From the bestselling author of Here on Earth, a miraculous, enthralling tale of a woman who is struck by lightning, and finds her frozen heart is suddenly burning.Be careful what you wish for. A woman who was touched by tragedy as a child now lives a quiet life, keeping other people at a cool distance. She even believes she wants it that way. Then one day she utters an idle wish and, while … wish and, while standing in her house, is struck by lightning. But instead of ending her life, this cataclysmic event sparks a strange and powerful new beginning.
She goes in search of Lazarus Jones, a fellow survivor who was struck dead, then simply got up and 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 perfect opposite, a burning man whose breath can boil water and whose touch scorches. As an obsessive love affair begins between them, both hide their most dangerous secrets–what happened in the past that turned one to ice and the other to fire.
A magical story of passion, loss, and renewal, The Ice Queen is Alice Hoffman at her electrifying best.
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Explores interesting side-effects of getting hit by lightning and how that changes a person’s life.
Loved it
I’m a big fan of Hoffman and have read and enjoyedall her books. This was an interesting read.
What if you were struck by lightning? How would that affect you emotionally? Would you try to find comfort or solace in others who had the same fate? Would you open yourself up to love? How would treat your family and friends?
All of those questions are answered in the story. The novel is narrated by unnamed woman who has been struck by lightning in her home state of New Jersey. She grew up with a distant mother and had a lukewarm relationship with her older brother. Because of those family relationships, the narrator was dubbed the nickname, The Ice Queen.
However, she decides to move to Florida after her ordeal in order to become closer to her brother, who has become a professor at a local university. Also, Florida is the lightning capital of America and her brother is doing research into lightning-strike victims. (I’m a native Floridian and this was another reason why I chose to read this book.)
The narrator meets another lightning-strike victim named Lazarus Jones. The two have a passionate romance but she begins to find out that Lazarus may not be whom he said he was originally. The narrator learns a lot about herself through this affair and begins a process of character growth because of it.
Also, there is an event with the narrator’s brother that begins to bring the two closer together. The brother remembers reading fairy tales to the narrator while growing up and that bond becomes an important discovery as he is dealing with this event in his own life.
The Ice Queen is a beautifully written, well-told story of a woman’s transformation after tragedy. Also, Hoffman shows the role of fairy tales and how the power of story could be used as a healing balm.
Intriguing premise about two people whose lives have changed drastically after being literally struck by lightning. Written as only Alice can pen them
This book was recommended to me by a friend. I’d never read anything by Alice Hoffman before. The Ice Queen is one of those hauntingly beautiful stories about loss, self-pity, tragedy, and how human it is be consumed by all three, and also how essential it is to get that kick in the pants to snap you out of it. Well worth the read, particularly if you’ve experienced a death in the family. I found it soothed a bit of my ache.
Love everything by Alice Hoffman.
This was a decent book. Not bad but not super wonderful either.
I love Alice Hoffman novels. And this, one of her shortest, is absolutely masterful, gorgeous and utterly mesmerizing. One of her few Florida based novels, From the main character–a librarian–to the phenomenon of getting struck by lightning, to the freaking butterflies. This is Hoffman at her absolute best and most haunting. Loved it! — Alice Bello is the author of Hate Him XOXO and Holding onto Hope