REVIEW: The Frozen River

By Denise @ Life With No Plot on January 27, 2025 • ( 0 )

About the Book

Title: The Frozen River

Author: Ariel Lawhon

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 432

Edition Read: Hardcover

Dates Read: January 18-23, 2025

Blurb: Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.

Review

I don’t tend to read a lot of historical fiction and I’m not sure why. Every time I do, I enjoy it so much. It’s nice to learn something about history and learn about an entire way of life in a more engaging way. And I guess I didn’t pay attention to the information on this book at first because I didn’t realize until I read the author’s notes at the end that this was based on a true story! Which makes it even more amazing!

I love Martha so much. She is such a no-nonsense person (which in her line of work, she has to be) but she is also such a compassionate force of nature. She is someone who has had many challenges in her life and has met them to become someone who fights for others. Rebecca Foster’s story is a tragic one, but one that women even today still face, especially when the attacker is one of the more powerful men in town.

Special shout out to Martha’s husband, Ephraim, for just being an absolutely amazing man. I did really enjoy seeing their relationship, how a couple getting on in years, with several grown children, were still very much in love and still very attracted to each other. Everyone should want a love like theirs. It was beautiful and such a sharp contrast to other relationships portrayed among some of the other cast of characters

I did really enjoy seeing a glimpse into what life was like back in this time period and in such a brutal climate. How the river was such a huge part of the town’s livelihood and so much of their year was based on when the river would freeze and unfreeze. It was a much simpler time, but there were still societal issues that we still see today. I read the author’s notes at the end of the book and loved seeing the methods that Lawhon used to research into Martha’s life using her own writings as well as a biography that had been published previously. Her life is embellished a bit, since what still exists in incomplete, but I appreciated Lawhon’s way of honoring her legacy while still filling in details of her own to round out the story.

Fun fact: I’m reading this right now while the heat in my house is out. Nothing like the middle of winter in rural Maine, but it’s been cold to me! Hoping to have the new heating unit put in sometime this week (fingers crossed).

Overall, this was a wonderful book and I definitely recommend it to anyone who loves historical fiction, but also to anyone who just loves a good, well told story.

GoodReads rating: 5 stars