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  • Published: 1 May 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099488835
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

The Ice Queen



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

Alice Hoffman is at her electrifying best in this fairy tale for grown-ups. 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.

  • Published: 1 May 2006
  • ISBN: 9780099488835
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

About the author

Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman is the bestselling author of acclaimed novels, including Here on Earth (an Oprah Book Club selection), Practical Magic (a Hollywood film), The River King, Blue Diary, Turtle Moon, Skylight Confessions and most recently The Third Angel. Blackbird House was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. She divides her time between Boston and New York City.

Also by Alice Hoffman

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Praise for The Ice Queen

Alice Hoffman is erotic and romantic, funny and clever and humane

The Times

Like her contemporaries, Carol Shields and Alice Munro, Hoffman has an acute eye for detail - Hoffman writes with heartbreaking clarity

The Times

Alice Hoffman is a daring and able writer; she plots conjunctions of mundane and magical events with such ease that the reader never doubts her word

New Yorker

[Hoffman] does it beautifully, composing a lyrical tale that does not waster a single word, a shamelessly heart-breaking story that will leave barely a dry eye in the house

Lesley McDowell, Independent on Sunday

Enchanting

Sunday Times

It's easy to get absorbed in this novel...Life is not like this, but would it be such a bad thing if there were a it more magic in the world?

Daily Telegraph

A strangely provocative, grown-up fairy fable

Good Housekeeping

Cuts deeply into the griefs and passions that shape us all and into heartbreaking secrets

The Times

Emotionally compelling

Psychologies Magazine

Hoffman writes as beautifully as ever

Marie Claire

Hoffman knows that good fairytales, like people, are never simple

Herald

Beautifully written, mystical and intriguing, this is a story of life, death, love and second chances. Enthralling

Woman and Home

Hoffman delivers one of the best plot twists I can remember

Observer

Hoffman is a skilled and experienced writer... beautifully constructed

Guardian