The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon My rating: 1 of 5 stars The Gist Let’s be honest: historical fiction often walks a fine line between reverence and reinvention. In The Frozen River, that line isn’t just crossed—it’s erased. Ariel Lawhon dramatizes the life of Martha Ballard, an 18th-century midwife whose actual diary inspired the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. But instead of adding something new, this version repackages history into fiction that feels simplified, flattened, and uncomfortably polished. The Details Martha Ballard wasn’t a fictional construct. She lived, worked, and recorded the world around her with honesty and grit. Her diary opened a rare window into…