The Frozen River

The Frozen River 

by Ariel Lawhon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"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." -- publisher's blurb

This was not a book that jumped out at me as something I would be interested in, but it was fabulous! Lawhon brings her readers into the mind of Martha Ballard which is a fascinating place to be. The story includes a lot of hard things, but the narrator is a very practical and sensible woman who's matter-of-fact dealing with what is put in front of her keeps the book from being too harrowing to read. I loved the ending!

This book counts toward the 2024 Historical Fiction reading challenge.  

Review: The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress

The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lawhon has taken a famous unsolved mystery, the disappearance in the early 1930s of Judge Crater, and crafted a plausible solution. Some of the characters in the novel are based on real people, some are composites, and some are totally made-up. The story jumps around in time as different bits of the puzzle are revealed from the points of view of various characters. The three women in the title each narrate pieces of the story and each woman develops as a full character over the course of the book. Overall a page-turner and an intriguing solution to the puzzle.