Reviews for The Search for the North-West Passage

The average rating for The Search for the North-West Passage based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-09-08 00:00:00 Andre Beier As can be deduced from the title, this is an account of the various expeditions searching for the Northwest Passage. Thomson begins with Frobisher's 16th century voyages, and ends with Amundsen in 1906. For its time this was a decent enough book, but since 1975 many other books about the Northwest Passage have been published. I found this book rather dull, though it did improve towards the end when discussing the 19th century expeditions (Parry, Franklin, the Rosses, etc.). I suspect this is because there is much more source material from this time period, giving Thomson more to work with. If researching Arctic exploration, this book is worth looking at, but for casual reading I would not recommend it.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-09-21 00:00:00 Janyce Shepler A+ for creativity! The hero of Roberta Leigh's Savage Aristocrat does not keep the heroine in captivity because of unrequited love, a Seekret Baybee, or an embezzling relative. He does it for political principle, hurray! Mr. Wannabe Che Guevara wants to teach the bloated English capitalist pig about the poor Peruvian peasants that she exploits, picking up their handmade ponchos for a bean then selling them for 500% profit back in her chic English boutique. It's "Workers of the World, Unite!" Versus "Let Them Eat Cake" and it is delightful. Three guesses who loses their head lol. The bickerfest between the protags was, for once, lively and enjoyable. Instead of going into jealous rages over OW/OM or creating Big, Terrible, Misunderstandings, these two argued back and forth about the exploitation of third-world countries by the West versus the corruption of the local governments who exploit their own people too, and found time to insert a lovely Peruvian travelogue, history lesson, and food and fashion porn too. All that and the romance was pretty sweet. Yes, the hero behaved abominably in keeping the heroine captive and forcing her to live the life of a Peruvian peasant. But he fell for her about five minutes after he met her and all his meanness was punctuated by sweet, kind, helplessly besotted moments. I loved his background story, with his Spanish grandee grandfather falling in love with a local Indian woman and waiting patiently for ten years before they could wed, in the face of savage opposition by his family and society. His dad was equally besotted with his wife. The men of this family seem to be one-woman men so I predict a great future for the heroine, which she absolutely deserved after what she had to go through because of him:) That was a fun ride!