Girl in Ice by Erica Ferencik

Valerie “Val” Chesterfield is a linguist trained in the most esoteric of disciplines: dead Nordic languages. Despite her successful career, she leads a sheltered life and languishes in the shadow of her twin brother Andy, an accomplished climate scientist stationed on a remote island off Greenland’s barren coast. But Andy is gone: a victim of suicide, having willfully ventured unprotected into 50 degree below zero weather. Val is inconsolable—and disbelieving. She suspects foul play.

When Wyatt, Andy’s fellow researcher in the Arctic, discovers a scientific impossibility­—a young girl frozen in the ice who thaws out alive, speaking a language no one understands—Val is his first call. Will she travel to the frozen North and meet this girl, try to comprehend what she is so passionately trying to communicate? Under the auspices of helping Wyatt interpret the girl’s speech, Val musters every ounce of her courage and journeys to the Artic to solve the mystery of her brother’s death.

The moment she steps off the plane, her fear threatens to overwhelm her. The landscape is fierce, and Wyatt, brilliant but difficult, is an enigma. But the girl is special, and Val’s connection with her is profound. Only something is terribly wrong; the child is sick, maybe dying, and the key to saving her lies in discovering the truth about Wyatt’s research. Can his data be trusted? And does it have anything to do with how and why Val’s brother died? With time running out, Val embarks on an incredible frozen odyssey—led by the unlikeliest of guides—to rescue the new family she has found in the most unexpected of places.

Val is a brilliant linguist, grieving the loss of her twin brother, and struggling with anxiety that is not fully addressed by her medication. There are very few places that she is comfortable enough or even able to force herself to go. Her life is basically work at the university, visiting her dying father, and home. But when she gets an email from her deceased brother's mentor that includes a recording of a girl he claims was frozen solid and defrosted alive in the Arctic, she decides to get on a plane not only to see if she can interpret this girl's language but to visit the place of her bother's death and find out what truly happened to him.

The small cast of characters being basically trapped together in a desolate sub zero setting created an instant atmosphere of dread and cabin fever. Add to that the mystery of how a child could be defrosted alive and the sci fi  sub plot of climate change leading to people all over the world being flash frozen and I was hooked on this thriller from the start.

4 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy for review.

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About the author

Erica Ferencik is a graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Boston University. Her work has appeared in Salon and The Boston Globe, as well as on National Public Radio. Find out more on her website EricaFerencik.com and follow her on Twitter @EricaFerencik.