The Frozen River
by Ariel Lawhon
GENRE: Historical Fiction, Thriller
Maine, 1789: As a midwife in the town of Hallowell, Martha Ballard knows how to keep a secret. Her neighbors respect her not only for her medical expertise and calm under pressure, but for her discretion in a community governed by rigid Puritan values. So when a man is found under the ice in the Kennebec river, Martha is the first person called to examine the body.
The dead man is Joshua Burgess, recently accused, along with the town judge, Joseph North, of raping the preacher's wife, Rebecca Foster. The case is set to go to trial in the coming months and Hallowell is churning with rumors. Martha, having tended to Rebecca’s wounds in the aftermath, is both a witness and a confidant of Rebecca’s, and while she feels certain she knows the truth of the night of the assault, she suspects there is more to the murder than meets the eye.
For years, Martha has recounted her every day in a leather-bound journal: deaths and births, the weather, town events, her patients and their treatments. As whispers and prejudices threaten to overflow into something bloodier, and North becomes more desperate to clear his name, Martha’s diary becomes the center of a mystery that risks tearing both her family and her town apart.
Ariel Lawhon is a critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of historical fiction. Her novels include: The Frozen River, Code Name Hélène; I Was Anastasia; Flight of Dreams; The Wife, The Maid and the Mistress; When We Had Wings (co-written with Kristina McMorris and Susan Meissner); and Barriers to Entry an Amazon Original Short Story. Her books have been translated into numerous languages and have been Good Morning America Book Club, Library Reads, One Book One County, Indie Next, Costco, Amazon Spotlight, and Book of the Month Club selections. She lives in the rolling hills outside Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and four sons. She splits her time between the grocery store and the baseball field. - Author's website
Booklist
Spanning the winter of 1789–90 in Hallowell, Maine, from the freezing of the Kennebec River to its late thaw, Lawhon’s outstanding sixth novel is based on the actual life of frontier midwife Martha Ballard, who recorded daily diary entries about her household and career. Called to examine the body of Joshua Burgess after it was retrieved from icy waters, Martha recognizes the telltale signs of hanging. Burgess and another man, a local judge, had been accused of raping a young pastor’s wife four months earlier, and Martha believes her account unquestioningly. She also guesses the two crimes are connected. A sage, strong presence at 54, Martha is an extraordinary character. Devoted to her patients and her six surviving children, mostly young adults with complicated love lives, she battles subjugation by a Harvard-educated doctor who dares to think her incapable. Although this isn’t a traditional detective story, Martha’s narrative will capture historical mystery fans’ attention with its dramatic courtroom scenes and emphasis on justice, particularly for women. Flashbacks to Martha’s past add context and generate additional suspense. Martha’s enduring romance with her supportive husband, Ephraim, is beautifully evoked, and details about the lives of the townspeople make the post-American Revolutionary atmosphere feel fully lived-in. Lawhon’s first-rate tale should entrance readers passionate about early America and women’s history. -- Sarah Johnson (Reviewed 10/15/2023)
Publisher's Weekly
Lawhon (Code Name Hélène) draws from the diary of an 18th-century midwife for the stirring story of one woman’s quest for justice. In 1789 Maine, 54-year-old midwife Martha Ballard is asked to help determine the cause of death for Joshua Burgess, an accused rapist whose body was found frozen in the river. Martha is convinced that Burgess was beaten and hanged before he was thrown into the water. Several months earlier, she treated a woman named Rebecca Foster for injuries sustained from rape, and Rebecca told her the assailants were Burgess and Joseph North, a judge. After a court determines there’s not enough evidence against North for a rape charge, despite Martha’s testimony about Rebecca’s injuries, a trial is arranged on different charges, but North disappears. Martha attempts to prove Burgess was murdered, hoping to bring scrutiny to North as a suspect in the killing, whose motive may have been to keep Burgess from testifying against him about the rape. Lawhon combines modern prose with the immediacy of her source material, making for an accessible and textured narrative. This accomplished historical powerfully speaks to centuries-old inequities that remain in the present day. (Dec.)
Kirkus
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction. (Kirkus Reviews, Aug. 12, 2023)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Agony Hill
by Sarah Stewart Taylor
In the hot summer of 1965, Bostonian Franklin Warren arrives in Bethany, Vermont, to take a position as a detective with the state police. Warren's new home is on the verge of monumental change; the interstates under construction will bring new people, new opportunities, and new problems to Vermont, and the Cold War and protests against the war in Vietnam have finally reached the dirt roads and rolling pastures of Bethany.
Warren has barely unpacked when he's called up to a remote farm on Agony Hill. Former New Yorker and Back-to-the-Lander Hugh Weber seems to have set fire to his barn and himself, with the door barred from the inside, but things aren’t adding up for Warren. The people of Bethany—from Weber’s enigmatic wife to Warren's neighbor, widow and amateur detective Alice Bellows — clearly have secrets they’d like to keep, but Warren can’t tell if the truth about Weber’s death is one of them. As he gets to know his new home and grapples with the tragedy that brought him there, Warren is drawn to the people and traditions of small town Vermont, even as he finds darkness amidst the beauty.
Alias Grace
by Margaret Atwood
It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress.
Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders. An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?
Year of Wonders
by Geraldine Brooks
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."
