The ice is forming late this year. Very late. Trapped on land, the polar bears are growing hungry. Very hungry. Ravenous.

Kat Girard is in her second year as manager of the Polar Bear Alert Program in Borea, Manitoba, the polar bear eco-tourism capital of the world. Every fall, over a thousand bears migrate through the town on their way to the frozen Hudson Bay, drawing crowds of tourists hoping to glimpse the north’s deadliest predators up close.

But the bay shows no sign of freezing this year, leaving a horde of hungry polar bears isolated on land. Kat has her hands full managing the impatient wildlife, alongside arrogant and ignorant business owners more interested in tourist money than the growing danger all around them. What none of them know is that one bear has grown tired of waiting for the ice—and others soon follow suit. A sudden storm threatens to trap the entire town with land’s biggest living carnivores as an unprecedented hunger grips them.

Kat and the scientists and wildlife experts she works with respect these deadly apex predators. But those who don’t are about to see nature take its ultimate revenge.

Mark D. Freeman holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Wildlife Biology from the University of Vermont. His fieldwork has taken him from tracking grizzlies in the Northern Cascades and Canadian Rockies to studying black bears in Connecticut. He has also written, produced, and co-directed two independent films. After earning his MFA in Creative Writing from the Mountainview Master of Fine Arts program, he began writing fiction that bridges scientific insight with deeply human stories.