An antarctic adventure
and a reunion of a lifetime…
ER nurse Helena Mathews wants just one thing: to show her
parents that she's no longer the fragile, premature baby they cradled in the
NICU. So her new South Pole-based job is the perfect way to break free! But Dr.
Carter Simpson's arrival proves that you can't just erase the past. Her
one-time best friend may have left without a trace after a life-altering
discovery, but he never left Helena's heart…
Excellent friends-to-lovers and second chance romance.
The story opens with a prologue where we learn about the characters' pasts.
Helena and her twin brother Owen and Owen's best friend Carter have been
friends for years. Owen and Helena were preemie twins, with Helena having spent
three months in the NICU, then being a sickly child until she was a teenager.
Her parents are incredibly overprotective, which frustrates Helena, but she doesn't
like to upset them, so she frequently caves to their desires. As the prologue
opens, she has just arrived at Owen and Carter's dorm room to talk about how she
is finally standing up for what she wants. Rather than her parents' desired art
history major (safe!), she has changed her major to nursing, where her passion
lies. Owen isn't there, but Carter is, and he gives her quite the pep talk. Some
other emotions are simmering, but Owen interrupts before anything comes of it.
When she and Owen return to school after the holidays, Carter is gone without a
trace.
Fast forward fifteen years. Helena succeeded in her plans
by becoming a nurse practitioner, distancing herself from her parents, and
pushing herself to her limits. She served a tour as a combat medic in the
Middle East, where she was severely injured. Furthering the blow, her fiancé
broke up with her because of it, and her parents became even more protective of
her. So she did the only thing she could think of to save her sanity - she took
a nine-month position with a medical unit at the South Pole.
Over the years, Helena has often thought of Carter and
looked for him at hospitals and in medical journals without success. The last
place she expected to find him was at the end of the earth. I loved their first
meeting, as Helena is barely off the plane when she encounters her first
emergency. I loved her take-charge, patient-first attitude as she dealt with
the accident. They are both shocked when they come face to face, but I think
Helena handled it much better. I ached for Helena initially as she had to fight
Carter's protectiveness and get him to see her as the competent professional
she was.
Carter was flabbergasted to see Helena and has thought of
her often through the years. But the events of fifteen years earlier left him
with deep emotional scars and an unwillingness to trust others. I ached to see
the changes in the happy and optimistic boy from the prologue. He tries to keep
Helena at the same distance he keeps everyone else, but she won't cooperate. During
her first week, a viral outbreak on the station pushes Helena and Carter into a
closer than expected working relationship, and Carter finds his normal
standoffishness falling by the wayside.
I enjoyed seeing the development of the relationship
between Carter and Helena. First, they rekindle their friendship, with their
old ease of conversation returning. Then they teamed up on writing a paper
about the outbreak, but here is one area where Carter's past comes between
them. He has his reasons for remaining incommunicado to the world but doesn't
share them with Helena. Instead, they are in their little bubble where nothing
interferes with their growing feelings for each other. But when Helena's
actions expose Carter to a past he wants to forget; all bets are off.
I ached for both as they were forced to face their demons
before they had a chance at a future together. I loved that Helena had Owen to
help her get through to her parents. It helped that there was a loving
relationship as a foundation to build upon. Carter had a more challenging time
of it, thanks to the hurtful actions of those he loved. I
liked that they each took the time for honest self-examination to see that
there was blame to share. A dangerous situation that could have turned out
badly delayed their discussion, but the ending was as emotional as I expected.
I loved the antarctic setting of the book. Other than the
very beginning, there wasn't much about the environment, but there was plenty
about the living conditions. I never thought about how small living areas would
be in a facility located in such harsh conditions or that there would be no
deliveries during that long period. I also liked the realistic look at the
effects and stresses of those living conditions.
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