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THE FROZEN LAKE
by Elizabeth Edmondson
HarperCollins, January 2005
496 pages
6.99GBP
ISBN: 0007184867


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

In 1936 the lakes of the Lake District in England froze over for the first time in 16 years. This was treated as a newsworthy event and many people who had grown up in the area, or had spent any time there, reacted to it with enthusiasm. Many were willing to spend their days on the frozen lakes, with memories of bonfires and good fellowship of the past uppermost in their thoughts.

Alix Richardson and Hal Grindley are two people who have made up their minds to return to their family homesteads, partly because of nostalgia and partly to ascertain that family ties were not forever strained to the breaking point.

Alix had left Wyncrag several years ago to escape her domineering grandmother. She and her twin brother Edwin had grown up there after the death of their parents and a sister. Lady Richardson was not a caring person, nor one to have charge of young people. All of her passion and love went to the oldest boy in the family, Jack, who had been killed in the first world war. By all accounts, Jack was brutal, conniving and had no friends. But his mother loved him to the exclusion of all her other children and her grandchildren.

Alix has returned determined to learn more about her mother, who died in the United States 16 years ago, while her brother Edwin is only concerned with the young woman he is in love with. Leila is most unsuitable; she is a Jewish refugee from Austria.

Hal had been gone from Grindley Hall (neighbor of Wyncrag in Westmoreland) for over 10 years. There was no love lost among the brothers in the family but he was a principal in the family business and occasionally they had to deal with each other. His family believes he is a struggling actor on the Broadway stage. He allows them their fantasy; in reality he is one of the major producers on Broadway, only using a different name. Hal can't really say why it pleases him to fool his family; nevertheless it does.

This is a big book -­ big in size and bigger in scope. There are many characters (a cast of characters would have been a nice addition) and after eventually managing to get a handle on them, I was able to keep everyone sorted out. The two families' lives were intertwining over the years and members of both families were privy to the trials and troubles of the others.

The two main plots concern Alix's desire to learn more about her mother and Hal's brothers' determination to sell off one of their companies to a company in Germany. However there are several other subplots running concurrently. The author does an admirable job of interweaving all of the characters and their lives, loves and pasts into a fascinating story. In spite of its being close to 500 pages, it is a hard book to put down. I cared about the characters, especially Alix and Hal and hope the author plans to continue their story in another book.

Ms Edmondson lives in Italy and Oxford. Her family has deep roots in the Lake District and she got the idea for the novel when she heard stories of the lakes freezing and by family snapshots on the ice. She has seamlessly blended romance, history and the beauty of the frozen countryside into a novel that flows beautifully. Not only does she give us a glimpse into the lives of the wealthy elite, we also are shown the restrictions of life in England between the wars.

Reviewed by Lorraine Gelly, March 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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