Ariel Lawhon joined us for a "Bookaccino Live" Book Group discussion of THE FROZEN RIVER, which was a "Good Morning America" Book Club pick and an NPR Book of the Year when it was published in hardcover last December. It is now available in paperback and is a Bookreporter Bets On selection. Our reviewer Pamela Kramer has this to say about the book, and it is so dead-on: "A book club would have myriad topics to discuss after reading this thoughtful novel about a time when the health care of women was often better left entirely to women themselves."

Ariel talks about Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife, and the diary that Martha kept for almost 30 years that informed so much of Ariel's writing. She points out that the voice of the book was not always first person, but the title never changed, and it took time to figure out exactly what would find its way into the story. While not biographical, the details are period correct. Some of the storytelling had to be compressed into the timeline of a single year, 1789, which is why THE FROZEN RIVER is fiction.

And yes, Ariel reveals what she is writing now, and when we can hope to see it.

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Art Credit: Tom Fitzgerald

Edited by Jordan Redd Productions