I was so looking forward to this book and I was not disappointed! Val is a linguist who has lived her life in the shadow of her dead twin brother. When her brother's college professor contacts her with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to further her own career, she goes to the very place her brother was before his death. True to the style of Ferencik's past books(River at Night and Into the Jungle), she takes you on an intense and unforgettable ride.

This book gave me CHILLS. I really admire the way the author weaves together a story full of mystery and personal conflict. I love a complex character and really felt that this portrayal drew me to the main character. The setting of the story was also a beautiful choice and something I haven't read in any other mystery thriller books. And that twist? AMAZING. Did not see that coming. This is my first time reading from this author and she has become a new favorite!

I received a free copy from NetGalley. A little slow for a thriller, the mystery is a little different than the usual. Kind of a locked room type setting when you are frozen in the artic at a research site. The language aspect of it keeps it interesting and unique. But it was also a little sci-fiction like, which I wasn't expecting.

Book received for free through NetGalley

I absolutely love this story. It’s sad, realistic, sci-fi, hopeful, and so many other things. Hard to put down and so good to read. I want to wrap all the characters in a big hug.

I have no words for this book. The chapter with the walrus and the Arctic turns and the eel gave me such an uneasy feeling but I mean that in a good way. It's a testament to the way the author can craft a chapter. I love the arc of the characters in this book. Val is the one ppl can relate to most. Raj and Nora are background characters, Wyatt is someone that is easy to have a love/hate relationship with. I have such a fascination with the artic so this was an easy read and the writing and storyline were easy to follow and digest. The concept of language and words and communication were very intriguing to watch unfold as the story came to fruition. Thank you to Netgalley and publishers for this free arc in exchange for my honest review.

First off, I would like to thank Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review Girl In Ice by Erica Ferencik. It blew me away. I loved everything about it, from the title, to the cover, to the story inside.

The Girl In Ice was thawed out by the research team studying climate change on an island off the coast of Greenland. The Arctic Circle…I can’t imagine being there at any time, let alone when danger lurks. Where will it come from? I figured it out pretty quick, but I could not be certain. Didn’t matter anyway. The writing kept me glued to the pages.

Valerie ‘Val’ Chesterfield was already somewhat acquainted with the research being carried out. Her brother, Andy, had been a part of it…until he was found outside, frozen. Well, that makes me very suspicious. When the Girl In Ice was found and no one could understand her, Val, being a linguist who specialized in Nordic languages, was called in to help. She didn’t believe the story about her brother, so now she can find out for herself what really happened.

The Girl In Ice is desperately trying to communicate with them.

I love when an author can include things that interest me, like climate change. It makes the story more believable, except for the girl in the ice coming to life. I don’t think I can believe that could happen, but hey, there are those that believe in cryogenics, so…….

I watched Val grow, change, develop into an strong, independent, loyal person that has yet to find her place in the world, but happy to be in it.

The world building was so realistically created that I almost believed I could feel the cold, hear the snow squeaking under my feet, and it made me wonder…about what research Erica Ferencik did. Her detailed descriptions allowed her to paint so vividly with words an environment so harsh, otherworldly…and I was lost in it.

A sense of danger arose early and hung on every page. I had a feeling about some things that come to pass, but Erica Ferencik supplied plenty of book surprises to keep me on my toes. I ignored everything around me, except coffee and restroom breaks. I read hundreds of books a year, so that is not any easy thing to do.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Girl In Ice by Erica Ferencik.

See more at http://www.fundinmental.com

If you are looking for a creepy, fascinating, chilling (literally!) thriller with an excellent sense of place and interesting, if not always likeable characters, check out Girl in Ice!

The setting on a remote island off the coast of Greenland was atmospheric and unsettling, as was the mystery Val sets out to solve regarding her brother's death and what kind of research is going on at the station. I don't read a lot of thrillers but I was thoroughly caught up in Val's story and the events in this book.

BOOK REVIEW: Girl In Ice by Erica Ferencik
2022 Publication Date: March 1

⭐️⭐️⭐⭐️️️

T.I.M.E. Recommended Books By Genre | Thriller
T.I.M.E. Most Anticipated Books of 2022

CONNECT WITH THIS BOOK | T.I.M.E. SIMPLE LIVING TIP:
The necessity of understanding nature — in all its' complexity — to stay alive... Beginning with the understanding that it is a mutual partnership... ✨😎✨

T.I.M.E. BOOK REVIEW: A fascinating story of trying to learn a common basis for communication when neither party speaks the language of the other... Raising the stakes further with an Arctic Circle environment, the cultural expanse of hundreds of years and the ambitious drive to make groundbreaking scientific discoveries... ✨😎✨

Pages: 300
Genre: Thriller
Sub-Genre: Psychological Thriller
Time Period: Present Day
Location: Greenland | Arctic Circle

IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK THEN TRY…
Book: Dangerous Ground by Rachel Grant (Fiona Carver Series | Book 1)
Movie: Arrival

--------------------

All my reviews can be seen at This Is My Everybody | Simple Living | Denise Wilbanks at www.thisismyeverybody.com

♡ Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

“‘You know, I’m not big on saving the world and all that…Not because I don’t think it’s a good idea. ’Course it is. I just don’t think the world is a place that can be saved. Not with us stupid human fuckers running this particular shit show. So it’s not where I look for my, you know, satisfaction.”

Valerie Chesterfield is a linguist trained in dead Nordic languages. When a researcher 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 Arctic Circle and try to decipher what this girl is so desperately trying to communicate?

What an absolutely fascinating look into the origin of language, the foundations of love, and the honor of doing the right thing. This book was fast paced and enjoyable and I devoured it in one day. There is some level of suspension of belief while reading, which I usually struggle with, but in this book it was done in a “believable” way. This one is an absolute winner!

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Scout Press, Gallery Books, @mbc_books, and the author for the e-ARC and gifted physical copy in exchange for an honest review.

A talented linguist, Val Chesterfield also suffers from extreme anxiety made worse by her twin brother Andy’s apparent suicide at an Arctic research station. Andy, himself an accomplished climate scientist, was found dead just outside the bunker wearing only boxer shorts.

Five months after Andy’s death, Wyatt, the director of the station, requests Val’s help after making a monumental discovery. He found a young girl frozen in ice who was alive when thawed. Though she can talk, no one is able to recognize her language, and Wyatt needs Val to communicate with her.

Val can hardly stand to go to the grocery store, so the thought of traveling to a remote research station where she might get stuck if the weather turns inclines her to say no. However, her father is sure Andy’s death was the result of foul play and pressures her to make the trip. With her father’s insistence, as well as her own intellectual curiosity and to honor her brother’s research, Val agrees to Wyatt’s request.

Establishing communication with the girl is much harder than Val anticipated. She speaks in no known dialect. And as the days become shorter and travel more treacherous, the girl begins showing signs of a devastating illness. Furthermore, Wyatt is at times secretive, at times almost menacing, certainly not someone Val trusts. But to learn the truth about Andy and save the girl, with whom she develops a deep connection, Val will have to learn the truth of Wyatt’s research and push herself further than she ever thought possible.

Though I was a little skeptical of the premise, I really like thrillers set on either pole, so I decided to take a chance on the book, and I’m glad I did. I ended up loving it. To me, Val is a likable protagonist—smart, earnest, but with a suspicious edge and a tendency to self-sabotage. The girl, maybe nine or ten, struggles as one would after being thawed out but has a strong, clever personality.

While much of the tension comes from relationships among the characters, the Arctic setting, remote, inherently dangerous, and unforgiving ratchets it up, and the latter part of the book focuses on nail-biting action. Information on climate change and linguistics greatly enhances the book.

You may notice in my reviews that I have a habit of pointing out why I was attracted to a novel, or what piqued my interest in it. I think that’s an important point to make when reviewing a book, because I think people who read book reviews deserve to know where their book reviewers are coming from when they review a book. It’s like, why did this particular reviewer choose to read this book? What made them pick this book to read, out of all the other books in the world there are to read? Especially when you are a reader and reviewer that refuses to niche-read, like I do.

So I feel I should point out what attracted me to this book: my sister is a socio-cultural linguist. A large portion of this book (and, arguably, the best parts of it) are dedicated to the main character, a renowned linguist, and her efforts to understand (and, in turn, make herself understood) the language of an indigenous girl who has allegedly been thawed out from ice that could be possibly hundreds of years old in the upper reaches of Greenland. I may be the human geographer and urban planner of the family, but my sister and I both share a fascination with linguistics. She’s just the one who chose to study them. (Also, there is a huge overlap between Human Geography and Linguistics when it comes to extinct languages and cultures.)

The other thing that attracted me to this book is something closer to my own academic domain than my sister’s: climate science, data, and scientific ethics. Needless to say, we trust our scientists to give us scientific data that’s backed by the scientific method, but we’re relying on an ethical code that the data those scientists have gathered hasn’t been manipulated or gathered against international regulations. That’s a whole lot of trust to put into humans who are, in the end, just as fallible as the rest of us. Trust me, as a scientist, it’s humbling to be entrusted with data to be analyzed and interpreted.

The first 40% or so of this book drags a lot, which left me feeling let down. I put the book down more than a few times before I actually got into it. Once it picked up, however, I couldn’t put it down. The ending was slightly underwhelming, but I’m chalking that up to my own cynicism over it actually being a decent ending for the book. Once I got to the ending of the book I pondered the pacing and wondered if it might have just been me and my uneven mood over the last week that made the book hard to get into over the last week and I think it’s possible I might not have given it a fair shot when I started it. The premise is more than interesting, it’s well-plotted, it’s creepy, it’s in turns suffocating and too immense to consider, and it’s got a real good sense of atmosphere. The narration is unreliable, but not in a bad way: our narrator is simply affected by outside elements that affect her state of mind that cast doubt on her story here and there. But her voice is clear and her sense of self rings true and consistent. None of the adults in this story, including the narrator, are the best of people, but some seem to at least be trying to do something right. But complete isolation from civilization and unresolved grief can be awful bedfellows, causing people to make rash and/or poor decisions.

All in all, I definitely recommend this book if you enjoy a solid suspense thriller set in the outdoors or if you enjoy some science mixed in with your scares.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Imagine a young girl, caught in a sudden flash ice storm, and frozen seemingly for eternity in an ice floe in the Artic. Until global warming that is, and a science team that thaws her and brings her back to life.

Brilliant linguist Val Chesterfield, a homebody thanks to her overwhelming anxiety, gets finally lured from her cozy apartment due to the simultaneous apparent suicide of her twin brother Andy while working on a climate change research expedition in Northern Greenland and a deep mystery shrouding a girl who speaks a Nordic language no one can understand, even the local indigenous people. Val, having turned down former intriguing jaunts into the field for on site discoveries, rallies herself with some push from her elderly, climate scientist father to get up to the Artic to figure out what’s going on.

Val finds herself in the remote Artic amidst endless ice, swirling snow, a claustrophobic research hut, and an encroaching season of darkness. She contends with Wyatt, the gruff expedition leader, and former professor of her brother, who won’t share much about what happened to Andy or the girl; Val, the chief mechanic and cook, who proves equally menacing; and a lovely pair of married Marine scientists, Nora and Raj, up to do explorations in the water under the ice.

A plotting twisting thriller ensues as Val struggles to communicate and bond with the girl while also investigating what really happened with her twin brother.

The real heroine: the young girl revived from the ice, who’s both terrified and curious, violent and compassionate, young and wise beyond her years.

This novel provokes you to deeply think about the often-conflicting roles that science and compassion play out in humanity. There’s the purity of scientific research pitted against ambition, and the questionable ethics of turning a person into a science specimen or experiment.

And then of course there’s the ominous climate change coming for us all.


Thanks to Netgalley as well as Gallery Books and Scout Press for an advanced reader’s copy. The view expressed here are solely my own.

Wow this was crazy good! Really fresh story that was extremely well told. Just awesome character development. Loved the take on obsessive people. Really enjoyed this one.
Highly recommend
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book

GIRL IN ICE by Erica Ferencik
Publication: 03/01/2022 by Gallery Books / Scout Press


Strap on your snow shoes and bundle-up in your thickest parka to embark upon an amazing atmospheric thriller that will have you turning pages at breakneck speed. I reluctantly had to go to work between my two gulps of this visceral, white-knuckled ride into the barren, god-forsaken arctic Greenland. Valerie “Val” is a noted linguist, specializing in Nordic languages, who leads a rather secluded life, limited to teaching and staying close to her apartment, due to her almost insurmountable anxiety. Her need for “her meds” has escalated to ever increasing “doses” of alcohol to cope with the death of her twin, Andy. A year after his death she receives an email from Andy’s mentor and fellow scientist Wyatt to enlist her help at the remote Arctic outpost …. the site of Andy’s reported suicide. He claims to have found a young girl embedded in the ice, and was able to thaw her out alive, and speaking a language no one understands. The accompanying audio file of the girl immediately mesmerizes Val , and presents a unique opportunity to overcome her personal fears and delve into the mystery of not only the young girl , but also explore the unlikely suicide of her twin.
Ferencik proves to be a masterful storyteller as she weaves a twisted and complex adventure within the confines of the claustrophobic research station and the adjacent frozen tundra with howling and swirling wind and snow and ice…. in sub-zero temperatures. The characterization of Val evolves as she is able to battle her anxiety and grief, and meet head-on the challenge of slowly and progressively developing a trust with the “ancient” eight-year-old Sigrid …. as she begins to unlock the language barrier, against a ticking clock, while time begins to run out for all. At times the reader will actually forget that elements of the narrative involve science fiction/ fantasy … but willingly suspend disbelief to enjoy the full impact of this harrowing journey that explores love, grief and self empowerment. This immersive thriller will keep the reader quickly turning the pages until the explosive, unexpected denouement.
Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books / Scout Press for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review.

Girl in Ice is an unusual thriller about a young girl cut from a glacier, frozen and thawed coming back to life. She speaks a strange undetectable language. Enter Val, a linguist, struggling to come to terms of her twin's death at the same location, called to Greenland to translate the language. Torn between her need to hide from the world, and her curiosity about the girl as well as her brother's death, she makes the journey to find the truth about both.

An interesting story, but kind of far fetched for me. The story drags but I suppose that is the intent to make it more dramatic.

Review featured at www.books-n-kisses.com

There is good and bad to this story. First the good. I really enjoyed the language part of this story. When Val talks to the “girl in ice” the conversations are interesting and well written.

Now the bad, the story is slow and while we are supposed to be spending time finding out what really happened to Val’s brother it seems to take a back burner to the rest of the story.

I think this story had a lot of potential but it just didn’t meet up to it.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I said brrrr…. It’s cold in here!

⏰ 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫: Val is an anxiety-fighting linguist grappling with the suicide of her twin brother Andy, when his mentor/coworker/fellow scientist Wyatt calls to enlist her help. In Greenland. Yup.. Arctic GREENLAND. He claims to have thawed a native girl from the ice who speaks a language no one understands. Val, in disbelief, reluctantly embarks on the journey, not merely to aid in linguistics (to whatever this is), but to uncover what actually caused her brother’s death. What she uncovers is a lengthy, improbable, fantastical adventure in deception and intrigue she never saw coming.

💡𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬: Cue the cocoa! Everything about this book is meant to be chilling - from the freezing location, to the cold demeanor of some characters, to the biting cold plot.
𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐚 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞, 𝐲’𝐚𝐥𝐥.

I can relate to Val because I battled agoraphobia and no doubt - Val fits that diagnosis. To have her place herself in a locus with wide open spaces, unknowns, wild and untamed? Yes please. That’s some epic exposure therapy! Proverbial “fish out of water.” Loved that plot point.

The story is heavily laced with a clear message about the effects of climate change (bravo!) and takes place in 2023, a mere year in the future; that was unique with shock-provoking factual information, and I think was a writing choice in order to avoid the pandemic issue (please be OVER already!) while focusing on the climate crisis.

My issues were with plot points just toooo improbable for me though (it’s science fiction folks - you can’t thaw people alive… yet) and to reveal anything further would be a spoiler and that ain’t me. Though I’ll say this -𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙄𝙎 𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙚. This is a book that might teach you that.

𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆𝗠𝗮𝗴𝘀.𝗰𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

📚𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Mystery/Science Fiction

😍𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨: if you’re in the mood for a crazy, stark locale and a mystery that’s unlike others.

🙅‍♀️ 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨: Climate change deniers.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley and Gallery Books/Gallery Scout Press for my advanced copy in exchange for my always-honest review and for making me put on a sweater. Several. And it’s 70 degrees here.

Val is still struggling with the loss of her twin Andy when she receives an unexpected email from Wyatt, his mentor and fellow researcher. Wyatt needs Val's help immediately at their Arctic research center. The e-mail has an audio file of a young girl that Wyatt says they found frozen in ice but thawed out alive. She doesn't speak a language that anyone recognizes. Val, a talented linguist, is haunted by the sound of the young girl's voice, but is conflicted about visiting the site of her brother's death. Ultimately, she feels she must go and what she finds in the Arctic is not at all what she expected.

Girl In Ice takes many twists and turns throughout the book. It is an action packed novel, but the middle section seemed to lag slightly for me, but it could have been because I was wanting to move the story along more quickly. I did find the topic of Girl in Ice to be original and unique. It definitely peaked my interest and was not like any other books I have read.

It was a strong 3 1/2 star rating for me. I received this book courtesy of the publisher ​through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I hurried through most of this one, eager to see the ending, as this is not really a genre I enjoy - sci fi. I was attracted by the title and requested the book, but found the premise not one I could get into. I appreciated the suspense in the plot, however, and the thrill of the action, as well as the descriptions of the freezing Arctic setting and its challenges for researchers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for sending me an ARC of Girl in Ice in exchange for an honest review.

The Goodreads description of Girl in Ice fully describes the plot. Val is a linguist who lived in the shadow of her twin brother Andy. Soon after she’s told that Andy committed suicide by deliberately walking unprotected outside his Arctic research station, Val gets a call from Andy’s mentor Wyatt, who says he needs Val’s help to communicate with an 8-year-old girl he claims he thawed alive from the ice. Intrigued by the mysterious girl, and determined to find out what really happened to her brother, Val puts her grief and anxiety aside and travels to this brutal land known simply as the Enormity….

There are parts of Girl in Ice that I quite enjoyed. Struggling, anxious Val is a sympathetic character, even if a bit cliché. Her interactions with the girl are realistic and often moving. The author does a good job obscuring whether enigmatic Wyatt is just a crappy person or an actual villain. The heavy focus on establishing a way to communicate with the girl was reminiscent of Embassytown or the movie Arrival. Perhaps best of all is the story’s setting. Whether inside the claustrophobic research station or outside on (or occasionally under) the ice, the setting is its own character, driving the characters towards various acts for their own survival.

But there was a lot in Girl in Ice that I struggled with. The story moves pretty slowly until the very end, when it moves really fast. The mystery about what happened to Andy ends up being not very mysterious. The mystery about the girl is hampered by the hand waving away of the scientific impossibility of thawing a human alive from the ice. And the attempts to raise the stakes of Wyatt’s research by describing people being flash frozen by “ice winds” in different countries around the world? Well, that’s straight out of the silliest parts of the climate thriller The Day After Tomorrow, a movie I love, but not for its realism.

Girl in Ice is that rare book that’s a firm 3-star read—not bad, but not very good either. I expect the only part I will ultimately remember is the Arctic Circle setting, which is cool (pun intended) but not enough to sustain a novel.