A review by kiwikathleen
Ice Breaker by Lian Tanner

4.0

This book jumped queue because I needed one with a title beginning with "I". And it's always a pleasure to be able to read a book that I remember putting onto my to-read list (and why). Isn't it always such a disappointment when you get to a book that's been languishing for nearly 10 years and then find, when you start reading it, that you have absolutely no idea what you could have been imagining when you put it onto the list?! Happily, that doesn't happen too often. Anyway, this book has only been on my list for a couple of years (since it first arrived in the bookshop I work in), but I've kept looking at it and thinking how much I'd like to read it.

The 'star' of the book is a survivor. On board an ice-breaker that has been circumnavigating Antarctica for the last 300 years, having not only lost touch with the rest of the world entirely but having lost their own historical records, the crew has become tribal. The three 'tribes' are completely segregated from each other, with vicious rivalry only being superceded during the desperately awaited fishing seasons. Petrel is an outcast, her parents having been executing for committing an unforgivable sin when she was just a toddler, and belongs to no tribe. But she knows the ins and outs of the entire ship, and it is she who must save them all when strangers threaten their very existence.

This is a great read, with issues of loyalty, of fanaticism, of retribution. And with lots of action. I loved it.