Sunday, January 1, 2012

Book 27 - Ice by Sarah Beth Durst - Arctic Circle

I am not really a great fantasy reader but this was an enjoyable tale of the Polar Bear King and redemption of people you love. Cassie had grown up on an Artic research station with her father. Her mother had died when she was young - or so she was told. Her grandmother had told her a fairy tale of how her mother had been swept away to the ends of the earth by the north wind because of the polar bear King. On her eighteenth birthday Cassie comes across the largest, fastest polar bear she has ever seen. Just as she was about to fire a tranquilising dart into it so she could tag it he disappears as if into thin air. As she tells the story to her father his reaction makes her realise her grandmother's story may not be fiction afterall. What if she could find her mother? What would happen if she could find the polar bear King? Defying her father, Cassie steps out of the only home she has ever known and into the ice world of the polar bear King, trolls and the terrible North Wind.

Cassie learns a lot about loyalty, bargains, love and family. She has to take impossible risks and show courage and stubborness can make a way where there seems no other way. I enjoyed the fantasy world where bears can talk, castles are made from ice and logical thinking can still save the day. A good winter's tale.
Sarah Beth Durst's website and a review from teen reads