In 1856 the HM Brig Coventry, tossing in a wild maelstrom is thought to be cursed by two unwanted passengers. When an unusual bottle of wine is found by one of the crew members, the captain is hailed and warned that Mr. and Mrs. Copley are of evil nature. To save the ship from plummeting down to Davy Jones Locker, Sinclair and Eleanor Copley are bound in iron chains and with their sea chest of strange wine bottles, are tossed overboard to drown in icy seas.

In present day Antarctica young wilderness photographer Michael Wilde is on location to shoot some underwater photographs for Eco Travel magazine. He has a two month pass to work with researchers and scientists assisting with various projects of weather, wildlife and the natural habit conditions at the South Pole.

While diving beneath the polar ice cap with high hopes of stunning photographs, Michael unearths an antique bottle of what appears to be Madeira. Putting the old bottle in his scavenger sack and swimming further, he finds an entire sea chest of them, and nearby, within a sunken iceberg, the haunting face of a beautiful woman. Thinking his oxygen level must be affecting his coherency, he resurfaces topside to inform the crew of what he thinks he saw. Armed with ice cutting equipment and additional oxygen, Michael and another researcher dive again beneath the frigid waters and uncover the find of a lifetime. Two people, a man and a woman, frozen in time, enchained together in a block of ice for centuries. Cutting them free, hauling them above to safety, has the Antarctic team in awe and bewilderment at what they have found. Secrets are kept from the outside world, and decisions are made after careful contemplation on the best way to thaw these icy specters from the past without decomposition. The Victorian lovers are placed in a saltwater bath for what should be a slow and carefully timed melting process. But….while Michael and the team patiently wait, and do some lab tests on the wine bottle contents, Sinclair and Eleanor Copley not only defrost, but come…alive!

Robert Masello has penned a phenomenal suspense horror novel that I doubt any reader could contemplate putting down for one minute. His talent to slowly build the tension as he alternates the story from the Victorian past with Sinclair as a soldier in the 17th Lancers Division during the Crimean War, and Eleanor as a nurse working side by side with Florence Nightingale mending wounded soldiers, to the shocking and violent events in the present as the researchers at the South Pole are under attack and fight one nightmarish battle after another. As the famous Charge of the Light Brigade serves up a battlefield of dead and bloodied soldiers, a sinister entity feeds on the flesh and turn Eleanor and Sinclair into thirsty immortals damned for all eternity.

Two entwining stories chained together for a future revelation offer up a superb blend of history, romance, science, and horror. The way this story unravels, is not what you may think, it does not follow the usual rule of thumb, and what I really loved was that the author took an age old story we’ve all read before and spun a really cool new twist that ended in a most unique way. Robert Masello gives us a well written complex plot, wonderful endearing characters fully developed, and a suspenseful horror novel blended with a surprising integration of love and tenderness amidst the horrors of war and amongst the philosophies of what it means to be human. Where the dividing line between man and monster lies, is brilliantly found between the pages of Blood and Ice.

I LOVED this book !!!! ( )

The worst book I read in 2009, hands down. I expected to like it, what with the combination of so many interests - vampires, journalism, science, the Crimean War, etc. The writing as prose wasn't too bad, but the plot-anvils and atrocious characterizations made me wish I could burn it to save other library patrons. I could have accepted the main character being guilt-ridden enough to act totally obsessed, but to have ALL the scientists encountered conspiring in a massive coverup (those that weren't dead yet, anyway), including the brilliant one who just wanted to go back to his fissssshhhh, was just unbelievable. I could go on and on, but I don't want to spoil it any more for those less critical than I. ( )

I was disappointed with this lengthy work. The ending was not helpful at all. There was still far too much left unresolved. And most of the emphasis on the "other" woman in his life, and her sister, was just sort of dropped. There was a lot of icy detail which was fairly convincing but there did seem to be a lot of effort spent on going back and forth "between" time periods and on traversing expanses of ice. ( )

Ugh. Hated this book. Too much back story, too much detail, not enough thrills. Could have cut out about 300 pages and made it much better. ( )

A somewhat different take on vampires. Michael Wilde is a journalist on assignment in Antarctica to take pictures and write a documentary for Eco-Travel magazine. While diving they discover two people frozen in ice. The story bounces back from the life the couple led in the 1800s, how they ended up in the frigid ocean, to present day at the South Pole. Sometimes the back stories slowed the pace. Although the history and science are intriguing, things for me didn't get interesting until the couple thawed out.