Still on my Mind #2

This Thursday weekly meme is hosted by Haley at YA-Aholic! It gives us a chance to reflect on a book/novel we had read in the past that still effects us today!

My pick for this week came out in 2006, and it is STILL on my mind! I was 17 at the time, and I went into it thinking it was something completely different, and it ended up being amazing and mindblowing.

The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman (link to Goodreads)
Released: January 3rd, 2006
Description from Goodreads:

From the bestselling author of Practical Magic, a miraculous, enthralling tale of a woman who is struck by lightning, and finds her frozen heart is suddenly burning.

Be careful what you wish for. A small town librarian lives a quiet life without much excitement. One day, she mutters an idle wish and, while standing in her house, is struck by lightning. But instead of ending her life, this cataclysmic event sparks it into a new beginning.

She goes in search of Lazarus Jones, a fellow survivor who was struck dead, then simply got up and walked away. Perhaps this stranger who has seen death face to face can teach her to live without fear. When she finds him, he is her opposite, a burning man whose breath can boil water and whose touch scorches. As an obsessive love affair begins between them, both are forced to hide their most dangerous secrets--what turned one to ice and the other to fire.

A magical story of passion, loss, and renewal, The Ice Queen is Alice Hoffman at her electrifying best.

What initially drew my attention was that the main character is a librarian. I went through a phase in high school where I could not get enough of the library (turns out, I never got over my love of libraries). I would be out of town and I HAD to visit the local library to see what it was like. Every new library I visited told me a lot about the town it was in, the people that lived there, and the community that frequented it. So when I read the blurb about this book by Alice Hoffman, who already was known for being a phenomenal writer, I requested it from my local library. But this story was not just about her occupation, it was about a serious event in her life that brought her to terms with other aspects of her life, as well as helping her find love in an unconvential place.

This story was a page turner, and I read it in one or two sittings, needing to know what was going to happen next. One of the main issues in the story is slowly unraveled, concerning the love interest of the main character, and when you find out, it's not a let down, it just made so much sense to me. I mean, I was 17 at the time and it was an intense love affair they had going on, so it was interesting just because of that, but it was dealing with lightning strike victims/survivors and it was something I had never been introduced to before.

Why is it still on my mind? Now that all these paranormal stories are coming out, it makes me think back to all the novels I've read in the past that could have been a paranormal story, if I had any say in it. Some adult novels are just considered a mystery or science fiction if it has a slightly different take on either human abilities or emotions. I felt that this adult novel by Hoffman was so abnormal and beyond what I was used to, it was almost supernatural to me. It's still on my mind because the material covered was not what I was used to and it opened the door for me into adult science fiction and paranormal stories. It's one of the stories that I am thankful I had read when I was younger because I learned from the experiences the main characters went through and it ignited my interest in other aspects of stories, such as relationships and the connections that bring people together.

What's On (your) Mind??

Happy Reading!