The Frozen Keep

2023 American Writing Awards Best Graphic Novel, Children's Book International
It wasn't her eyes that first noticed it when their ship drew near to the Island of South Georgia... It was her nose... That was the first sign to Leah Carlberg that this would not go well for her...
And it didn't... She saw the brutal slaughter of whales taking place on this remote island and made up her mind to escape; to leave her parents and never come back. But an unexpected turn of events had shipwrecked that plan...
Nineteen-year-old Jack Robinson had his own dilemma...Does he stay on the island with the girl he has fallen for, deserting the crew of the Endurance who are counting on him for their survival; or resign himself to continue an expedition which may seal his fate in an icy tomb. To compound his angst, his brother had left him and the ship, joining the war against Germany, and is somewhere on a battlefield in France. Now he must face this decision alone...
In the beginning days of World War I, the sailing ship Endurance had left England to sail to the distant Southern Ocean. Their task: A team of explorers were to cross the great unknown continent of Antarctica, 1,800 miles on foot, with sleds and dogs. It was called the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.
But at home, Great Britain, filled with excitement and anxiety over the coming conflict, had turned its attention away from this epic adventure. As a result, the expedition was nearly forgotten...
Endurance, The Frozen Keep is the first book of a two volume series weaving together Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition's dangerous voyage on the high seas and in the frozen wilderness of Antarctica: a passionate teenage girl's fight for environmental justice; the story of a valiant crew's adventure on the high seas, and danger in the vast, frozen wilderness of Antarctica. All this set against the world-shattering conflict of World War I waging in Europe.