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Title: An unhappy blend of romance and history
Review: I opened The Ice Child expecting to read an historical novel, informed by the abiding mystery of the lost Franklin expedition. What I got was a warmed-over romance novel, ridden with cliches and purple prose, its characters about as convincing as pasteboard puppets. It's too bad, too, since the parts of the novel actually set during the 1840's when Franklin was underway are quite decent -- McGregor could have written a fairly compelling historical novel, but instead has produced a mashed-up mini-series. Readers looking for a fully mature historical fiction drawing upon these themes would do much better to pick up Andrea Barrett's Voyage of the Narwhal, now in paperback.
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