Walking on Ice

After years of living in Sydney, Australia, Emma Stevens returns to New Zealand, ready to live the simple life, teaching in a small rural town with her Tenterfield terrier as companion. However, when she is convinced by a friend to try on-line dating, Emma is surprised to find herself corresponding with the principal of a high school in the Arctic Circle in Alaska who at first, she knows only as ‘Kotzman’.

The pair are literally worlds apart . While Emma is picking spring flowers, Kotzman is ice fishing. When Emma is wrapping up against the chill winds of an Otago winter, while Kotzman enjoys summer caribou camp.
As the months pass, Kotzman becomes Gary, the relationship deepens, Emma and Kotzman discover that they have much in common. When at the new millennium, Gary joins Emma on a beach in New Zealand to watch the new century dawn romance blossoms.

Adventurous romantics and arm-chair travellers will enjoy this memoir of a woman’s life-changing decision to marry her 'Alaskan man' and leave her beloved New Zealand for a world of snow and ice, caribou and bears, and the Yup’ik Eskimo people.

EXCERPT: 'From the small window all I could see were stunted, yellowing aspens, but there was something peculiarly calming and serene about them … ‘Wow, I could live here!’ I exclaimed, surprised at my intense reaction. Gary turned me to face him, to break my gaze out the window. He hugged me. ‘Are you serious?'. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes. This is so much better than I imagined. It is beautiful, stunning, breathtaking…’