Ice

Can the truth thaw Chrissa's frozen heart?

It's been three years since Chrissa's father walked out of her life. Too angry even to speak to her mother, Chrissa is obsessed with finding the answers to her questions: Why did her father leave? Why does she never hear from him? And is it somehow her fault, for not being the daughter he wanted her to be?

Now, unable to deal with Chrissa's silence, her mother has sent her away from New York City home to spend a year in the country with her grandmother. Perhaps in Gram's house, in the rural community which her father grew up, Chrissa will discover the secret of his disappearance.

Instead, Chrissa finds more secrets and suspicions. And, surprisingly, she finds strength she never knew she had. Strength she will need when she must confront the most devastating secret of all.

PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR, who was born in Anderson, Indiana, has lived in several different places around the country, but got the idea for Ice when she was speaking at schools in the Rochester, New York, area. She now lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her husband, Rex. They are the parents of two grown sons, Jeff and Michael, and have two grandchildren.

Ms. Naylor is the author of more than eighty books, including Night Cry, which won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, The Fear Place, the popular Alice books, and Shiloh, winner of the 1992 Newbery Medal.