November 2025 Book Club

Our next book is Ariel Lawhon “Frozen River” chosen by our member Donna DiM. This book has everything, love, loss, rape, lies, family, womans career, prejudice, mystery, bad weather, horses, falcons, watermills, frozen river, legal property issues, real estate fraud, sleep deprivation and the tough life in the New American colony. I loved this book. 

When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy. Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” There are compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family’s lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death.

Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River.
The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. (Outlander, anyone?) Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold.

There is an endnote with detailed background which makes this book a part of history.