Kim Baldwin

The action, characters, and conflicts in Breaking the Ice are nicely paced, relatable, and stirring. I like the fact that Karla isn't another of those "always calm and kind" type of characters. She is in what, to her, is a high-pressure situation, and she behaves accordingly. After being told she can't reach her destination that evening, Karla responds by being demanding, impatient, and self-centered. Hey, look! It's a human! What do you know? The icing on the cake is that her sister behaves show more similarly. Stuff like that increases my enjoyment in a book..
Bryson is a good character, too, but, like Lars, is a very "go with the flow" kind of person, which make sense, given her chosen career, but also makes her a little harder to relate to.
Overall, I enjoyed this book very much, and look forward to reading more by Kim Baldwin. show less

I give this novel five stars because it has everything I want in a lesbian romance: far-off places, deadly peril, multiple avalanches, mountain climbing, and people dying. The two protagonists were realistic and sympathetic, and there was nothing contrived standing in the way of their relationship, just that fact that they were in mortal danger trapped on a train in an avalanche. I need to read more of this sort of adventure story and less of the ones where a woman moves back to her show more hometown, etc.

My one complaint is that all the survivors on the train had some sort of description (and most of them had names) except for “the two Japanese couples.” show less

Lives depend on two women when a train derails high in the remote Alps due to an avalanche. Hudson Mead who is an extreme skier and Steffi Graham who is a rock climber set out over deadly terrain to get help for the others who are buried in the train under the snow from the avalanche some severely injured with sparse food available. Steffi is a librarian who does not have much experience in the harsh dangerous ice and snow conditions and to make the situation more difficult has a lack of show more confidence in herself. Hudson on the other hand is a reporter for the Associated Press having been in war zones, natural disasters, wherever the story took her but Hudson has no climbing skills and is not used to relying on anybody but herself and her cameraman Joe who is her best friend.

This is one of the most amazing fiction adventure stories I have ever read. I found my hands hurting from gripping my Kindle so hard do to the fact this story has you by the seat of your pants the whole way through. The book also goes deeper into peoples psyche on the will to survive and having to put full trust into someone you do not know. All the characters are very well developed. This is considered a lesbian book. I assume do to the fact there are lesbians in the book and it has a very small romance part between women. I believe this book is for everyone! If you love adventure books you will love this one. Read it you will not regret it!

(I recieved this book from NetGalley for an honest review.)
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Wow.

The book is mainly about Hudson, an AP reporter, one who is very good at her job and very well respected as well. And Steffi, a Librarian from Washington State.

They both like winter sports, Hudson likes Extreme Skiing, and Steffi climbs with a group of her friends including Kris with who she works and Kris' partner Fin.

The story starts pretty methodically for almost the first half of the novel. I wouldn't say it was a slow start, because I was pulled right into the story, but it was a show more leisurely start. We got to know all the characters, which made sense because without getting me to care or not care about the characters the second part of the story wouldn't have been as impactful. And boy was it seriously impactful.

All the characters get on a train called the Bernina Express that winds itself through the Swiss Alps. The two groups meet Anna, a mother on a solo vacation, and Clay on the train. He's a guy who built the entire route, mountains, snow and all before he ever got on the the real thing. Of course there's the climbing group too, and the extreme skiing group, that includes a TV reporter named JT who for the most part seems to be the human antagonist in the story. Of course, the main antagonist in the novle is Nature.

The turn of the story happens high up in the Swiss Alps. It also turned this novel from a liesurly lesbian romance to --bamm-- a thriller. And it was an awesome thriller. Everything from the first incident to the last was amazingly written, and it was all so tightly written as well.

If I could only read on Lesbian Fiction book this year, I know it's only August, but this would be it. Just awesome, and amazing, and I wasn't even sure who was going to survive and who wasn't. A great, at least five star book.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books. show less