Sarah Beth Durst’s Ice is an unlikely combination of myth and science, modern times and ancient lore. It begins at a scientific station in the Arctic, where Cassandra Dusent lives a less-than-normal teenage life with her father and the other scientists at the station. We first meet her as a very young girl, listening to her grandmother tell her the story of the North Wind, the Polar Bear King, and her mother, blown by an angry wind to the kingdom of the trolls.

Soon, Cassie is a teenager and has outgrown the stories her grandmother used to tell.  Her focus is now on the polar bears that the station tracks and studies, and she has tracked one across the ice and seen something utterly unbelievable–instead of being tranquillized and tagged, it somehow melts back into the ice behind it, disappearing from view.

Cassie is determined to track the bear, but is forced to return back to the station unsuccessful–and in trouble.  Her father is quick to lecture her, but his reaction to her story is not to question her sanity, but to prepare to bundle her onto the next flight out of the Arctic.  Suddenly, Cassie  begins to suspect that the stories she grew up with may not be stories at all.  And soon, the appearance of the Polar Bear King himself throws everything Cassie thought she knew into doubt and leads her to an adventure she could never have expected.

Ice is definitely a young adult novel.  The story blends familiar fairy-tale elements with some scientific details to create a unique character in Cassie.  Throughout the story, Durst does an excellent job of making Cassie stay true to her scientific upbringing. As a character, she is smart and strong, and she does an admirable job of blending the scientific world she grew up in with the more mystical world she is learning about. The reader learns along with Cassie, and the exposition never feels forced or unnecessary.

The story will seem familiar to some, its framework definitely echoes the fairy-tale “East of the Sun, West of the Moon”, and there is a flavour of “Beauty and the Beast” as well, but Durst unapologetically blends these elements with the science and pulls off the mix admirably.  Although Cassie is open to the wonder of her situation, she tries to align her scientific knowledge with what she is learning about the Polar King’s world, and the bond between Cassie and the Polar Bear King grows, in part, because Cassie can use what she knows about the polar bear colony to help him.  It turns out that he is a guardian responsible for the souls of his people, and in a bargain to help Cassie get her mother back from the trolls, he has made a bargain that may endanger the future of the people he is sworn to protect.

Ice tells the story of a strong, smart, young woman, as she struggles to figure out the world around her, and Cassie is a heroine well-worth the trek across the Arctic ice.

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