Alice Hoffman at her electrifying best, in a dark, compelling and magical novel about grief, addictive passion and second chances. An electrifying novel about a woman struck by lightning, which brings together, as only Hoffman can, the fabulous and the real, chaos theory and the irrational everyday moment, in a compelling, haunting and sexy novel, with a sharp edge. As in a fairy tale (and the echo in the title is not accidental), the story starts with a little girl who makes a wish one snowy night and ruins her life. Her ...
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Alice Hoffman at her electrifying best, in a dark, compelling and magical novel about grief, addictive passion and second chances. An electrifying novel about a woman struck by lightning, which brings together, as only Hoffman can, the fabulous and the real, chaos theory and the irrational everyday moment, in a compelling, haunting and sexy novel, with a sharp edge. As in a fairy tale (and the echo in the title is not accidental), the story starts with a little girl who makes a wish one snowy night and ruins her life. Her mother is killed on an icy road. Be careful what you wish for. Later, as a smalltown librarian who knows more than is good for her about ways of death, she lives a quiet life without excitement. One day, standing by her kitchen window, she is struck by lightning. But instead of ending her life, this cataclysmic event sparks it into beginning - if only she knew what she was supposed to do with this second chance. She goes in search of Lazarus Jones, a fellow survivor who was struck dead for forty minutes, but walked away. Perhaps this stranger who has seen death face to face can teach her to live without fear. When she finds him, he is her opposite, a burning man whose breath can boil water and whose touch scorches. As an obsessive love affair begins between them, both are forced to hide their most dangerous secrets - what turned one to ice and the other to fire. The Ice Queen is a haunting story of passion, loss, and the secrets that come to define us, if we're not careful.
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Add this copy of The Ice Queen to cart. $14.75, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2006 by Back Bay Books.
This book. It was never ending! The style of the writing was dull. Yes, some of it did have a poetic twist about it, but really? It was depressing. That's pretty much all that can be said for it - the author can force the reader into depression. When I read the main character's emotions, I actually felt like I was on a down spiral. Yes, that's a good skill. But Alice Hoffman doesn't stop! It is all misery. Not just understandable misery, either. Misery about the stupidest, childish things. I couldn't stand another page of it.
I am disappointed. It started like Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West but it didn't take off, and I felt no connection to the nameless protagonist. I got midway, where Lazarus Jones is talking about his past to the nameless she. I ended up reading one sentence per paragraph and I was still depressed and bored of the lack of emotions.
The end was as anticlimactic as a story without a upward curve of anticipation can be. It wasn't worth the time, even when I only read one sentence in three.
