A wonderful audiobook that really brought out the best parts of the book. The narrator did an excellent job in highlighting the tensions and the conflicts. This story really did make my heart race. It was a perfect winter read, full of survival horror goodness.

Bitter Passage by Colin Mills is one of those books that sticks with you long after you’ve read the last page. It’s not a fast-paced adventure—if anything, it’s slow and deeply reflective, which works perfectly for the setting. The harsh Arctic landscape mirrors the internal struggles of the characters, and the story is less about survival in the physical sense and more about the mental toll of isolation and ambition. It’s beautifully written and atmospheric, but definitely a more introspective read. If you’re in the mood for something thought-provoking and a little haunting, this is worth picking up.

I really enjoyed this book although I will say it was a bit gruesome at times. It took to about 25-30% of the story to really get started, I felt that in the beginning it was hard to keep track of the characters, but that also got easier at around the 25% mark. What these men went through was extremely difficult. I never really thought of Arctic exploration in our history so I’m glad that I read this book to learn more about it. It was well written and once you really got into it, you wanted to keep going to find the outcome.

Thank you NetGalley and Brilliance Audio for an audio galley to read and review voluntarily.

First, the narrator is incredible. Steve West has a great masculine voice for the main characters that was a pleasure to listen to, but he did women, sick voices, mean voices all soooo well. He was able to differentiate between similar characters so well that it was easy to follow the narrative switches. However, he is a little breathy and was rather fast so instead of my usual 2x speed I listened at 1.75x.

The novel itself is a character driven dark adventure. I'm a fan of arctic exploration nonfiction as well as inspired novels such as this one. I was bitterly disappointed by the pathetic, half baked story Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes, but this one by Colin Mills made up for it!

The two main characters have found themselves on the same quest but with different motivations and end goals. They are each haunted by different struggles, familial burdens, and temptations. And so the novel follows how they chafe against each other, the strange ways they encourage the other, and how they must band together to fight the horrors of the Arctic that arise.

This would be a fascinating group read. There are religious themes, social issues such as the influence of war/peace and classism and the purpose of exploration, and really neat blending of truth and fiction.

The writing itself is beautiful and polished. Easy to follow action sequences, descriptive passages woven into dialogue and introspection that left no room for boredom. And scattered poignant lines that made me pause the book to soak in the prose.

I recommend this especially to lovers of the genre in nonfiction and fiction alike. Horror readers could love this too despite its lack of monsters or ghosts for all the real horror inherent to their choices.

Maybe it was just me but this book was just a No! I tried so hard to like it but i just couldn't it was sooo slow! I try soo hard not to DNF a book but this one i couldn't help! I got to 50% and just couldn't take it anymore