The Frozen Lake

Enjoyable story, superb narration

I'd stongly recommend this to anyone who enjoys well-constructed 'tween wars British cozies. The characters are well drawn and the details of every day life in the upper class of that era are convincing. The descriptive writing and sense of place and time are excellent and occasionally beautiful. The plot is fairly predictable, but the writing and wonderful narration completely blotted out the book's flaws -- for me, anyway. McKenzie even gets the Welsh accent right, which is a painfully rare achievement .

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

Good story

I struggled to get all the characters straight in the beginning. Once I figured out who's who I really got into the book and hard a hard putting down.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Good listen

My first book by Elizabeth Edmondson, and the narration by Nicolette McKenzie was very good. I think the mystery aspect was somewhat secondary to the family tale, even though the focus of the book. It was not too hard to figure out as the book progressed. But the character development and story was quite good, and held my interest. I'd only say that it did seem very long, and though interesting, I felt ready for it to end. I would read or listen to other books by this author or narrator.

15 of 16 people found this review helpful

Great Character Driven Book

Any additional comments?

This is my fourth Elizabeth Edmondson novel. Her books are very character driven with a fully realized world, rich in details. I will say it took me a little while to get invested in the beginning of this book, as the number of characters can be hard to keep straight when in audiobook format. Someone on the amazon site has a list going and I used it as a reference in the beginning. I got to the "mystery" before the book did but as I said the characters are so well written I was happy to just follow along with them. The narrator was fantastic. I found this book to be a joy to read/listen to and look forward to reading more of her work.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Ok, but too long.

What did you like best about The Frozen Lake? What did you like least?

Grandmama had no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. I should have paired the audible version with a hard copy to keep better track of who is related to whom and which group lives on which side of the lake.

Would you recommend The Frozen Lake to your friends? Why or why not?

I did recommend it to my sister.

Which character – as performed by Nicolette McKenzie – was your favorite?

Great Aunt Daphne.

Do you think The Frozen Lake needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No. I would have trouble remembering who everybody was. It was hard enough this time.

7 of 9 people found this review helpful

We couldn't go to sleep without knowing....

This story kept the family awake, night after night, until it was over. The final multitude of chapters ending at 3am, because we couldn't leave it unfinished.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Boring, slow, didn't finish.

I found it to be an incredibly slow, boring plot with characters that were uninteresting and unlikable.

not up to her other books

I knew the outcome less than half way through and struggled to finish. I enjoyed her Very English Mystery books but was disappointed with this one.

Mediocre

What did you like best about The Frozen Lake? What did you like least?

Since I didn't hate this book, there had to be something I liked, but I can't think of it. I hate the way it was written! It would have been amazing if it were one of those slipping in and out of time stories, but this was written in a way that by the time the "mystery" was revealed, I already had it all figured out.

Would you recommend The Frozen Lake to your friends? Why or why not?

Nope. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend a book that is so poorly written and mostly boring.

What does Nicolette McKenzie bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

She was a fair narrator. I think if I were reading this book or it had a bad narrator, I would have just put it down.

Do you think The Frozen Lake needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Please, no! I cannot take anymore of the melodrama of these dumb families and the panty-waist relatives.

Any additional comments?

I'm going to give this author one more shot, if that one is as stupid as this one, I'm not touching another of her books. I mean, in at least 20 years of the matriarch dominating her family to the point of emotional and verbal abuse, not one person, even her husband, has the nerve to stand up for one another? No thanks.

Slow pace

The narrator was good but the story line was weak. The last 5chapters finally pulled everything together and then it was over.