Customer Reviews

Breaking the Ice

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The other reviewers provide a synopsis of the novel, so I'll not bother.

A good book by Baldwin. It touches upon several events in her own life, and as a result, the book works rather well. So why not five stars? That annoying habit in soooo many lesbian fiction novels of wrapping up a 250+ page book in less than two pages! C'mon, folks. Please, can authors not have some say in their works and provide at least 5-10 pages for a proper resolution? Doing so makes for a better, more satisfying read. Authors, you put your blood, sweat, and tears in your books; are proper endings and resolutions lost in the editing process? I'm not picking on Ms. Baldwin, not at all. This is a trend I've noticed the last few years in lesbian fiction, and it bothers me. As a reader, I invest my time in a novel, and I want my investment to pay off. The payoff isn't so great when endings are lopped off and removed. I want the whole enchilada, and I don't mind paying for it. I don't like an enchilada that's short on ingredients. And now that I've mentioned food, I'll go grab a bite to eat. Perhaps an enchilada?? Who knows.

Karla Edwards suffers two staggering losses within a short time. First, her lover Abby walks out of what Karla thought was a satisfying relationship and then her mother dies suddenly in her sleep. The events leave Karla in a stupor wandering around her apartment in her pajamas unable to eat, bathe or communicate with the friends who are very worried about her. As she is going through her mother's belongings, she makes a startling discovery. Karla has a sister she never knew about. When she discovers that she lives in Alaska, Karla takes a leave of absence from her job as an ER nurse in Atlanta and heads north to meet the only family she has left.

Bryson Faulkner is a bush pilot in Alaska just like her father before her. She loves her isolated cabin, the surrounding wilderness and the excitement that her job brings her, but sometimes she does get lonely. The problem is she can't imagine herself living anywhere but where she is and she also can't imagine another woman being willing to settle for her kind of life. When she meets Karla, the sister of her best friend, that seems about to change, but Karla has a deeply wounded soul and finds it difficult to trust anyone. When Karla volunteers to stay with her sister to help her with the pending delivery of her baby, it gives her a chance to get to know Bryson and to fall in love with Alaska. What she has to decide is if she's willing to give up her job, friends and lifestyle in Atlanta for a harsh climate, wild creatures and a woman who might not come back sometime from a dangerous flight.

Kim Baldwin is skilled at taking a typical love story and turning it into something a little more. She writes realistic situations with interesting characters. That makes Breaking the Ice not just a romance, but also an adventure story. The descriptions of Alaska and the conditions there are vivid. The reader can feel the excitement of skimming over a glacier or the fear of wandering alone through a wilderness where the next thing around the bend might be a confrontation with a grizzly bear. The tone draws the reader into the story and the pace allows the characters to develop gradually, giving the reader a chance to feel she "knows" these people.

Breaking the Ice is a good book to spend a few hours with in an afternoon or evening when you want to be entertained.

I have always been a fan of Baldwin's writing, as it seems a cut above with many of the other Lez authors out there.
I really enjoyed this book, and the pace was just right, and the characters extremely likeable. I loved the fact that Baldwin
took the picture on the cover of the book as well. Although her book Hunter's Pursuit will always be my favorite, this
book is soon becoming my second favorite of hers, after the Elite Series. I would have rated this book a 4.5 if Amazon would
have had that as a option. I believe writers like Kim Baldwin, Tracey Richardson, Ronica Black and Ali Vali have set the
bar in Lez fiction, I think today's readers can be much more discriminatory and can demand more from the authors.

Won't belabor the details - plenty of that already written in previous reviews. This is another good adventure/romance from a predictably good author. I love when a character or a theme from a previous story shows up - tweaks my memory and helps to provide some more context. Well done reference to Whitewater Rendezvous. Like other reviewers, I'd like to see a more extended resolution - the characters deserve it as does us happy readers. Doesn't bother me enough to take away from a full-fledged recommendation for this story....read it- it'll definitely keep you entertained and interested.

Kim Baldwin can turn weather into a character in her novels. I normally hate cold weather but enjoyed the hot relationship in this book. If you like her other stories then you need to get this one.

This story was a nice romance with enjoyable and well depicted characters. The description of the scenery was one that makes me want to visit Alaska. The writing was tight and I didn't find any mistakes.

I've been told that I give too much of the story away in my reviews, so I will keep to the basics. Bryson and Karla are two characters that I liked. I found them "real" and their romance believable. Finding your soul mate is worth making changes in your life to be together.

There was one issue that I would have liked cleared up concerning the future for Karla's sister, Maggie, her baby, and of course Karla.

I would like to see another story resolving this, and also how Karla adjusts to life in the wilds.

I understand the author is coming out with another book about the Alaska wilderness in December. I look forward to reading it and hope to see a glimpse of the characters from this story, and how they are doing.

There are a number of things I like about Breaking the Ice. First, the setting is gorgeous and very well described. The premise-- woman realizes she has a half-sister in Alaska so goes up to get to know her and falls in love with her neighbor-- is fairly intriguing. And for the most part, both main characters are engaging. Really, the only exception there is that Karla is extremely impatient and rude when Bryson first meets her; this is remarked upon and rather quickly dismissed as the result of stress, but I think it was a bit excessive. Other than this one occasion, though, the characters are pretty solid and engaging. And I thoroughly adore the scene when Karla hurts her ankle going by herself to Bryson's house and Bryson has to go find her.

However, for all it's good points, I found the latter part of the book to have a few distracting flaws. The one that bugs me most is that, after a strikingly negative first meeting, Bryson and Karla warm up to each other very quickly, too quickly in my opinion. This is probably partly because I think Karla is excessively rude when she first meets Bryson, even given her stress levels, but I thought they both went from "I'm not sure I can stand her" to "ok, I forgive her" to "ooh, I really like her" rather too fast. They also move too quickly in my opinion from admitting they like each other to trying to have sex; that transition comes within the space of a couple pages.

Another point is that I never quite understood what it is about Karla that makes Bryson fall in love with her, so I think that part could have used some more attention.

And one other thing that annoys me with this book is how the ending deals with the characters' careers. While Karla's medical training will undoubtedly be invaluable in the Arctic, Karla gives up her whole career to be with Bryson. And while Karla mentions that the violence in the city gets her down sometimes, she indicates that there is a lot she likes about being a nurse. But she just gives it up, about as impulsively as she came to Alaska. I know this is a personal annoyance, but I just don't like that kind of lopsided sacrifice between the two parties. I read Robbi McCoy's Not Every River around the same time, and while the two stories are quite different, I thought McCoy's did a better job handling the two characters' careers.

Actually somewhere between 2 and 3 stars, but not quite 2, because I did like it

Standard solid romance novel with endearing characters.

Predictable plot, very sudden ending, you know the game. With those limitations it was a lovely story.

Just like so many lesfic romances it leaves me wanting something different. More meat to the stories, issues explored they only hint at. Something more than cookie-cutter romance. I didn't get that here either.

I enjoyed this book a lot. Baldwin is great at driving the plot forward. The opening, which takes place in a small plane in some very hazardous Alaskan conditions, is very exciting and it actually gave me chills.

This is a fascinating look at life in a remote Alaskan village. Bettles is the small dot located above the Arctic circle and when the land is not frozen is only accessible via the air. With twenty-four residents, all are dependent on each other for existence and entertainment.

Bryson Faulkner is forty years old and lives on her own in her remote cabin north of Bettles. She absolutely loves her life, when not ferrying goods or people to and from remote locations to Bettles or Fairbanks she can kick back and read and enjoy the gorgeous scenery. A native of Alaska she has followed the same career as her father. The one thing she would like to add would be someone to share it with. But in the remote location she has chosen her options are few and she isn't interested in settling for less than the right thing. Bryson is wonderfully self-confident, a good person and friends to all who know her.

Into her life crashes thirty-five year old Karla Edwards, an ER nurse from hot humid Atlanta Georgia. Karla's life in the last two months has been turned upside down and inside out, at this point there is nothing permanent or steady for her.

In other words they couldn't be more different. Outwardly at least.

The author gives the reader a good time bringing these separate elements together and blending them into a fun frozen treat.

If you like this book you will love the author's other stories -
Force of Nature
Whitewater Rendezvous
Flight Risk