A clever historical fiction on a subject you don’t read about often. Loved it – so unique.
Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.
Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie. (Goodreads Blurb)
This book is highly rated on Goodreads but if you look at the reviews, it does feel either you loved it or you hated it. With the loving it in large numbers more.
I fall into the category of ‘I liked it’. And every point that everyone that disliked the book made, I totally agree with it.
I thought it would be fun to go through a lot of the criticisms that I read others made and talk about it.
Martha was preachy. She was judgey, even though she acted like others shouldn’t have been judgey. I think her judgment came from the year. The judgment was that if you get pregnant out of marriage, your life is hard harder for yourselves. So why are you doing it?
When it comes to the year, the above point is probably the only reason I understood that we weren’t in 2024. The book was a bit too modern for the year. It was trying to be written. On the other hand, I think that’s why so many people could take to the book. Because it wasn’t difficult to read, and it was more modern.
The book was way too long. I agree. This book could’ve completely been shortened on the other hand sometimes along dragged out. Book is just what you need. Yes, there is a lot of heavy editing that could’ve occurred, but it wasn’t as nauseating to me as it was to other readers.
The journal entries were repetitive. I will admit I read this on my Kindle and the font that was used for the journal entry was very difficult to read. So, I skipped basically all of them. (Ha!) nice to know that I wasn’t missing out on any critical information. (Haha) if you read the authors note, though, the journal entries were her big tie that made this historical fiction instead of just fiction. I get the authors want to add the journal entry, but maybe I would have artistically presented them in a different way.
Maybe this was just a lengthy book that I was in the mood for, but I found that the book was interesting and was extremely surprised that Martha was a real person by the end of the book. I hope that isn’t a spoiler for anyone, but I had no idea I was reading an historical fiction.
Overall, well done, and I would recommend all my reader friends.
Stats: 432 pages – First published December 5, 2023
cmacs paperbacks 
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