White River Crossing
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 12 Feb 2026
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- €14.99
Publisher Description
A breathtaking and cinematic novel about the lust for gold and its bloody consequences, set in the unforgiving landscape of the sub-Arctic Canadian wilderness, from the acclaimed author of The North Water
A ragged fur peddler arrives at a remote outpost of the Hudson Bay Company in the winter of 1766 with a lump of gold, claiming that there is plenty more like it further north at a place called Ox Lake. The outpost’s chief factor, Magnus Norton, dreams of instant riches and launches a secret and perilous expedition to find the treasure and bring it back.
Led by a family of native guides, the party of prospectors includes Norton’s brutish deputy, John Shaw, and Thomas Hearn, the insular and intellectual first mate from the factory’s whaling sloop. During their long journey north, Shaw’s callousness and arrogance lead him to commit an act of sexual violence whose disastrous consequences will only fully emerge once they reach their final destination. There, amidst the bleak beauty of the Barren Grounds, as Norton’s carefully crafted plans begin to fall apart and the brutal arctic winter starts to descend, Hearn is forced to make a choice that will define his character and determine his future forever.
Utterly captivating, White River Crossing transports us back to the furthest edges of the eighteenth-century British empire where two radically different worlds—indigenous and European—collide with calamitous and deadly results.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
White River Crossing is Ian McGuire doing what he does best: brutal history, moral decay and people making catastrophic choices in awful weather. It’s 1766 and we’re in the subarctic Canadian wilderness. A fur peddler arrives at an outpost with a lump of gold, and very quickly, we’re drawn into a fast-paced adventure that pits schemers and villains against both the unforgiving landscape and each other. This is dark historical fiction that remains unflinching in its exploration of human nature as well as actual nature. If you liked The North Water, you’ll recognise the propulsive and merciless look at what people will do to survive—or turn a profit.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McGuire follows up The Abstainer with a staggering portrait of the schemers and villains who populate Prince of Wales's Fort, a barren outpost of the Hudson Bay Company in what is now northern Manitoba. In 1766, an unreliable fur trader offers a rock with a sliver of gold running through it to company manager Magnus Norton, suggesting that more can be found in the barren Esquimaux lands farther north. Norton enlists his vicious, self-serving deputy, John Shaw, to lead a small party on a secret mission to find the gold deposits and bring enough home to make them all rich. The introspective and melancholy seaman Tom Hearn joins the party, along with Norton's naive nephew Abel Walker; their Dene guide, Datsanthi; his troubled son, Nabayah; and their wives Pawpitch and Keasik. Much of the expedition, which goes violently and tragically awry—Keasik is impregnated by Shaw, who loses an arm in a wolf attack—is shown from Hearn's perspective. The frigid winter conditions and the gut-wrenching sexual and racial violence perpetrated by Shaw—as savage as any villain in recent literary memory—are brought to vivid life by the author's keen talent for storytelling and willingness to depict the depths of human cruelty. Though some expedition members make it back alive to tell the tale, the story's ending is a shock, as McGuire explores in the final twist how hope and honor can be liabilities in a world of temptation, treachery, and retribution. It's a stunner.
