Ice - Sarah Beth Durst

I thought this book was amazing and I loved it. It is about a girl called Cassie, who has lived in a research station in the Arctic all her life and she loves it. When she was little, her grandmother told her that her (Cassie’s) mother was the daughter of the North Wind, and the North Wind had promised that she would marry the Polar Bear King when she was old enough. But she fell in love with a human man (Cassie’s dad) so she (Cassie’s mother) promised that when she had a daughter (Cassie), her daughter could marry the Polar Bear King instead. The North Wind was so angry that he blew Cassie’s mum into the troll castle where she has been ever since.

Cassie stopped believing that when she was four. Her father had told her that her mother had been killed in a blizzard. But, on her eighteenth birthday, the Polar Bear King comes for her and she realises that the story is true and her mum could still be alive. She makes a deal with the Polar Bear King and says that she will marry him if he saves her mum. He agrees so she stays with him. Gradually, she begins to love him and when he is taken away, she makes a perilous journey to save him.

It is a great book with magic, mystery, excitement, action, romance and a talking polar bear. What more could you ask for? In places, the story didn’t move on as quickly as I would have liked it to but I loved it anyway. I read it non-stop in two days. I would love to read other books written by Sarah Beth Durst. I would recommend it for 10+ (probably girls).

By Zobdy

Age 12