Title: THE FROZEN RIVER
Author: Ariel Lawhon
Read: August 2024
Expected publication: out now
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!
Book Description (Goodreads):
A gripping historical mystery
inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century
midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.
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.
My musings:
I love books based on real-life historical people,
but not every author has the skill to imbue their fictional counterparts with as
believable personalities as Lawhon has done with each and every one of her
characters in THE FROZEN RIVER. For me, her book was like time travel back in
time and place to meet midwife Martha Ballard as she is looking after the women
in her small community in Maine. Of course, I knew that women of her time did
not enjoy the same rights and freedom as we do today, but some of the
historical facts still stunned me.
Based on the real Martha Ballard’s
diary, which mainly recorded births and deaths and weather details, Lawhon blended
fact and fiction to bring her own version of Martha and her large family to
life. I liked her instantly, this intelligent, brave woman who will risk her
own safety to fight for justice. Being a midwife, she is not only called upon
to deliver babies but also to examine women who have been raped, or bodies when
there has been an accident or a suspicious death. Martha is also able to read
and write – not common for women of her time – and keeps a meticulous account
of all her clients and events. When a man is found drowned in the river, she is
the person called upon to determine what could have caused his accident. In
Martha’s opinion, the death looks suspicious, with the man bearing wounds that
point to a fight or an assault. She also knows that the same man had been
accused of raping a local woman recently. But not everyone shares her opinion,
and in a society where men have more power, this could prove to be very dangerous
for her.
Thus starts a gripping mystery with a wonderfully atmospheric setting that had me spellbound from beginning to end – I could not get enough of this book!
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