by Hazel Prior
First published 2020
Veronica McCreedy has reached eighty-five with a fortune to spend and no family who speaks to her. She watches a documentary about penguin researchers in Antarctica and decides she will visit them whether they want her or not. The scientists resist her arrival, but Veronica pushes them to rescue an abandoned penguin chick. The baby bird changes life at the research station as Veronica discovers she can still care for something vulnerable. Her grandson Patrick travels to the ice to make one final attempt at reaching his distant grandmother. The frozen continent becomes the place where three generations learn to connect, where Veronica's guarded heart begins to thaw, and where an orphaned penguin teaches them all what it means to belong to each other.
Genres: animals, literary-fiction, family-life, contemporary, adult-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: Antarctica
Period: 21st-Century
355 pages · Paperback · Berkley