TL;DR: I’m glad I finally read Whiteout. I enjoyed Anders’ writing style and thought this delivered a well-balanced romantic suspense story set in a cruel and unforgiving frozen landscape. Anders did a great job of creating a sinister atmosphere and I had no clue how these two would make it out of this seemingly hopeless situation. You’d think a book that’s set in such a never-changing landscape with the characters going through the same thing daily for weeks would be boring but I loved how it gave time for the characters to grow together and for the romance to bloom. It was definitely a little instalove if you think about it too hard but I’m a sucker for the grumpy/sunshine dynamic and their chemistry was great, and the forced proximity made it even better! The ending sets things up nicely for the second book in this series and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

The combination of the setting, the characters (& obviously their romance), and the suspense made for a heart-pounding, intense and swoony combination.

The way Anders wrote the setting made Antarctica feel like a character in itself. The endless expanse of white was terrifying to imagine, the ice storms unforgiving and the thought of walking across this vastness without knowing whether the ice below you has anything underneath it was pretty horrifying. I could almost feel the bitter, suffocating cold and honestly can’t even imagine what it’s like to experience such extreme temperatures. The author managed to bring the wonderful, awe-inspiring and terror-inducing natural landscape to life in this book and made it so easy to picture the surroundings.

Angel and Ford had the grumpy/sunshine dynamic down to a T. They both had a lot of damage and baggage that they brought with them and I loved watching them not only learn to survive together but slowly let down their defences and let each other in. Angel was vivacious and so full of life and colour! She has a wonderful personality and is a people person all the way. I admired her survival instincts and skills when facing the worst imaginable situation and how she complements Ford. In every way possible, Ford is the total opposite of Angel. He’s surly, spends 99.9% of his time alone out on the ice, and he’s thoroughly a logic over heart person; although that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a lot of heart, he’s just buried it down deep out of fear. He battled so hard with his feelings for Angel and that made it all the more satisfying when he let go of that control and finally opened up about himself. The slow build-up of their romance was so worth it—it was intense and emotional and yes, things certainly got a little steamy down in the south pole, lol. Friends, there was only one sleeping bag!

I was actually really intrigued by the angle that was taken for the suspense part of this story. There were several “bad guys” and they were all terrifying in their own way. It’s always the ones who have nothing to lose that are the scariest baddies cos then you know there’s nothing that will stop them from achieving what they want. There were certain parts of this that got much more violent than I expected, so heads up if you’re not good with blood and a bit of gore (it’s possible to skim these parts though)! Overall, a really enjoyable first book in this romantic suspense series. I don’t know if this is just a duology (I see only two books so far) or if it’ll also involve other members of this new motley crew of “vigilantes” but I hope so cos I’d love to know more about all of them!

Have you read Whiteout or is it on your TBR?

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