Afterlands
1871: nineteen survivors from a failed expedition drift south on an ice floe off Greenland, battling the elements, one another and themselves …
Yet it is not the brutal cold or lack of food that worries Second Mate Roland Kruger; it is his commanding officer, Tyson, whose judgement reeks more of the bottle than of good sense. As the castaways struggle over their diminishing resources in increasingly bleak conditions, they resort to their basest instincts and turn on one another. And Kruger finds himself rival for the affections of a woman who cannot love him, while he senses a shadow falling over the rest of his life …
‘This is a big, ambitious, literary adventure tale full of blood, gristle and soul… Heighton is a terrific writer. Afterlands conveys in stark yet beautiful prose the awful reality of what happens both on the ice and in men’s souls. Heighton is also unusually bold with the form of his narrative’
The Guardian