Snow Widows

KATHERINE MACINNES was shortlisted for the Biographer's Prize for an early proposal for Snow Widows over a decade ago. Since then she has continued to research the five women, both in the UK and in New Zealand, the gateway to Antarctic exploration. While bringing up her family, she has written four children's books, three plays and graduated with a Master's degree from Oxford University. Formerly an arts journalist and commissioning editor, Katherine has written features for The Lady, Country Life, The Times, Telegraph and in New Zealand, The Press. She has reviewed polar literature for the Times Literary Supplement and given talks on the invisible women behind the golden age of polar exploration at the Royal Geographic Society, at history and literary festivals and on local BBC radio. She is a member of the Society of Authors and the Biographers' Club.

'A captivating, heartrending, emotionally exhausting, beautifully crafted bloody brilliant book' Ben Tarring

'I am reading it with fascination. It's magnificent. [MacInnes has] an almost supernatural ability to conjure up the past.' Sue Limb: co-author of Captain Oates: Soldier and Explorer

'The story of the five women waiting at home for Captain Scott and his doomed polar party is naturally occluded in tragedy. In this engaging book Katherine MacInnes for the first time presents them - two mothers at the outset, and three wives - as distinct individuals, separated one from the other by class, education, faith and temperament ...An elegant, densely textured work, like a tapestry ... A welcome contribution to polar studies.' Sara Wheeler, Spectator

'[MacInness] handles the whole thing with masterly skill...takes us to the heart of the hope, love, anguish and grief' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times

'A breathless parallel narrative, flipping from the Antarctic horrors to the worried women keeping calm and carrying on ... Mesmerising ... Movingly done' Kate Green, Country Life

'[MacInnes] relies ... deftly on photographs, from which she derives many of her descriptions of precise moments. It is fascinating and impressive to have her prose bring these images to life, as she plausibly recaptures the moments they depict ... She show[s] that history in the making is not only experienced but felt, poignantly and painfully.' Stephanie Barczewski, TLS

'Combining historical research, including access to family archives, with a vivid storytelling style, author Katherine MacInnes presents ... the public and private fallout of the tragedy, which reveals much about society at the time. In doing so she presents a fresh and fascinating perspective on a well-worn story, as well as a window onto a lost world.' This England magazine

'A truly gripping, original and refreshing angle on the history of polar exploration' The Bay magazine

'Superb' Bute Museum