested in arctic exploration history and thought this was a fun read overall. I was most interested in the themes addressed in the novel, such as conflict of beliefs and humanity's tenacity. I know that the book focuses on the arctic explorers but I would have loved to have also seen the spotlight on the indigenous people of the Arctic (Iqaluit, Inuit) much more, so that there could have been a nicer balance of perspectives. Overall, a good read nonetheless!

This sounded interesting, but since even the first chapter had content that bothered me a ton, I will not continue reading it. I did recommend it to two people who I think would like it, though, based on their previously-enjoyed books and their much higher tolerance of gore/medical things.

Stories centred around polar exploration, and in particular the Franklin Expedition, are a favourite of mine. This book follows the members of an expedition that searched for Franklin and his crew after their disappearance searching for the Northwest Passage. Having some background knowledge on the subject did give a lot of the ending away as the story progressed, as the fate of the men is set in stone, but it was still a solid read and entertaining nonetheless. I enjoyed the characters and reading about their experiences and what lead to them signing on but sometimes felt they all fit a certain archetype needed to further the narrative which sometimes felt one dimensional. The story, however, made up for this and the survival aspects were interesting to read and the writing was immersive. I’d definitely recommend it to those interested in survival stories, polar expeditions and for fans of The Terror or The North Water.

i dnf’d this at around 50% because i wasn’t really getting much out of it :/ still, the narration was pretty solid, and i do think that there is an audience out there for it.

I wanted to love this book after reading a fiction book about a similar expedition. Sadly, this dragged on a bit for me and I found myself skipping parts. I’m sure the target audience is out there somewhere but I struggled with this one!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Thank you @netgalley for the ARC of Bitter Passage by Colin Mills. I have read both fiction and nonfiction books about the HMS Terror and their exploration to the Arctic. It is a tragic and scary story as well as just awe inspiring of what they went through. Bitter Passage is a fiction story of explorers who go to find the Terror and rescue them. It is realistic in its telling as well as horrifying. It brings to life both real and fictionalized characters as well as rhetoric horrors they went through.

After reading the Wager, I had a feeling where this was going to go.

I mean what could go wrong on an arctic rescue mission in the 1800s.

Trigger Warnings for Cannibalism, though not in great detail.

Spoiler Alert there is still no such thing as the Northwest Passage

3.5 ⭐️

Although a very interesting subject, the pacing of this book was unfortunately too slow for me.

I found the characters very difficult to connect with and their development fairly surface-level. I also found the descriptions of the landscape fairly basic and found it very difficult to envisage.

Overall, not for me I’m afraid.

It was a new kind of reading for me as I don't know a lot about those discovery stories. And although I did learn a lot about the hardship of those maritimes expeditions, I found the book a little long and repetitive. Thank you Lake Union Publishing for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I found this a difficult book to read, the pacing was very slow and I didn't really connect with the characters. I was interested in reading this book to understand more about polar exploration but I found the descriptions of the landscape a bit lacking, it felt like I was only getting tiny glimpses of little specific bits. I spent a lot of time googling pictures of this area to try to ground my reading a bit more but I still found it very difficult. Which is a shame as this is a story so intrinsically linked to its location.

I thought the look into the extremes of the human psyche was interesting but I think I'd found them so unlikeable early on that I struggled to really empathise with them.

The historical research for this book seemed good, it is a book firmly rooted in the time period it is portraying. I don't know if this is just because I read the ARC e-book, but it would have been nice to have had a glossary of terms that are unusual to a modern reader, for example the use of the term "esquimaux", where a modern reader might be more familiar with "Eskimo" or "Inuit".

I think this would be a great book for those who are already very familiar with the time period and location but less so for a relative beginner to polar exploration.

Thank you to Colin Mills and NetGalley for the ARC.

Bitter Passage - ⭐️⭐️

Another Netgallery ARC read!

I don't usually like giving book ratings below 3 but I personally did not enjoy this book at all. I loved the history side of it but besides that, it's such a slow & boring read in my opinion. There's not very much "fun" detail to plot. It's pretty bland really.

I definitely can see how this many be someone's kinda read but it isn't mine unfortunately and that's ok. I'd still highly recommend checking this book out when it hits shelves in December.
But besides that I don't know what else to say... please don't let my review stop you from reading it, you may actually enjoy it!