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    The Ice Queen
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    The Ice Queen
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    The Ice Queen
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Ice Queen

    Written by Alice Hoffman

    Narrated by Nancy Travis

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the bestselling author of The Rules of Magic, a miraculous, enthralling tale of a woman who is struck by lightning, and finds her frozen heart is suddenly burning.
    Be careful what you wish for. A woman who was touched by tragedy as a child now lives a quiet life, keeping other people at a cool distance. She even believes she wants it that way. Then one day she utters an idle wish and, while standing in her house, is struck by lightning. But instead of ending her life, this cataclysmic event sparks a strange and powerful new beginning.
    She goes in search of Lazarus Jones, a fellow survivor who was struck dead, then simply got up and walked away. Perhaps this stranger who has seen death face to face can teach her to live without fear. When she finds him, he is her perfect opposite, a burning man whose breath can boil water and whose touch scorches. As an obsessive love affair begins between them, both hide their most dangerous secrets–what happened in the past that turned one to ice and the other to fire.
    A magical story of passion, loss, and renewal, The Ice Queen is Alice Hoffman at her electrifying best.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateApr 1, 2005
    ISBN9781594831607
    Unavailable
    The Ice Queen
    Author

    Alice Hoffman

    Alice Hoffman is the bestselling author of twenty-one acclaimed novels, including The River King, The Ice Queen, The Third Angel, Here on Earth and Practical Magic (made into a film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman). She currently lives in Boston and New York.

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    Reviews for The Ice Queen

    3.5/5

    703 ratings47 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Alice Hoffmann's writing is beautiful. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the words that I forget I'm reading a novel, but the story is wonderful too!
    • 4/5
      Very good read
    • 5/5
      Slowly but surely, I'm falling completely in love with Alice Hoffman's work.The soft mix of magical realism and undeniable reality--especially the realities we so often hate to face--seems to be her specialty, and here it is at its best. Something like a grown-up's fairy tale, this was a story which was never less predictable than it was in its first moments. The characters are both familiar and understandable, and utterly foreign and original. And, just as terrifying as this is the fact that you can feel--with all five of your senses--each move of the book. If you're looking for a relaxed dose of fantasy with a relaxed dose of reality, and much beautiful seemingly effortless writing, you should read this. (And, this stands even if the book sounds rather unappealing on its surface--I admit, it sounded rather unappealing to me when I first happened upon it, until I began reading that is.)
    • 3/5
      Um, not sure really what I felt about this novel. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it, either. I think the pacing was off. Sometimes I'd get really bored, and just annoyed with the main character - her thoughts were very repetitive. And then there were times where I could barely stop reading. The whole fairy tale obsession thing didn't make much sense to me, either. I don't know, maybe the best description for this book is "weird".
    • 2/5
      Interesting premise about survivors of lightening strikes but it never really gets engrossing. The main character is unlikable and unsympathetic, too self-centered and morose. The "fire and ice" love affair is overdone and just "fizzles" out.
    • 4/5
      I picked this one up off the shelves on a whim yesterday. I read it in one sitting which means that I loved the writing - reminded me a bit of Sarah Addison Allen's writing, and I love magical realism. This was my very first Hoffman, but it won't be my last. I am having trouble deciding how to rate it though - probably four stars for the writing and three stars for the story, so maybe a 3.5? It was like a modern day fairy tale, and I love fairy tales, so that aspect really appealed to me. It just felt a little, I don't know, maybe a little too busy? Too much happening for such a small book? Although life can be like that - sometimes it feels too full. Here the main character, whose name we never learn, makes a wish one evening:"Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back....I made my wish in January, the season of ice...It happened on the sixteenth, my mother's birthday....When she went to leave, I ran after her. I was barefoot on the porch and my feet stung. The rain had frozen and was hitting against the corrugated green fiberglass roof. It sounded like a gun. Ice had slipped onto the floorboards and turned the wood to glass. I begged my mother not to go. Queen of the universe. The girl who thought of no one else but herself. Now I know the most desperate arguments are always over foolish things. The moment that changes a path of a life is the one that's invisible, that dissolves like sugar in water. But tell that to an eight-year-old girl....I made my wish. Right away, I could feel it burning. I could taste the bitterness of it; still I went ahead. I wished I would never see her again. I told her straight to her face. I wishes she would disappear right there, right then."When her mother is killed in a car accident that night, the young girl who loves fairy tales writes her own fairy tale in her head - about a selfish girl who turns to ice. "After a while, she became invisible, queen of the ice. Silence was her language, and her heart had turned a perfect pale silver color. It was so hard nothing could shatter it."As an adult, she becomes a librarian and proceeds to live a very carefully closed life. Then something happens that changes everything - lightening strikes. Literally. I don't want to ruin the story, so I'll stop there, but I do want to mention that I loved the language of this book. I liked how the main character talked and thought about books, and how she knew that the ones that we read reveal truths about us. I liked how the Grimm's Fairy Tales that she loved as a child are interwoven into the story and into her mindset. A charming and at times uncomfortable read that was well worth an afternoon of my time. I love books like that.
    • 2/5
      Nothing special. My main comment is that the narrator tries to convince you she's this cold, unfeeling person, but she's got a lot of emotions for someone who supposedly doesn't care. Maybe she's just trying to convince herself, because I wasn't fooled. The reader for this audio tried to convey the cold characterization, but it just comes across as monotone or disdainful. It doesn't work. It could be an interesting book if you're obsessed with lightning strikes, but that's just a plot device in the novel.
    • 5/5
      I just finished an audiobook reading of The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman. All I can say is wow. This is the first book since Find Me that made me cry, yet I never felt that the author was manipulating my emotions (which is, perhaps, why I was able to cry, since it was so subtle and crept up on me that I wasn't prepared). The entire book was dark, and for at least half of it I disliked the female protagonist, but the last half of the book details her redemption and was so powerful and intense that I was literally breathless and, as I said, I actually found myself sobbing at times. It is a story of a woman who, because of a terrible tragedy in her childhood that she believes she caused, tries to make sense of Death and, after she is struck by lightening and survives, ends up making sense of Life. It's a book I am sure I'm going to reread again, it is that good.
    • 3/5
      For such a good writer, this was an oddly unlikeable novel. I loved the magical parts, but the narrator spent most of the time feeling sorry for herself. Not one of her best novels.
    • 1/5
      I get it. He's fire, you're ice, you're upset about your mom. I GET IT!!!I couldn't finish this one. Icky.
    • 4/5
      This isn’t the type of book I would normally enjoy. The narrator/main character is rather depressing, and I spent a good part of the book wanting to slap her and yell "get a grip, would ya?". However, her initial state just makes her transformation more compelling. And if you ask me, the key to it isn’t Lazarus Jones — it’s her sister-in-law. Lazarus, despite his interesting story, is just another repeat in the pattern of her life.

      In my opinion, this book is worth the read if only for the touching end with her brother. It was well worth the frustrating first half.
    • 4/5
      Though I have several of Alice Hoffman's novels waiting on my shelf, this was actually the first I've read. Had I quit the book about halfway through, I probably would've rated it lower. Fortunately, the second half was more engaging & the storyline branched out in several ways that I wasn't necessarily expecting. I found the main character (unnamed in this novel) really quite unlikeable with her continual condescension and self-pity, and though she experiences somewhat of a transformation by the end of the story, she still left me unsettled. Still, the novel was redeeming in the fact that it did explore various themes, some rather hard to believe (although I think Hoffman is known for the "magical" aspects in her stories), but still quite deep & meaningful.
    • 4/5
      I've had this book forever and just finally got around to reading it. The book begins, "Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back. They bruise and bake and come back to haunt you. I've made far too many wishes in my lifetime, the first when I was eight years old."The story is told in this first-person voice throughout the book, and we never learn the narrator's name. In fact, when I got ready to post this, I had to go back and make sure that I hadn't just missed her name. I know this was a conscious decision by the author. It fits very well with the loneliness and guilt that the narrator carries. She doesn't feel that she deserves to be known because of that wish that she believes changed the course of her life.She spends her life avoiding meaningful relationships with people. The only person she believes has ever truly loved her despite her flaws is her grandmother who cares for her and her brother after her mother dies. However, when her grandmother dies many years later, the young woman is thrown into a tail spin all over again. Though they've never really been all that close, her brother convinces her to move to Florida where he and his wife are college professors. She continues to drift through her life until the unthinkable happens. She makes another wish that comes true. She is hit by lightning, which begins another strange chapter in her life. Through a lightning survivor study group at the college, she learns about Lazarus Jones, a man who is said to have died for forty minutes after his lightning strike. Having always been fascinated by death, she seeks him out hoping to learn something from him.This a short, powerful book. Like most of Hoffman's books, the reader has to be able to suspend disbelief. However, she makes it quite easy to do so. Though her premise is strange, I didn't really question anything about it. The book is heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time and one I highly recommend.
    • 4/5
      This Hoffman was a little different than the others I've read - it was much sadder, but still just as good. It starts with a young girl, angry at her mother, wishing that she never sees her again. Well, she gets her wish. It follows her into adulthood, where she becomes a person who is totally trustworthy, but never shares her own emotions or own feelings. One day, after losing her grandmother, the woman who raised her, she is struck by lightening. She seeks out a man who is reportedly came back from death after his strike - and they become involved in a passionate relationship. This book deals with a lot of loss and really touched me - I sobbed through the last 20-30 pages. This is a good one who feels up to a good cry and who wants to read about renewal and about how we all deal with tragedy.
    • 4/5
      I listened to the audio format of THE ICE QUEEN, and once again Nancy Travis gave an amazing performance and captured the magic, passion, and sorrow of Alice Hoffman’s novel. THE ICE QUEEN is a dark fairy tale about a lonely librarian who learns the hard way to be careful what she wishes. Wishes do come true, but not always with the desired outcome. From the beginning, the story had a dreamlike quality that held me captive. Hoffman always delivers gorgeous imagery and stunning prose, and I think she outdid herself with this novel.This is the fourth book I’ve read by Alice Hoffman, and it’s also the saddest. It started sad and got sadder, but such was the tale of a morose, lightning-struck librarian and her obsession, a man named Lazarus who cheated death. Had I not been listening to this while in the car with other people, I would have been a sobbing mess the last 30 minutes for sure. Even so, the ending left me hopeful, and I’m so glad I gave THE ICE QUEEN a listen.
    • 3/5
      It started off seriously depressing and graduated into a sense of happiness. The writing style didn't appeal to me as it seemed a bit bland and monotonous, but the character was interesting in the way that she viewed herself, others and life in general. The symbolism references of her life, butterflies and the chaos theory was beautiful, and perhaps this plot contributed towards her monotonous poetic-like writing style.
    • 3/5
      I feel really guilty, I normally love Alice Hoffman's writing, but this book just didn't engage me. Not that the writing wasn't good, or that the ideas were ambiguous or that the imagery was missing -- it just didn't capture me. When over halfway into the I didn't like or care about any of the characters, I started skim-reading. I caught many of the fairytale references and could have a willing suspension of disbelief on some things that happen in the story. Even so, I found it a bit too melancholy for my tastes.
    • 4/5
      A quick, engrossing novel with recurring fairy tale and weather-related motifs and elements of magical realism. The protagonist is a depressed librarian deeply affected by childhood tragedy, who eventually learns to feel, love and live.
    • 4/5
      This book started out a little boring and uninteresting but that soon changed. It is about a woman who wishes to get struck by lightning, only to have her wish come true.
    • 5/5
      So far the best Alice Hoffman..not sure if it can get any better than The Ice Queen. I cried
    • 2/5
      It left me cold. Is this a bad Alice Hoffman book? Or, have her books always been bad, and I have changed, perhaps? I haven't read anything by her for about 10 years, but I remember enjoying her writing. This was very disappointing. I wouldn't have finished it had I not been waiting for something to redeem it. Unfortunately, it never came.
    • 3/5
      Interesting story, but lacked "something" that Alice Hoffman's novels usually have. A quick book and easy read but not my favorite Hoffman book.
    • 4/5
      As I was disappointed with the last book by Hoffman, I wasn't expecting much from the Ice Queen. Surprisingly, it drew me in and kept me turning the pages, making it a quick, one-day read. I didn't even notice until the end that the narrator had never been named. It makes the story feel more personal, causing it to hit closer to home. Very enjoyable, magical and introspective.
    • 2/5
      I had high hopes for this book. A friend recommended it, and I went out and bought it. I wish I hadn't wasted my time or money. It was a short book, but seemed drug out and long winded. The main character's life is changed after she is struck by lightening... sounds interesting, but it really wasn't. I found the main character to be very unlikable and some of the scenarios to be too far-fetched. The entire book was a disappointment for me.
    • 1/5
      Oh. My. God.This book. It was never ending! The style of the writing was dull. Yes, some of it did have a poetic twist about it, but really? It was depressing. That's pretty much all that can be said for it - the author can force the reader into depression. When I read the main character's emotions, I actually felt like I was on a down spiral. Yes, that's a good skill. But Alice Hoffman doesn't stop! It is all misery. Not just understandable misery, either. Misery about the stupidest, childish things. I couldn't stand another page of it.I am disappointed. It started like Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West but it didn't take off, and I felt no connection to the nameless protagonist. I got midway, where Lazarus Jones is talking about his past to the nameless she. I ended up reading one sentence per paragraph and I was still depressed and bored of the lack of emotions.*** (some time later)So, I did finish it.It was as anticlimactic as a story without a upward curve of anticipation can be. It wasn't worth the time, even when I only read one sentence in three.I'm glad it's over.
    • 2/5
      Incoherent, dull, depressing and the nameless protagonist is unsympathetic to the point where you just don't want to hear her thoughts anymore.Although the last chapter did pick up, it was too little too late.
    • 4/5
      The Ice Queen is more than a story, it’s almost an internal extensive self-dialogue. The narrator (unnamed and it took me the whole novel to realize that) at a young age wishes her mother dead and her wish comes true. Because of this she wanders through the rest of her life half asleep, always cold, and alone. When she is struck by lightning her brother moves her to Florida where the real meat of the story starts. She makes a friend, finds a lover, and salvages a relationship with her brother. In essence, it’s a coming of age story about a lonely woman who finds life on the other side of death. Hoffman’s voice of this character cannot be compared, it’s complete and true and feels 100 percent real. The novel is tense and suspenseful at times, making you feel like the other shoe is about to drop. And it’s lonely and sad at others. We feel the Florida humidty and taste the oranges. of the two Hoffman novels I’ve read, the other being The Third Angel, it’s not my favorite. But it is something writers should check out as a fabulous example of how to write a solid, consistent voice of a character. And it’s also full of lovely little “this is how life is” lines that belong in a book of quotes.
    • 4/5
      Alice Hoffman is a captivating author. This is a compassionate, enchanting story. Gentle, dark, sad; Touched with redemption, love, hope; full of fairy tales and tragedy, lightning strikes, struggles, healing. I like the way you think the character's thoughts and feel what she feels as she processes and grows and learns. Beautiful language and deep thoughts on life and death. Good read.
    • 2/5
      I liked how this book started out but it seemed to fall apart in the middle with all the sex ,yes I know its supposed be a metaphor for her coming alive again. Her whole relationship with Lazarus was ok but I didn’t care about either of them and for it to work for me I have to care about the characters. You can only listen to her talk about the ice in her veins for so long before you scream Shut Up and Get Over it! Yes, your evil, your wishes come true blah blah.The ending gave our narrator (she is never named) a little reprieve but it was too little too late. Not one I’ll be recommending.I’m still not sure if I am a fan of Alice Hoffman I love magical realism but this one fell short for me I will try more by this author but I am hoping to find that one that makes everyone love Alice Hoffman’s books so much.
    • 4/5
      I realized about halfway through that I'd read this before but I enjoyed it the second time as well. This is about a women unable to get close to anyone--until she gets struck by lightning and has a relationship with another lightning strike survivor. Hoffman is as always a great writer and storyteller.