Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
The Independent
"Hypnotic, and extremely touching."
Book Description
Alice Hoffman at her electrifying best, in a dark, compelling and magical novel about grief, addictive passion and second chances
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A 'fairy tale' for our times,
By
This review is from: The Ice Queen (Paperback)
This is the first Alice Hoffman novel I have read, having chosen it at random at the Airport. It gripped me from the first page. It describes a journey from childhood thoughtlessness to extreme loneliness and isolation as an adult. It creates a character we can believe (and sometimes empathise with). To survive, she denies all feelings towards both her fellow man and animals. But in the end she is 'rescued' through helping another - and through learning that love "changed your whole world. Even when you didn't want it to." This book is great. Read it.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous, realistic, compelling,
By ILONACAT (WIRRAL, ENGLAND) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Ice Queen (Paperback)
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Be careful what you wish for. . . Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things.",
By
This review is from: The Ice Queen (Hardcover)
This is the first book by Alice Hoffman that I have read. Perhaps I was drawn to it because I have always enjoyed fairy-tales, and this seemed to be one for adults; maybe I was drawn to it because, after a failed love affair, I wanted to try and discover something about that elusive element in my life. Having now finished the book, I remain touched by it.The story is about a young girl, the narrator, who makes a wish one winter night when she is angry at her mother. That wish, she feels, is the reason why her mother suffers a tragic accident and dies. She is the Ice Queen - she has a splinter of ice in her heart; death becomes an interest, bordering on obsession. Then, one day, this Ice Queen is standing by her window when she is struck by lightening. She is not killed but suffers side effects - her left side is paralysed and she loses the ability to see the colour red. But it is this experience which brings her into contact with another survivor, Lazarus Jones, a man who is her opposite; instead of ice he seems to be amde if fire. They meet and start a passionate love affair - an affair which has to be conducted carefully, else he burn her. But as their relationship develops, she discovers that just as she has her secrets, so too does Lazarus. The question behind the story is, do these secrets define them, or are people more than just the secrets they possess? I think because of the very nature of this book, it is not surprising that it is not full of laughs out loud - there are moments which are deeply painful to read. However, there are moments in the book which reach out and touch your heart. The reason why I think it has stayed with me, and probably shall for a while, is that Hoffman's writing is very powerful. While I was niave to think I could come to this book and find all the answers to the suffering that is sometimes called love, she does write quite profoundly. Real life is never like the fairy-tales we all grew up with; the happily ever after where they end fails to see that this is often just the beginning of a love story. Hoffman also shows that sometimes reality and fantasy can mix or become entangled, life is rarely clear cut. Perhaps that is why people love fsiry-tales so much, because they touch or world and our lives more than we truly realise. . . I would recommend this book - just not directly after a break up of a relationship, perhaps!
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
