Escape the heat of summer with these frosty titles!
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivy
Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they build a child out of snow. The next morning it’s gone–but they glimpse a young, blonde girl running through the trees. Jack and Mabel come to love this child as their own daughter, but in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about her will transform all of them.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty—until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk—grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh—Miryem’s fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
At the edge of the Russian wilderness, Vasilisa spends the winter nights huddled near the fire with her siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. She loves the chilling story of Frost, the winter demon, who claims unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him and honor the spirits of house, yard, and forest that protect their homes from evil. After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s stepmother forbids her family from honoring household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa senses that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.
In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: the North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans, although theories abounded. A U.S. naval expedition was formed to travel deep into uncharted Arctic waters, carrying the aspirations of a young country burning to become a world power. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of “Arctic Fever.” With twists and turns worthy of a thriller, In The Kingdom of Ice is a spellbinding tale of heroism and determination in the most unforgiving territory on Earth.
Deep Freeze by John Sandford
Class reunions: a time for memories–good, bad, and, as Virgil Flowers is about to find out, deadly. Virgil knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt – and as it turned out, homicidal – local school board, and now a woman’s been found dead, frozen in a block of ice. There’s a possibility that it might be connected to a high school class of twenty years ago that has a mid-winter reunion coming up, and so, wrapping his coat a little tighter, Virgil begins to dig into twenty years’ worth of traumas, feuds, and bad blood. In the process, one thing becomes increasingly clear to him. It’s true what they say: High school is murder.
Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indriðason; translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder and Victoria Cribb
On an icy January day, the Reykjavik police are called to a block of flats where a body has been found in the garden: a young, dark-skinned boy, frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. The discovery of a stab wound in his stomach extinguishes any hope that this was a tragic accident. Erlendur and his team embark on their investigation with little to go on but the news that the boy’s Thai half-brother is missing. Is he implicated, or simply afraid for his own life? Soon, facts emerge from the snow-filled darkness that are more chilling even than the Arctic night.
Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places by Bill Streever
From avalanches to glaciers, seals to snowflakes, and Shackleton’s expedition to “The Year Without Summer,” Bill Streever journeys through history, myth, geography, and ecology in a year-long search for cold–real, icy, 40-below cold. A scientist whose passion for cold runs red hot, Streever is a wondrous guide: he conjures woolly mammoth carcasses and the ice-age Clovis tribe from melting glaciers, and he evokes blizzards so wild readers may freeze–limb by vicarious limb.
The Shining by Stephen King
Jack Torrance’s new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he’ll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote…and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.
All book descriptions are courtesy of the publishers.