Monday 12 April 2010

The Secret Ministry of Frost

Published 2009


Gordon Fitzwilliam has mysteriously disappeared in the Arctic, and his daughter Light, along with their servant Butler, is attending his funeral - with empty coffin - on ths shores of Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland. Thus begins The Secret Ministry of Frost, the intriguing story of Light's quest to find her missing father, following in the steps of the lost Franklin expedition of 1845. Fitzwilliam, curious to know why so many men on that expedition seems to have disappeared without trace, has fallen foul of the aeons-old creature known as Frost, a monster so fearful that even the Inuit won't talk about it.

Light has had an unconventional upbringing: shunned at the local school because she is the albino daughter of an Inuit mother who died on an earlier trip to the Arctic, home-educated by her explorer father and Butler, she is brave and resourceful, and when her home is invaded by murderous slit-eyed killers - isserkiat - she and Butler purchase an ice-breaker and set sail for Nunavut, where she will encounter gods and monsters, and discover the truth of her birth. Despite her Inuit heritage, she is utterly unfamiliar with the physical demands of the Arctic, which tax her strength and courage, and she must also face even the even greater challenge of a shamanistic journey in order to save the world from the ravages of Frost.