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 .

37 people found this 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.

22 people found this 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.

30 people found this 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.

13 people found this helpful

Just love this!

I love this book . I cannot guess how many times I have listened to it as it is my go-to book at night, or when I am waiting, or doing chemo.

12 people found this helpful

More period drama...

There isn’t much of a mystery here. That said, I chose to endeavor till the end because I enjoyed the writing style and the narration. The story is driven, or rather rests entirely, on the strength of its portrayal of plenty of interesting characters. Since there were so many characters to consider, I found that delightfully, not all were predictably or wholly likable or otherwise. Other than one domineering soul, that unsurprisingly had much to do with all the turmoil. So though the plot as a whole holds no suspense, the story is still quite engaging. And even then, the drama element doesn’t devolve into protracted, schmaltzy scenes.

10 people found this helpful

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.

7 people found this helpful

lots of characters

I have to say that I am surprised that I ended up enjoying this book as much as I did! Listening to a book with so many different characters and how they are all interconnected was a little bit confusing. But ultimately the characters were well-written, plenty to dislike and plenty of quirky characters to fall in love with. #happyending #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

3 people found this 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.

11 people found this helpful

Brilliant narration. Intricate story

This was an enjoyable mystery. The narrator does an amazing job with many distinct voices and accidents. Warning: Teenage girls are marginalized and victimized.

7 people found this helpful