The Frozen River
In November 1789 a body is pulled from the ice of the Kennebec River in Hallowell, Maine, and Martha Ballard, the town's longtime midwife, is called in to examine it. Martha, a real eighteenth-century figure whose daily diary Lawhon draws from, has already been keeping careful notes on a separate rape case brought by a local minister's wife, and the two investigations begin to entangle. Over a long, punishing winter Martha treads between neighbor's kitchens, the Pownalborough courthouse, and the half-frozen river, defending her patients and her own hard-won authority against men who resent both. Ariel Lawhon's novel is a richly sourced historical mystery rooted in an actual diary, and its frontier midwife is one of the stronger central characters in recent American historical fiction.
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The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Ariel Lawhon fictionalizes the real Maine midwife Martha Ballard. In 1789, the body of a man frozen into the Kennebec River in Hallowell turns out to be a recent rape suspect, and Martha's testimony becomes the heart of the case.
Yes. The Frozen River is fictional but built around the real Martha Ballard, a Maine midwife whose 27-year diary survives. Ariel Lawhon used the diary extensively. The frozen-river murder at the center is invented.
The Frozen River was a Reese's Book Club pick and a New York Times bestseller. Ariel Lawhon's earlier novels include Code Name Helene and I Was Anastasia.
The Frozen River was written by Ariel Lawhon, published in 2023 by Doubleday.
The Frozen River is 448 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Frozen River takes most readers 7 to 10 hours to finish.
The Frozen River is a standalone novel by Ariel Lawhon, not part of a series.
The Frozen River is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
