Val Chesterfield has always been the introverted twin, the subdued one. Compared to her brother Andy, her whole existence has been quietly domestic. She’s dedicated herself to a semi-cloistered life in the halls of academia, studying diverse and dead languages, while gregarious, gorgeous Andy traveled around the world following his passion for climate science, in the hopes of finding a way to save the planet. It‘s never been about a lack of travel opportunity for her, either. Val has turned down plenty of field work because she suffers quietly from

QUOTE
Anxiety: the crippling kind. I’m tethered to the familiar, the safe, or what I perceive as safe. I function normally in only a handful of locations: my apartment, most places on campus–excluding the football stadium, too much open space–the grocery store, my father’s nursing home. During my inaugural trip to the new, huge, and sparkly Whole Foods–chilled out on a double dose of meds–a bird flew overhead in the rafters. All I could think was, <i>When is it going to swoop down and peck my eyes out?</i> I never went back.
END QUOTE

After Andy dies while working at a remote Greenlandic outpost, her world seems to shrink even further without his adventures for her to vicariously live through. But when his mentor up in the Arctic Circle, Wyatt Speeks, sends her a message asking for her help, Val is caught between the anxiety that weighs her down and her genuine desire not only to preserve Andy’s legacy but also to use her very specialized skill set to help a vulnerable young girl.

For Wyatt has sent her the voice recording of a girl he’s found, who’s clearly in distress and also clearly speaking in a language Val has never heard before. While Val is familiar with a wide-ranging variety of languages, her specialty is in the Nordic, whether living or dead. The things the girl is saying, however, are incomprehensible not only to Val but also to the local guide the arctic outpost has hired to bring in supplies. Wyatt begs Val to come and see if she can use her skills to help figure out what the clearly terrified and disoriented girl is saying. Val, after all, knows better than anyone the value of communication:

QUOTE
Languages reveal what it is to be human. This desire to make ourselves understood is primal. We make marks on paper, babble snippets of sound–then agree, by way of miracle–that these scribblings or syllables actually mean something, all so we can touch each other in some precise way. Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love, from the particular love of a new mother for her baby to one for unrequited love, but it has twice as many for grief. My favorite is <i>sokaparayana</i>, which means “wholly given up to sorrow.” A strange balm of a word, gentle coming off my tongue.
END QUOTE

Even if Val doesn’t believe Wyatt’s story about finding the girl frozen in ice and thawing her out – or his hypothesis that she must be hundreds of years old, all scientific impossibilities – Val’s certain that she’s the person most capable of helping the girl communicate with the baffled people around her. Plus, going to the Arctic will hopefully help Val find closure with her brother’s death, which she still can’t believe was a suicide. Armed with anti-anxiety pills and her formidable language skills, Val makes the arduous trek… only to discover that flying north is only the beginning of an ordeal that will change her life forever.

This literary speculative fiction thriller not only tackles issues of language and first-contact colonialism, as well as climate change and what we’re doing to the planet, but also what it means to overcome your greatest fears in order to do the right thing. At its heart is the little girl that Val and the staff of the Arctic Circle outpost are trying to get through to, though more than one person has their own ulterior motives for learning how to communicate with her and discovering the truth behind her unusual circumstances. The mysteries are many-layered and intriguing as Val navigates a forbidding landscape of bleak cold and low survivability in order to protect her young charge, while unearthing the dark truths lurking in the heart of the place that claimed her brother’s life and could, if she isn’t careful, claim hers as well.

Wow wow wow I love this book! What an enthralling reading experience. This is my first book by Erica Ferencik, but I'm definitely planning to go pick up some of her other books.

READ THIS IF YOU LIKE:
-remote snowy settings
-science and linguistics
-the movie Arrival (starring Amy Adams)
-locked-room mysteries

Val is a world-renowned linguist and her twin brother Andy is a leading climate scientist. While working in an Arctic outpost in Greenland, Andy turns up dead. He is found frozen to death just outside the compound, and his colleagues assume it is suicide. Val is not convinced but is wrapped in her grief when she is summoned by Andy's professor/mentor Wyatt to come to Greenland. The team there has uncovered a young girl frozen in the ice, and when they thawed her out, she was alive. She is speaking a language no one can understand and they need Val's skills with language to communicate with the girl. When Val arrives in Greenland, things are tense. There are only a few other researchers present and Wyatt is a mercurial and enigmatic personality. Adding to the tension is the fact that Val has only a few weeks to work before the long dark of winter sets in and the last plane out leaves.

The author clearly did a great deal of research into language and Greenland for the story. I felt like I learned a lot while reading. The characters were all well-drawn and I truly could not have guessed where the story would go. This is an original and gripping story, and one to watch for. It'll be out on March 1.

Thank you to NetGalley, Gallery Books, and the author for an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Girl in Ice By: Erica Ferencik is such a wonderful read. It sure made we realize how bad we are killing our planet and that part is sad.

Valerie Chesterfield is a Linguist, she was asked to go to an outpost off Greenland when a child was found frozen, thawed and lived! This little girl didn’t speak a language that was understood and sounded so frantic. Val was torn between her safe, secure life she created for herself due to high anxiety and phobias or going to the freezing Artic cold where her brother, who was her twin, committed suicide which she questions. She decides to go thinking she can help this child and research her brothers death.

This book was a fast paced, page turner that I really enjoyed reading and I highly recommend. I’m sure I will purchase this book as it is a keeper and I know I will re-read it. .

Thank you Netgalley for the early read in exchange for my honest review.

This was brilliant! Girl in Ice was a book that had me tearing through the pages to see what would happen next. Mysterious Sigrid was the little eight-year-old girl who was found frozen in ice in arctic Greenland, brought into the lab, and thawed. Amazingly, she lived. How was this possible. How long had she been in the ice.

Val, a linguist familiar with languages from that part of the world, was brought to the outpost in hopes of being able to communicate with the girl. I could feel the frustration of both Val and Sigrid as they began their futile attempts at understanding one another.

There were so many stories happening, including Val’s personal insecurities, Val’s dealing with the death of her twin brother, the interactions of the others on this project, the horrendous weather, and so much more that kept this fast-paced book fast paced.

The relationship between Val, who didn’t interact well with kids, and Sigrid, who trusted no one, was expertly developed; it evolved into a tender love. Other characters were interesting as well, some likable, some not so much. I wondered how this could possibly end satisfactorily; it did.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. I loved it. You have a great imagination, Ms. Ferencik.

Girl in Ice tells several stories, and unravels a few mysteries. It is both a warning of climate change, and a glimmer of hope. Linguist Val finds herself summoned to an Arctic exploration station in Greenland - the site of her twin brother's supposed suicide, to assist in helping understand a young girl that has recently been thawed from a glacier - and is alive. Terrified and anxious, Val heads to Greenland, desperate to know the truth about her brother, and to try and untangle the language of the girl - which does not resemble any languages of today. From the beginning I detested Wyatt, and was suspicious of the activity at the station. Val arrives with a young couple, who are researching other sea life. The young girl captivates Val, who struggles to learn what language she is speaking, and to communicate with her. Through drawings, Val realizes the girl is sick and will perish without intervention. The whole situation becomes even more bizarre when the research team attempts to thaw another child from the glacier - a baby boy. I got to a point where I could not stop reading - the ending is pretty implausible, but it was a great winter read, and very different. Thanks to Netgalley for an Advance reader copy.

"Never had my curiosity about a place or a language overridden my 'just say no' reflex. I'm tethered to the familiar...what I perceive as safe...".

Val Chesterfield was a linguist with a fascination for extinct tongues-Old Norse and Old Danish. By dissecting words into morphemes (the smallest unit of language that has meaning) and "deciphering a chuck of language-even a word... the distance between me and another human being, just for that moment, was erased."

On a remote Greenland Island above the Arctic Circle, Climate Scientist Wyatt Speeks discovered an eight year old girl, in ice, in Glacier 35A. After being thawed out alive, she screamed in fear, in an unknown tongue. Wyatt e-mailed Val with a plea to come to the climate research station at Nuunyviak Island, off Greenland's northwest coast. Val's twin brother Andy, mentored by Wyatt, had recently taken his own life while stationed there. Despite her misgivings and riddled with anxiety, Val decided to go to Greenland to solve two mysteries. She was determined to discover why Andy was found outside the Arctic station, frozen to death, wearing only boxer shorts. and was poised to decode the strange language spoken by the young girl.

A little girl, frozen in place ten feet down the wall of a crevasse, was now cast into unfamiliar, scary surroundings. Val needed to learn as much as possible about what happened to her. Caribou skin coat...sealskin leggings...sealskin shirt...the usual outfit for indigenous people in super remote settlements. "In a salad of languages including Old Norse, Val spoke to the girl [Sigrid] through a closed door...Just a child, but from what world, and how could [Val] possibly enter it?"

Wyatt was very secretive. He wanted to be in the loop about everything concerning Sigrid's communications. But...why was he not forthcoming about his pet mouse, Odin, and the fact that Odin had been frozen and brought back to life more than once? What other truths might Wyatt be hiding? Polar night, coming in October, would engulf the research station into total darkness with prevailing temperatures of sixty below or colder. Val was told she had only weeks to create a bond with Sigrid and decode her language.

Her molars were worn down, a wild child, living in a world where caribou hides were chewed to soften them. "[Sigrid's] expressive face, capable of conveying humor, sarcasm, pain, delight, fear and maybe even love...moaning two words over and over...the words felt like pure emotion..." Drawings of circles....birds...snakes...Sigrid's health was waning. What was she trying to say?

"Girl in Ice" by Erica Ferencik is a thriller that speaks to the issue of climate change. In Ferencik's own words, her "passion is to create un-put-downable novels set in some of the most inhospitable regions on earth." For this reader, that goal was accomplished! Highly recommended.

Thank you Gallery/Scout Press and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I can't remember the last time I read a thriller that was so hauntingly beautiful. I know it's only February, but this is very easily going to make my top 5 of 2022. Usually with this much happening in a thriller, things get lost, storylines don't live up to expectations and some things are usually left without an explanation. That doesn't happen with this book. You have Val who we're meant to see as flawed and broken but she lives in this beautiful world of languages. There's the girl. Did she really thaw from the ice? If so, when is she from? How did she survive the ice? If not, where did she come from? And then there's Andy, Val's twin brother. Did he really commit suicide or was he murdered? Did an experiment go wrong and the suicide is just a cover up? You have all these storylines and more that combine to make this a wonderful thriller.

But then you also have these beautiful interactions between Val and the girl. A little background about me: I discovered the field of linguistics post-college and missed my chance to "professionally" study it, but I consider myself to be a word nerd. I'm obsessed with learning other languages' idioms and metaphors. I love the concept of "untranslatable" words. Words like the German fernweh, which means being homesick for a place you've never been to. In English, wanderlust, but wanderlust doesn't quite capture the beauty of the German definition. These untranslatable words pop up many times during Val's communication with the girl. Trying to piece together meaning from these vague word definitions. This blending of languages is really what pushed this book over the edge for me. I found myself repeating the girls words aloud every time I read them. Even with no personal connection to this language, I could feel the emotions Val described. The emotions the girl is trying to express. My only complaint about this book is that it kept me up waaaay past my bedtime. While I would heavily recommend this book, I will tell you not to start it if you have anything important happening the next day because you will stay up all night trying to finish it.

A powerful read. I was riveted to this book until I finished. What possesses a woman to travel To a remote outpost in the Arctic? The place where her brother died. A place where a girl was frozen in ice and revived. Val is a language specialist. But can she decipher the land’s language as well as ice girl’s? And just what are they trying to tell her?
A lot of heart pounding scenes to plow through in this book. It’s a different Type of read for me, but it was so good.
However, I will not be traveling to a frozen outpost where there are sinister vibes for any reason or amount Of money.

I read this over a weekend,I was immediately drawn in the setting the characters it kept me on the edge of my seat.So well written a true page turner.I will be recommending this book and the other books by this author.#netgalley #gallery

Wyatt, a climate scientist finds a young girl frozen in ice in the Arctic Circle who likely died 100's of years ago. He thaws her and she's alive. He enlists the help of Val, a language expert, to learn to communicate with the girl who is speaking an unknown language. Val is also looking for answers to her brother's mysterious death. Her brother who worked with Wyatt.

This story pulled me in immediately. I thought the story was unique, chilling and at times a little creepy. Not sure if creepy is the right word but you have a group of people far from civilization in a frozen tundra. It's hard to know who to trust and with that isolation it's easy to go a little crazy. I loved the growth that Val's character had throughout the story as she learned more about the girl in ice. The story kept me on the edge of my seat because I wanted to know why the girl was able to be revived after being in ice. There's also the side story of Val's brother's mysterious death. Overall this story was clever. I would love to know how the author thought of this story as well as what kind of research went into the story. I've had this on my NetGalley shelf since August. I guess my only regret is that it took me this long to read it.

This story falls in the middle for me. The characters don't have a medium as far as their personality goes. Therefore, it's very easy to guess what was going on. Therefore, the mystery of Andy's death doesn't play out as a surprise as the author intended. Val's personality is on the timid and scared side of the spectrum whereas Wyatt is too brazen. What was great that Erica Ferencik did was bring to life the story of the people of Greenland. Most of the world does not know of these people and their way of life as well as their language. The interesting aspect was the language in this story. Overall, the story was weak and some characters are not well developed such as Jeanne.

Thank you to Gallery Books, Gallery/Scout Press and NetGalley for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An other worldly story of a linguist who goes to the desolation of the Arctic to decipher the language of a girl who shows up out of seemingly nowhere. The setting and its description and the beauty of language make this a beautiful yet riveting read. A mystery involving a dead brother along with the origins of the little girl builds tension and makes this a quick and enjoyable story.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley

I’m on the fence about this one, but it leans more to a so-so for me. Billed as a thriller/suspense, I’d also call it science fiction as well as an environmental treatise.

Val is an anxiety-suffering linguist who steps out of her comfort zone in MA to journey to a remote research station in the Arctic Circle where her twin brother committed suicide five months earlier. She is tasked with trying to communicate with an 8-year-old, seemingly indigenous girl, who has been
found frozen and brought back to life. Wyatt, her brother’s research mentor, is desperate and obsessed with communicating with her and finding the key to this miraculous event.

I felt like this plot was trying to tackle too much and didn’t quite meet all the challenges. Val waffles between crippling anxiety (treated with drugs/alcohol), Wyatt is a mix of aggression/charm, Jeanne (the cook/mechanic) has a tragic past of loss and well, we don’t really learn a lot about Raj and Nora, the young married couple collecting aquatic life samples. The multiple questions include: Did Val’s brother really commit suicide; Is Wyatt friend or foe; Is Sigrid (girl in the ice) actually from a more distant past; How is her resurrection possible; and How to keep her alive. There are also moral dilemmas that left me queasy at times.

I found this slow in places, choppy in places and the ending felt rushed. And while the premise is undeniably fascinating, with the other goings-on I didn’t feel as invested in the science issues as I should have been. The denouement also felt a bit too bizarre with not enough follow-up explanation.
So while parts were great, overall I just wasn’t very invested.

My thanks to #NetGalley and #GalleryBooks for providing me the free early arc of #GirlInIce for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

Val, a highly regarded linguistics professor, must overcome her own demons in order to survive the frozen Artic, in this interesting yet flawed tale. Girl In Ice isn’t quite sure what it wants to be, psychological thriller, science fiction, or fantasy. Told in first person through Val’s point of view, we see a very flawed and dependent character, but as the story proceeds her growth is somewhat believable, yet why is she so secretive? I understand not trusting Wyatt, yet even the reader isn’t privy to her findings. Wyatt, the expedition leader, is identified very early in the book as the villain of the story. The pacing alternates between slow in the first half of the book and a bit choppy in the last quarter of the book. Also, the circumstances that lead to the demise of a couple of characters is unclear. What happened to the line? I would have liked a more satisfying answer. The girl’s illness doesn’t make sense. Is this something that will happen to her for the remainder of her life? I would have liked a more satisfying explanation in the conclusion. I wanted to like this book, but I finished this novel with unanswered questions, which annoys me.

Get a glimpse into what it is like at a research facility at the Arctic circle. Val goes there as a linguist as Wyatt tells her he has thawed a girl out and brought her back to life. Val sufferers from anxiety but goes to find out what happened to her brother who died there. Will she be able to help this girl and be able to communicate with her? Freaky but well written.

Thrillers are not my usual read, but this one had me on the edge of my seat. Don't read it alone at night. It truly is full of terror. I slept with the light on. One of those disturbing books that you just can't put down. That you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this one.

4.5*
Bundle up and get your cup of hot cocoa…it’s going to be a chilly trip to the Arctic Circle!

Val is a linguistics expert currently teaching at University level. She just received a life-changing call that a girl has literally been thawed out of a piece of ice in the frozen Arctic expanse. It’s impossible to determine how long she’d been entombed in ice. What is certain…she is most certainly alive! And talking. But no one can figure out what language. The lead researcher requests Val’s assistance to aid in assessing this very foreign speech. But there’s a major complication. It’s the same place her twin brother died under curious circumstances. Perhaps she can do double duty and find some closure while also assisting with this most fascinating discovery.

I loved the interactions between Val and the girl as she tries to gain her trust and learn to communicate.

This is the second book I’ve read by this author. Her previous, Into the Jungle had us venturing deep into the Bolivian jungle. Erica Ferencik adds a unique twist by including interesting facts about the global region her stories take place. Here, we’re venturing as far north as humanly possible.

With the added details she provides, I felt I was right there next to Val. The bitter cold, the stark vastness of the surroundings.

My bags are packed and passport in hand. I’m ready for my next adventure. Where are you taking us next, Ms. Ferencik?

Posted to: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend...

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books

Girl in Ice is a thrilling and engrossing atmospheric read. Ferenci does an excellent job of placing her readers at the scene through her vivid imagery, intriguing plot line, and brilliant but flawed characters.

Val Chesterfield, a linguist who specializes in extinct Nordic languages, is contacted by her twin brother's mentor Wyatt Specks, who is head of a climate research station in the Arctic Circle. He claims that they found a young girl frozen in the ice, and that after extracting and thawing her, she is alive! Wyatt needs Val's help to work with the girl and learn her language so that Wyatt and his team can understand what enabled her to survive being frozen.

Val is both interested and frightened. She suffers from crippling anxiety, even more so after the death of her twin Andy at the very station she is now being called to. His death was ruled a suicide, but Val's family has always wondered about the true circumstances; their father going so far as to say Andy was murdered.

Val accepts the assignment for both personal and professional reasons. She can't wait to get to the bottom of both stories!

This is a wonderful read. It is easy to visualize the deep, frigid cold and darkness, the isolation of the station, and the emotions of the characters. Do yourself a favor and add it to your TBR pile now!

My sincere thanks to the author and Gallery/Scout Press for allowing me to access an e-ARC via NetGalley. All opinions stated in this review are my own and are freely given.

Thanks to Gallery/Scout Press and to NetGalley for the review copy.

This was an intriguing novel with a setting that forces one to imagine; imagine past the bleak nothingness to a world where people, animals and more live now and lived 1000 years ago. The cast of characters was well developed, despite the language difficulties faced.

Kept me coming back for more.

This is a fascinating, multi-layered story that displays themes of scientific research, exploration, the Arctic, human relationships, death, the environment, and more. Val is a linguist with social anxieties who travels to a remote island near Greenland for two reasons - to learn more about her brother's supposed suicide, and to learn to communicate with a young girl who has been frozen for many years. Beautifully descriptive text, three-dimensional characters, and a unique and creative plot combine to make a riveting read. Highly recommended! Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for providing an ARC.