Product Description

A fairy tale for grown ups, 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. The story begins with a little girl who makes a wish one snowy night and ruins her life. She grows up with a splinter of ice in her heart until one day, standing by her kitchen window, she is struck by lightning. Instead of killing her, this cataclysmic event sparks off a new beginning. She seeks out Lazarus Jones, a fellow lightning survivor. 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, second chances and the secrets that come to define us, if we're not careful.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87788 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

The Independent
"Hypnotic, and extremely touching."

Synopsis
A fairy tale for grown ups, 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. The story begins with a little girl who makes a wish one snowy night and ruins her life. She grows up with a splinter of ice in her heart until one day, standing by her kitchen window, she is struck by lightning. Instead of killing her, this cataclysmic event sparks off a new beginning. She seeks out Lazarus Jones, a fellow lightning survivor. 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, second chances and the secrets that come to define us, if we're not careful.

From the Publisher
Alice Hoffman at her electrifying best, in a dark, compelling and magical novel about grief, addictive passion and second chances

Customer Reviews

MAGIC AND MYSTICISM

Remember childhood superstitions? "Step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back." So, as youngsters we did all we could do to avoid those sidewalk cracks. How about wishing upon a star? Many of us once believed that if you wished upon the first star you saw at night and wished hard enough that wish just might come true.

Fortunately, most of us do not have the ability of Alice Hoffman's narrator who begins her story by saying, "Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things, they burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back. They bruise and bake and come back to haunt you. I've made far too many wishes in my lifetime, the first when I was eight years old."

Her wish was that she would never see her mother again, and that proved to be true. A fatal automobile accident on an icy road takes her mother's life and forever changes our heroine who grows up to become a librarian, an ice queen if you will, remaining apart, aloof and trying to convince herself that she does not care.

Ned, her older brother by four years, takes a different route. He becomes a meteorologist, studying adverse weather conditions. In adulthood he invites her to join him in Florida. Once there, she is struck by lightning which serves to melt her long nurtured reserve.

There are many other survivors of lightning strikes, one in particular - Lazarus Jones, who was supposedly dead for forty minutes after being struck. Once she begins to thaw the ice queen realizes all that she has been missing and seeks out Lazarus.

The love affair that develops between them is pure Hoffman - a bit of magic as fire meets ice. Written in impeccable prose, The Ice Queen is superbly crafted, the work of a master wordsmith. This all too brief story is an affirmation of life and all that it offers; it is one we will not soon forget.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

Fabulous, realistic, compelling


This story starts with an unlikely premise : a woman whose heart has been turned into ice. She can't feel anything ; empathy is a closed book.She's been like this since the night in her childhood when her mother died ; she functions, in a manner of speaking, holds down a job, is an acceptable citizen. Yet something is missing. Along comes unlikely premise number two : this woman gets struck by lightning and becomes humanized, starts to feel again, even to the extent of falling in love with, who else ? another survivor of a lightning-strike.

In hands less skilled and magical than Hoffman's, all this could soon become preposterous. But with Hoffman, it doesn't. Fairy tale intertwines with realism ; terror and anguish get all mixed up with beauty. I really cared about these people, couldn't put the book down.

I've yet to read a disappointing Alice Hoffman. May I recommend some of her novels ostensibly for "younger readers", namely "Aquamarine," "Indigo" and "Green Angel" ? I'm off now to order some more Hoffman titles, to make my summer a special thing.

What a find...
I LOVED this book. It grabbed my attention so fully that I got stuck reading it in the bath for 2 hours! Seriously I just had to find out what happened at the end, and was sobbing mess by the time I'd finished. It made me cry both with saddness, empathy and joy..... Sigh!
This was my first dip in to Alice Hoffmans world, and I instantly became hooked, what an author! Her ability to create characters that you genuinely care about is rare, and the magical atmosphere she creates that builds as you read on grips you more and more! If you enjoy bieng totally immersed in a book then I wholly recommend this.