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The Terror by Dan Simmons

In 1845, the Franklin Expedition with 129 men aboard two British ships, the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, set sail for Canada's Arctic Circle in search of the Northwest Passage. They became frozen in the ice for years and were never seen again. With The Terror, Dan Simmons creates a fictional account of life aboard the frozen ships as the officers and crew deal with the bitter cold, scurvy, lead poisoning, and some creature or evil that is taking the men one by one. Led by Sir John Franklin, and Captain Francis Crozier after Franklin's death, the men struggle to find a way to survive. Among them is a mute Inuit girl they call Lady Silence, and the men are not sure if she's part of their possible redemption or their demise. Dan Simmon's novel has received positive reviews with the Seattle Times saying, "Told from multiple perspectives, The Terror answers many questions arising from the loss of the historical Franklin Expedition, inventing satisfactory explanations of its fate where the real details long ago were lost to history. It examines other questions along the way: the nature of evil and how to confront it; the nature of courage and how to find it."