The Frozen River

Better Reading Book Review

"The Frozen River is the latest richly woven historical mystery from New York Times bestselling author, Ariel Lawhon. Inspired by the diary of a renowned 18th-century midwife and healer, Martha Ballard, who investigates a shocking murder that unhinges her small community, this gripping tale satisfies with every twist and turn.

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Lawhon wastes no time in setting the scene for the discovery of a man’s body in the frozen Kennebec River in Maine, 1798. Even before the end of the two-page prologue, rich with haunting snippets of the man’s last movements, it’s clear we are in extremely capable hands. Lawhon’s writing is immensely evocative and the austere tone perfectly suits this post-revolutionary American setting.

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Local midwife Martha Ballard is summonsed to examine the man’s body and help determine the cause of death. She’s convinced that Burgess, an accused rapist, was beaten and hanged before he was thrown into the water and that his murder is linked to the rape case. Months earlier, she’d treated Rebecca Foster for injuries sustained from rape, and one of the accused assailants was the dead man along with the town’s esteemed judge. It’s all documented in Martha’s diary, where she records every birth, death, and debacle that unfolds in the town of Hallowell.

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Over the course of one long, hard winter, whispers and prejudices mount, and Martha’s diary lands her at the centre of the scandal, threatening to tear both her family and her community apart. This is Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction and it’s a brilliantly satisfying novel. Her prose is effortless and eloquent and easily transports the reader back hundreds of years.

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As with Nancy Wake in her last historical, Code Name Hélène from 2020, Lawhon has created a stirring portrait in Martha Ballard – a real-life yet largely overlooked heroine. There’s a level of intimacy and intensity to Martha’s story, told in the first person. Many of the compelling scenes of childbirth include events and phrases pulled directly from Martha Ballard’s really diary. In Lawhon’s expert hands, and infused with imagination and intrigue, it’s as though a door is opened and we are smack-bang in Martha’s world, moving between childbed, courtroom and the banks of the Kennebec River.

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This is a thrilling, tense and tender story of a remarkable woman who had the courage to take a stand. Lawhon has written a gorgeous, haunting puzzle of a book that will grip you until the final page."

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