Iceling
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Seventeen-year-old Lorna embarks on a journey with her adoptive sister—one of the hundreds of teens found on a remote Arctic Island—to discover what really happened all those years ago.
“A story that delivers action, conspiracy, and betrayal alongside a meditation on love, family connection, and humanity."—Publishers Weekly
Two worlds. Two sisters. One secret.
Seventeen-year-old Lorna loves her adoptive sister, Callie. But Callie can’t say “I love you” back. In fact, Callie can’t say anything at all.
Because Callie is an Iceling—one of hundreds of teens who were discovered sixteen years ago on a remote Arctic island, all of them lacking the ability to speak or understand any known human language.
Mysterious and panicked events lead to the two sisters embarking on a journey to the north, and now Lorna starts to see that there’s a lot more to Callie’s origin story than she’d been led to believe. Little does she know what’s in store, and that she’s about to uncover the terrifying secret about who—and what—Callie really is.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
All her life, Lorna has known that her younger sister, Callie one of the orphans Lorna's scientist father found at sea and brought to the U.S. is different. Callie has fits and doesn't speak, just like the other rescued children, now teenagers, that Lorna calls icelings and that the government that monitors them calls Arctic Recovery Orphans. But Lorna loves Callie, and she believes that Callie loves her, too. Then Callie's fits worsen, and one day she builds a detailed model of an island and makes it clear that she needs to go there. Seventeen-year-old Lorna and Callie hit the road with another set of siblings, Stan and Ted, heading north and meeting other iceling-sibling pairs as they travel. Stephenson's intriguing debut, first in a planned series, is a combination road trip story, SF tale, and adventure yarn. The occasional plot hole and an abrupt ending (even knowing that another book is on the way) don't take too much away from a story that delivers action, conspiracy, and betrayal alongside a meditation on love, family connection, and humanity. Ages 12 up.
