Setting: Antarctica
Time Period: Modern Day

“ICE” by Kevin Tinto is a fun, contemporary read with a bit of sci-fi thrown in! When Leah Andrews finds a rock in a cave dwelling in New Mexico that can only be found in Antarctica, she’s convinced the only one who can help her is her estranged mountaineering husband, Jack Hobson. With a brave team of specialists and hobbyists, Leah and Jack head to the land of ice – but, neither are prepared to deal with what they find there.

First off, I can’t express how awesome it was to find a book set in Antarctica for the “Around The World In 80 Books” challenge! This was my first time to read anything from Kevin Tinto and I gotta say, it was a great experience. The imagination behind some of the scenes and plots in this story were very cool. (Also…kinda glad it’s fiction, ‘cause it was a little weird. But a good weird! lol) I’m not typically a fan of “aliens” bringing weird intelligence to earth, but in this case, the author did a good job with it and made it seem believable enough for the story.

The plot was very intense and well thought out. When the story started, I could’ve never imagined where the author would go with it. From Mt. Everest to New Mexico, Chile and Antarctica, every place and character played a role in this sweeping story of this stone, biological warfare and a missing ancient people. There were so many intricate details in this book, I couldn’t possibly go over them all in this review, but all you need to know is – it was good!

Also, the relationships in the book were top notch. In the middle of all the sci-fi stuff, Jack tries to figure out how to get Leah back into his life, but it isn’t really a romantic style book. Yet, the relationship aspect is in the story, just not at the forefront.

Conclusion: This was an intense read! I liked the quirky characters, strange findings and suspenseful plot. For a mainstream market book, it was pretty clean, with the exception of a few characters who liked to cuss. Other than that, this was a creative story with just enough reality in it to make it scary …and of course, any type of nuclear/biological warfare shouldn’t even be thought about in the real world if these things can happen. Oh…and aliens should be illegal too. LOL!