Finding Bear - Hannah Gold

Although April has been home from Bear Island for some months, she is finding settling back into her old life difficult.  With a house move came a new school and she is finding it a struggle to make friends with class mates who don't understand her passion for saving the polar bears.  She spends her time waiting for emails from Tör but, when she receives one that says a bear has been shot in Svalbard and it may be her friend, Bear, she is distraught and uses all her powers of persuasion on her father who finally agrees to take her back.  She quickly realises that winter in the Arctic is very different from the summer, which is when she and her dad were there.  Temperatures are freezing and conditions more dangerous and, to add to that, her friend Lisé at the Polar Institute is away on a field trip.  Luckily, their hotel owner knows somebody who would be able to take them into the wild, providing she thinks they are tourists looking to see the Northern Lights.  April and her father agree but the trip doesn't quite go to plan and April must use all of her courage and face her fears if she is to find and help Bear and survive.

I'm ashamed to say that I was late to the party with The Last Bear: it was a book that I needed to read but others just seemed to get in the way (sorry Hannah).  Twitter friends kept telling me I should read it and so, I finally bought a copy and, oh, I fell in love with it!  It was so captivating and completely stole my heart.  Needless to say, I was kicking myself for not having read it earlier!  So, when I discovered that the sequel, Finding Bear, was available for early reading (thank-you NetGalley!), I jumped at the chance to read it - I most defintiley wasn't going to make the same mistake twice!).  So on Saturday morning, before the coronation, I began reading.  And oh, I wasn't disappointed (apologies to the King whose coronation very quickly became a background event!).  

April is clearly struggling to get used to being back in England and is finding the change difficult (a new home, new school and a new girlfriend for her dad).  She spends every moment she can thinking of Bear and the emails from Tör are a life-line for her.  So when she hears about the shooting, she knows she has no choice but to go back: her friend needs her.  I think she thought returning would be just like her last trip, and she gets a shock when things are different: she isn't on Bear Island for a start and it's winter which makes conditions much more dangerous.  It is evident that she is an incredibly driven person but this leads to problems, not least of which is a lack of the correct equipment.  I don't want to give anything away, but April finds herself in a situation that would terrify even the hardiest adult and it's her stubbornness and her unconditional love for Bear that drive her on.  

As the plot unfolded, I found myself on the edge of my seat, willing April on and hoping she would find Bear.  The book is brilliantly written and the tension unfolds in a different way to that of an adventure book (I hope that makes sense): it's the anticipation and the vivid descriptions of the landscape and the conditions that build the suspense, and you are driven to keep reading in the hope that Bear will appear on the next page, or the next ... I simply couldn't put the book down.  

I am very much someone who craves sunshine and warmth so the idea of heading to the Arctic is not my idea of fun; however, seeing the Northern Lights is on my bucket list so reading descriptions of this felt spectacular and, despite the conditions, I wanted to be alongside April through every step of her journey.  Hannah's writing, made sure I was there though every twist and turn.

The Last Bear stole a little bit of my heart, and Finding Bear is now nuzzled alongside it, claiming a bit more: it's the perfect sequel.  It's a beautifully told story of one girl's undying love for her friend and her absolute determination to help him.  Publishing on the 28th September, I cannot wait to see Levi Penfold's illustrations and am pre-ordering my copy today.