Just Finished Reading: Blood and Ice by Robert Masello



Nurse Eleanor Ames had no idea how long her relationship with Lieutenant Copley of the 17th Lancers would last or where it would take her. Even when she volunteered to follow him to the Crimea as part of Miss Nightingale’s field hospital little did she know that this was only the beginning of her adventure. Not until he came back from the Charge of the Light Brigade a changed man did she begin to understand that they were fated to be together for a very long time indeed. Running for their lives on Her Majesties ship Coventry, tossed by storm winds in the Southern ocean, their strange behaviour starts to turn the superstitious crew against them. Tossed over the side in chains the crew assume that they have disposed of their fears. They were wrong. Over 150 years later two bodies are discovered in the ice. At first unbelieving, the scientists at the Arctic Research station recover the find of the century which is sure to make visiting journalist Michael Wilde world famous. But as the ice melts and the strange couple vanish it slowly dawns on the isolated community that they have uncovered something that none of them are prepared for.


Although I never, or at least rarely, judge a book by its cover I must admit that I was totally entranced by this one. The look of the woman on the front literally sent shivers down my spine. If someone looked at me like that I’d be buying the first plane ticket out – no matter where it went. What I did learn, to my disappointment, is that the woman portrayed on the front cover is not the delightful Eleanor Ames I fell in love with in this book. It is probably meant to be her but, I believe, was created by someone who had not fully read the novel. In the novel Eleanor clearly has brown hair and green eyes, whilst the woman on the cover had black hair and blue eyes. As you can tell it rather rankled (pedantic, me?). Anyway, as to the story I was so looking forward to I can honestly say that I really liked it. The journalist Michael was OK despite being a bit wet, the scientists at the Pole were suitably odd and focused on their own particular pet projects but it was the characters of Lieutenant Sinclair Copley and especially Eleanor herself which sold me on it. The flashbacks to mid-Victorian England and the horrors of the Crimea war were very well told and very vivid. The incident that changed Sinclair’s and then Eleanor’s life was suitably creepy as was the resultant horror at the Arctic camp. I can certainly understand why Michael fell in love with Eleanor. The way she was described made me fall in love with her too. A young woman still full of life after all her strange experiences but lost in an age far beyond her wildest imagination would be a powerful attraction to most people. Of course knowing what she was as well as who she was would probably put quite a few people off the whole idea. But now I come to the biggest problem with the whole thing. I thought long and hard about how the author could end things. I had a few fairly detailed scenarios in my head and wondered which one he would pick. My answer: none of them. The ending was, at least in my mind, very unrealistic (yes, I know we’re talking horror/fantasy here so why am I bothered by realism) or maybe I should say unbelievable. Falling in love with such a woman might just about be acceptable but being blind to the enormous consequences of such an act are not. Although the ending didn’t ruin a hauntingly well written book it did leave a slightly bad taste in my mouth. Still, this is definitely recommended for anyone interested in a cracking good page turner. Just have a few pinches of salt ready at hand for the last 10 pages.