My fellow horror fans - queer historical horror fans in particular - gather around! We’ve got a real treat waiting for us right here. I’ll be genuinely shocked if this book doesn’t end up among my top five reads of 2026 😳
And yet again, I can’t talk much about it because WOAH is everything a potential spoiler! This is a ride you want to take as blindly as possible, trust me.

The Melpomene tragedy began in 1852 when the ship embarked on the polar exploration of the Nunavut territory, in hopes of finding the lost Sir John Franklin expedition. Melpomene herself carried a crew of nearly fifty men. By the end, after a slew of events, only five survivors remained, rescued in 1854 and brought home to England.
Now, in 1860, a newsman Harry Lambert hungers for the real story of what happened to the men, after one of them was just hanged for a terrible crime. And where better to get the answers than Sidney Blakely, another survivor who now curiously holds seances, claiming he’s able to communicate with ghosts?
Harry Lambert wants nothing more than the truth he’s sure was hidden from the public.
He might just get exactly what he wished for.

What follows is a brutal tale of survival in ruthless conditions, ghosts and lost souls, and toxic codependence that will make your head spin and your heart pound. And let me tell you, this freaking book takes the concept of unreliable narrator to a new level!

The horror here lies mostly in the complete isolation of a lost ship trapped in the icy waters for months on end. Isolation not only from civilization, but warmth and light as well. Knowing the chances of survival are thinning with every creak of the ice hugging the ship. Watching the fellow crewmates either lose their minds one at a time, or accept there might just be something else prowling around, hungry yet unseen.

And I know some of you perked up like meerkats at the mention of “queer” but stand down for a bit - yes, it’s very queer. No, there isn’t romance. It’s tragic, shocking, devastating, utterly brilliant, but for the love of god don’t go in looking for a budding romantic relationship. You would end up either simply disappointed... or a bit traumatized.

Well, now I don’t know what to do with myself. I finished this book yesterday late at night, sacrificing sleep because there’s NO WAY I was gonna put it down for the last wild 20 percent, and I still feel shell-shocked and trapped inside the story.
I’m sat. Sat and ready for more by Dorian Ravenscroft, because they have my full trust with this masterpiece.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this arc.

“Actus me invito factus non est meus actus”

An incredibly stunning debut that transports you to the Arctic, The White North Has Thy Bones is an exquisitely written queer historical horror that you will devour! So much love and care has gone into the crafting of this story to fully immerse the reader in the isolation, the chill, the survival and the horror of a polar expedition in 1852.

London 1860, with a fascination with the survivors and the disaster of the HMS Melpomene - newspaper reporter Harry Lambert sets out to interview the remaining living crew of Melpomene after one of the few survivors is hanged for a horrendous crime.
Harry desires to know the full story, whatever that might take. Even toying with the idea that perhaps more came back from the arctic than just the surviving crew.

I fully encourage you to chuck on some ambience and immerse yourself in the beautifully crafted story that will chill you in more ways than one.
Absolutely blown away and prepare to never hear me shut up about this one! I will be recommending this to ANYONE and EVERYONE who will listen!

This was INCREDIBLE. The doomed gay polar expedition novel you didn't know was missing from your life. Full of haunting descriptions, unreliable narrators, horrible characters, and meat. Incredible. 10/10. New favourite. I need to go back and reread it. Immediately pre-ordered a copy. Might go and buy some pear drops, too.

The plot itself is gripping and tense in a way that made it impossible to put the book down. I could imagine the scenes so vividly. But what elevates it is the characters. Characters you love to hate, balanced with characters you are rooting for. Characters who are the worst but feel so, so, so human (but, like, are really the worst). Characters you are hoping will persevere even when you know their fates from the beginning of the novel.

The story is told through Harry Lambert, a newsman who is obsessed with the doomed Arctic voyage of the Melpomene. Harry has a Richard Papen quality to him, that gives the novel almost a Secret History-esque feel (...if The Secret History took place in 1850s/1860s London and involved survivors of an Arctic expedition instead of a Classical society at a New England arts university). Harry's desperation to insert himself in the narrative felt organic and compelling in its own right. And Harry's interviews with multiple surviving members of the expedition comprise the bulk of the story. It's in those accounts that we follow the two other POVs as the true events of the Melpomene disaster unfolds.

Oh and it's super gay. Capital 'Q' Queer. Messy gays. It's toxic yaoi at its finest. The 'oh-wow-I-hope-this-type-of-love-never-finds-me' kinda dynamics. Beautiful. Flawless. I ate it up.

I do not want to say anything that gives this story away, but if it wasn't obvious: 5 stars, thank you SO much to NetGalley and Raven Books for the ARC! I cannot wait to see what else Ravenscroft writes.

Wow. Just wow. I had to just sit and let this book absorb after finishing it. The story (stories) is (are) absolutely gripping. As soon as you think you have a handle on what is happening, there is a switchback that erases all of that! This book was an intense and chilling ride that will leaving you thinking.

With thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing/Raven Books for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I am a huge fan of Dark Matter by Michelle Paver and I am obsessed with stories set in that ethereal part of the world – the Arctic. I knew this book would be right up my street as soon as I read the premise. This is a chilling (no pun intended) and masterfully constructed debut by Dorian Ravenscroft.

The novel begins in a grim, atmospheric 1860 London. A crowd has gathered to witness the hanging of one of the five survivors from the HMS Melpomene, an Arctic exploration ship which surrendered to the pack ice of the Arctic while searching for the lost Franklin expedition. We very quickly learn that this man has brutally murdered his family, claiming that the act was done against his will.

Enter Harry Lambert, a deeply sceptical journalist obsessed with the Melpomene disaster. Harry is determined to find out what truly happened in the frozen wastes at the end of the Earth, and what drove one of the men to brutally murder his family once he had returned to England. This leads him to discover Sidney Blakely, another survivor and self-made leader of the expedition who has reinvented himself as a psychic medium – powers he claims were granted to him by the thin veil of the Arctic. Beside him is Lieutenant Taylor, another of the survivors and a conduit for the spirits brought forth by Blakely. As Harry finds himself dragged further and further into the mystery it becomes unclear which story is the reality – is it the supernatural tale or is it the tale of human monstrosity? Blakely’s tale is the standard heroic navy men enduring in a desolate place doing what they need to do to survive whereas Taylor’s tale tells of the ghosts of sailors lost to the frost, unspoken horrors of their encounters with the ghosts, meat obtained from mystery sources and huge beasts stalking the men across the ice.

The book switches between the Gothic atmosphere of Victorian London and the frozen isolation of the Arctic. I found myself glued to every page, getting further and further drawn in to Blakely’s and Taylor’s vastly different accounts of what happened once the Melpomene was lost to the ice.

The author’s prose oozes atmospheric tension – I found myself second guessing right up until the closing chapters of the book.
The book also does not pack its punches when it comes to the damage caused to the survivors – the men are utterly broken by the horrors they had to go through to survive the journey to safety. The men are bonded in ways no one could understand – the queer undertone is a breathtakingly different take on the romance of gothic horrors. Don’t expect to be championing any budding romances though – the relationships seem as damaged by the Arctic as everything else has been.

Overall, it is a haunting, original ghost story about complicated men who are ruined by the ice and by each other. Quite possibly one of my favourite books of the year and I can’t wait to read more by this author.