MELT with me - by Natalie Anderson

Antarctica has always fascinated me. I live in Christchurch - where both New Zealand and the US have Antarctic programs based and I often see the big planes being loaded up to go down to the ice. There are frequently stories in the local paper about flights resuming after winter, interesting visitors to the bases and so on.  

Then, a couple of years ago, I read an article that made me sit up and laugh. It reported the number of condoms being shipped down to one of the bases - to last them the year. 16,500 condoms?! For a base that had a winter population of about 130 people?! Not bad!!!

A Hagglund (All Terrain Vehicle) used in an
Antarctic Experience tour
 in Christchurch, New Zealand

And that was a couple of years ago, so I'm guessing the number has gone up since ;)

(And okay, the visitor numbers drastically increase in the summer season). 

Then there were whispers of a girl-on-girl jelly wrestling event (apparently the organiser got sent back North after that) and with events like the mid-winter ice plunge, and the naked run around the South Pole and the 300 club and the fact that they advise you to bring some fancy and/or formal dress with you?! Well, you begin to get the impression that it's not all microscopes and penguin monitoring! 

And it's that aspect of life on the ice that really got me thinking about a story. It's such an artificial environment - the residents (a combination of scientists and support crew) all live in small bases perched on the edge of the ice. There are no kids, or pets, or particularly old people. There's either eternal sunshine or nothing but night... so what do those people do for a few laughs or to keep the mood light when they're working so hard and for such long hours? 

The kind of person who's compelled to go exploring or helping out in such hostile environment is a fascination too. Why do they go? What is it that calls to them? I love to think it's an unbelievable sense of adventure and desire to do something worthwhile...

It was this mix of thought that helped form the idea for my new novella, MELT. I wanted to write a romantic story that celebrated that fascinating environment, with a worthy hero and heroine who were all iced up themselves and needed to find each other...

MELT is released today(!!!) and you can grab a copy now via Entangled, Amazon, and you can get more info from my website.

When two frozen hearts collide…

Emma Reed closed her heart to love years ago after a lifetime spent getting kicked around foster homes and bad relationships. Now she's on a mission to prove she deserves her recent award to paint a mural for a research base in Antarctica. Nothing and no one is going to get in her way.

After months working in recovery zones around the world, Hunter Wilson planned to escape everything this holiday season by rebuilding a lab at the Kiwi Research Base. Alone. No to family, no to fun. It’s isolation not intimacy he’s aching for. But when he sees the determined artist, that ache becomes an urge – after all, shouldn’t someone show her what two people can do with twenty-four hours of brilliant sunlight?

In the coldest place on earth, even the most frozen hearts can melt.


Wishing you all the very best for a safe and happy festive season!!!


~Natalie