The Frozen River

Huge, huge, but it's big.

So anyway, this is by the author of Frozen River.

River.

Which you've read, I haven't.

It's been hot all year.

Frozen River, literally cannot keep Frozen River in stock.

Long Bright River, which is great.

Oh, I love that.

And then, do you know a book that sells all the time and we're always out of it? It's The Secret History.

Really? OK, well, I loved that book, too.

So it is crazy to me sometimes when I'm like, how are we possibly out of Frozen River? I feel like we just got 10 of them in and I look and they're gone.

Yeah.

She is a critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of historical fiction.

She has written books like The Frozen River, Code Name Helene, and her latest book, The Pirate Queen, is out now.

Ariel Lawhon, thank you so much for joining us on In The Good Books.

Thank you for having me.

...

in historical fiction in a way that is much harder in contemporary fiction, and here's an example of that.

My last novel, The Frozen River, murder mystery, rape trial, midwife in Maine.

You could have opened the newspaper on any day and read all of those stories, all of those things happening to people in the world around you.

I thought it was really interesting.

Um, and there's actually a more modern book based off of "A Midwife's Tale," as well as Martha Ballard's, uh, diary, called "The Frozen River" by Ariel Lawhon, which is what I read first and how I got into this.

Would recommend if you're into a mystery historical-

Ooh

She's fantastic.

Yeah, I've heard great things about the Frozen River.

That's one multiple people have read.

very good

The next one is The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon.

She wrote The Frozen River.

Yes.

She's the one that wrote The Frozen River.

Didn't you say this was a long book?

It was.

Yeah, like the horror of the system marginalizing people and injustice.

You know, when you're like, "What can I do?" 'Cause, like, this would never, ever be classified as horror, but just in the last couple weeks I read The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon.

It takes place in 1789 in Maine.

It's interesting 'cause it goes into, like, the justice system of very early era Maine, and there wasn't the system of courts that we have today.

Yes.

Ariel Lawhon's The Frozen River.

Yeah.

And this book bends the mystery genre into the strict, unforgiving realm of historical fact.

There is an author's note at the end, and I would recommend that you read it at the end, where she placed it.

I talked about The Frozen River is another novel by Ariel Lawhon that had a very important author's note at the end that I was glad that I also read at the end.

There are some spoilers.

She also suggested, and I hope this isn't a spoiler, she made the suggestion that if one were to want to read it again, and it is over 500 pages, you could actually read the story by reading each of those linearly.