Sarah Stonich’s sophomore novel, The Ice Chorus, is one of those rare books in which all the parts come together seamlessly. The ideas, plot, characters, and images all work to entertain the reader with the rich story of Liselle’s life-changing romance with Charlie, an artist she met in Mexico.

Liselle, living in a non-descript Irish fishing town, films and interviews her new neighbors for a nascent documentary about love, waits for her artist lover to return, and mulls over her affair with Charlie, her marriage, and her tragic relationship with her father. It is a romantic story that looks beyond mere romance to examine the way passionate love affects every part of life, including where people live and the direction of their careers.

Also posted on Rose City Reader. ( )

At its most basic, The Ice Chorus is a story about a woman named Liselle who had an affair, and has travelled to Ireland to get away from her life. She's just gotten divorced from her husband, and her teenage son won't speak to her for more than a minute. The story unfolds moving from the present through flashbacks to show Liselle's life and how she met the man she loves, and how her relationship with her family changes, and how she ends up in the middle of nowhere on the Irish coast, asking other people how they fell in love, and documenting it all on film. That's a brief description of the plot. A very brief description, because The Ice Chorus is quite obviously more than just the plot.

The cover of the book has a quote which says: "Any woman who ever had her heart cracked open by a man should read The Ice Chorus." But I completely disagree. I don't think having had your heart cracked is a requirement. I think every woman in general should read it (and men too). Yes it deals with love, and loss, and heartbreak; but it deals with more than just those emotions. It shows the fragility of women and the raw hurt of loss, but it also shows the immense strength all women possess, and the unexplainable bond of love.

I can't rave enough about Sarah Stonich and her writing; it's just that amazing. The characters are real, and the emotions are heartbreaking and true. She captures these stories and people in a beautifully unique and impossibly artistic way.

A million stars. Read it. And read her first book, These Granite Islands, too. ( )

What happens when you are in your life, filling out the shape of it, and suddenly you see someone and you hear a voice inside your soul say, "Now here's someone."

Love has no rules.

It makes no sense.

It finds you.

Sarah Stonich's The Ice Chorus is a profoundly moving story of love, betrayal, hope, redemption and healing. Lise's life has fallen apart. Her marriage of 18 years to archeologist Stephen has crumbled, and soaring above all the mess is a painter named Charlie. She met him while visiting Stephen on a dig in Mexico, and suddenly she heard it, that little but powerful voice inside her, "Now here's someone."

The story takes place in Ireland and, from her memory, in Mexico. Stonich paints vivid pictures of both places, and her writing is poetic without being too much so. It is not cliche, in my opinion, the characters are real and the dialogue is completely believable, as are the circumstances that surround the entire storyline.

If you like a good love story, then The Ice Chorus is for you. But it's so much more than that. It has layers of love. The layers you find in your own life. The love of a husband and wife, Mother and son, Father and daughter - friend. The love of Remy and Margaret, two new friends and allies in Lise's fight to heal herself from her own misery, is perhaps one of the most amazing of all. Remy, who is such a real character, has written "pages" to his wife every single day of there 40 plus year marriage. Poems, snippets of a song, words of love.

Hands gloved now in crepe of years,
Ease this rough brow
with silken care,
affix the buttons o'er my heart

One of my favourite scenes in the book is when Lise (a documentary film maker) decides to film people in the Irish village she is living in. She soon realizes that the story she is telling through her lens is simple - Love. As in "What is.." Remy encourages her to set up her camera in his hardware shop and record the various customers who wander in and out. Instead of just straight dialogue or 'he said' or "she said", Stonich bookends dialogue with mannerisms, and moments that, to the reader, bring the characters alive.

"Ah, bless you." Kenny faces the camera. "Now what's it you're after?"

Remy crosses his arms. "How you met your bride."

Kenny rubs his forehead. "Oh yeah, I should remember that, sure now. How I met Theresa... how I met..."

Lise looks to Remy, now leaning over the register. "Take your time, Kenny."

Kenny sits, crosses and uncrosses his legs three times. "A course I remember. The year, anyway. That was 'fifty-five, I think. Yup." He leans forward, temples clamped between fists as if he might squeeze out the memory. "Theresa. She was my mother's Saturday girl, for the laundry and what-not. She ironed a shirt for me to wear to a dance I was taking another girl to." He seems pleased to have remembered, but his smile fades quickly. "Theresa. We had forty good years. A great girl, yeah.. a great girl... Christ, Remy, have you a tissue on ya?"

Remy was my favourite character in that he was endearing and funny and a hopeless romantic beneath that rough irish exterior. A father figure to Lise, he was the anchor that held her fast as the seas of her choices raged about her.

By the end of the long day, word has swept the village and a few more people come around to offer their stories. Whether Remy's intended to or not Lise cannot know, but he's introduced her into the tight society of the village, person by person, story by story. Lise may be an outsider still, but perhaps less a stranger.

When he insists she sit down herself, Lise balks.
"How I met Stephen?"
"Nah, the other. The one."
"Oh." She sits and looks at her knees. When she tilts her chin up, Remy nods

While in the store, after many quick answers to "how did you meet your mate?", an old couple sits down and here is the exchange:

A middle-aged farm couple peer shyly from the aisle, hoping to slip out unnoticed, but Remy fetches another chair and steers them both to sit. The wife speaks first.
"We met at a church supper."
"No, Katie, it was a church jumble sale."
"It was a supper, love."
"Sale."
"Supper."
"Randall, you've not remembered one birthday or anniversary without being reminded in twenty-seven years, so how in Christ would you remember how we met!" The woman goes shrill. "I'm telling you now, it was a bleeding supper!"

Randall's neck goes the colour of a beet as he faces the lens. "We met at a church supper."

It's this kind of thing that made Ice Chorus more than a love story. It made me think, "What would I say about my love?" It is also going to hit home to those of us of a "certain age" (cough), as in over 40. If you are married, have children, and are 40 ish and have put your own life on hold to raise your family, then this book will really resonate with you. Heck, you could be ANY age and relate to that! I think that it also may start some healthy debate about morals and fidelity, and what it really means to love someone. ( )

Liselle has met the man of her dreams. The problem is, she is married to someone else. When she sees Charlie, a fire ignites and the passion she feels is something her husband has never given her. Liselle realizes that life is short and true love is a wonderful emotion. The affair begins.

Finally knowing what it feels like to really live, Liselle decides to document the lives of average, everyday people. Soon she finds out that in order to express the lives of others, she also needs to confess her own life story.

One word: riveting. ( )