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Ice Shock: A Love Story
Not yet published
Expected 2 Mar 26The year is 2010. An Icelandic volcano has thrown an ash cloud into the atmosphere and, across the world, planes have stopped flying. Leah and Niall, twenty-somethings in love, find themselves strangely restless, and set out on different but parallel paths; Niall travels to a polar station in Antarctica, where the strange, lonely beauty of the ice mirrors the fragility of his hopes, while Leah studies writing in England, surrounded by tradition yet struggling to find her place.
Separated by thousands of miles, but determined to stay connected, they learn that true communication can be as fragile as the melting landscape between them. Ice Shock is a love story that asks what it means to stay close even when we are far apart – and how love can endure, in a world changing catastrophically by the day.
Separated by thousands of miles, but determined to stay connected, they learn that true communication can be as fragile as the melting landscape between them. Ice Shock is a love story that asks what it means to stay close even when we are far apart – and how love can endure, in a world changing catastrophically by the day.
276 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication March 2, 2026
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October 1, 2025#IceShock – Elleke Boehmer
#KaravanPress
Falling in love was not part of her dream. Winning the award that would enable her to pursue her training as a writer was the essence of Leah Nash’s future. Then they met on the night bus from Edinburgh to London. She fell asleep on his shoulder and awoke to a person who shared her initials in reverse, and a birthdate, one who could complete her sentences, and colour her world. Niall Lawrence also had no intention to fall in love. But that changed when he met her.
There were doubts, “I don’t have enough ideas, enough energy. I drop away from you, I feel useless” (46) but the reality was simple: “Some days, it’s so huge, this intensity we have, us together.” (53) Her dream would, however, become the trigger setting their paths in opposite directions, she would study writing in England whilst he would work at a polar station in Antarctica for fourteen months. Due to be separated by a longitudinal parabola, they vowed to look at the stars and the moon, trying to find each other across thousands of miles.
The novel considers several themes relating to distance and separation and dissects the questions arising therefrom at the hand of physical variations and the influence that these unpredictable inconsistencies have on what were once regarded as social and emotional convictions.
In stark contrast with Leah finding herself to be the human equivalent of a captured rodent running on an academic wheel, Niall is in a constant struggle with the elements, boredom, and isolation. The ice exposes that “…we’re all lacking, nothing is adequate, we need each other, no one is enough on his own” (136) but also “It showed him up for who he was. The ice probed him and found him lacking.” (170)
Just like in the physical world, storms and solar flares wreaked havoc with communication, so did time and distance. Words grew in ambiguity, became lost in translation: “The message didn’t say love, it did say love. It was filled with love.” (149) Communication fatigue set in: “It was what he wanted to say, it was too much to get out.” (174) Certainties melted away like the ice caps, revealing the eternal rocks beneath.
Ice Shock is both a love story and an investigation into human connections, a delicate exploration of environmental influences on the nature and comprehension of communication.
#Uitdieperdsebek
#KaravanPress
Falling in love was not part of her dream. Winning the award that would enable her to pursue her training as a writer was the essence of Leah Nash’s future. Then they met on the night bus from Edinburgh to London. She fell asleep on his shoulder and awoke to a person who shared her initials in reverse, and a birthdate, one who could complete her sentences, and colour her world. Niall Lawrence also had no intention to fall in love. But that changed when he met her.
There were doubts, “I don’t have enough ideas, enough energy. I drop away from you, I feel useless” (46) but the reality was simple: “Some days, it’s so huge, this intensity we have, us together.” (53) Her dream would, however, become the trigger setting their paths in opposite directions, she would study writing in England whilst he would work at a polar station in Antarctica for fourteen months. Due to be separated by a longitudinal parabola, they vowed to look at the stars and the moon, trying to find each other across thousands of miles.
The novel considers several themes relating to distance and separation and dissects the questions arising therefrom at the hand of physical variations and the influence that these unpredictable inconsistencies have on what were once regarded as social and emotional convictions.
In stark contrast with Leah finding herself to be the human equivalent of a captured rodent running on an academic wheel, Niall is in a constant struggle with the elements, boredom, and isolation. The ice exposes that “…we’re all lacking, nothing is adequate, we need each other, no one is enough on his own” (136) but also “It showed him up for who he was. The ice probed him and found him lacking.” (170)
Just like in the physical world, storms and solar flares wreaked havoc with communication, so did time and distance. Words grew in ambiguity, became lost in translation: “The message didn’t say love, it did say love. It was filled with love.” (149) Communication fatigue set in: “It was what he wanted to say, it was too much to get out.” (174) Certainties melted away like the ice caps, revealing the eternal rocks beneath.
Ice Shock is both a love story and an investigation into human connections, a delicate exploration of environmental influences on the nature and comprehension of communication.
#Uitdieperdsebek
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