Bitter Passage (Paperback or Softback)

A nineteenth-century Arctic expedition descends into a chilling nightmare in a gripping and epic historical novel of discovery, rescue, deliverance, and survival by any means.

In May 1845, Sir John Franklin, commander of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, departed England to seek a navigable route across the top of the Americas. He and his 128 men never returned.

Four years later, Royal Navy Lieutenant Frederick Robinson and Assistant Surgeon Edward Adams are determined to find the men missing in the Arctic. While they are united in purpose, they are divided in ambition. The pious and idealistic Adams strives to save his boyhood hero. Robinson hungers for promotion through the Admiralty ranks. Weathering a relationship as volatile as the icy, barren land upon which they trek, Robinson and Adams lead a team of seamen in search of the lost expedition. What awaits them is a struggle against not only the elements but each other as loneliness, starvation, and maddening isolation prove more chilling than the deadliest Arctic blast.

A harrowing novel set against the background of true events, Bitter Passage explores two men’s driving need for redemption and the lengths to which a desperate soul will go to survive.

Colin Mills graduated from the University of Queensland in 1987 with a BA in arts, majoring in Japanese language and literature. He spent most of the next eighteen years in Japan, where, after a brief career as a wire service reporter, he spent ten years in investment banking in Tokyo and a further decade in the portfolio management industry. He left the financial services industry in 2008 and is currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing at the Queensland University of Technology. Colin lives in Brisbane with his wife and two daughters. For more information, visit www.colinmills.com.au.