The Color of Ice: A Novel

by Barbara Linn Probst

Overview

“Exquisite” (Lisa Barr, New York Times best-selling author of Woman on Fire) and “utterly engrossing” (Katherine Gray, cohost of the Netflix series Blown Away), The Color of Ice will wrap you in its spell, all the way to its unforgettable ending.

Set among the glaciers and thermal lagoons of Iceland, and framed by the magical art of glassblowing, The Color of Ice is the breathtaking story of a woman's awakening to passion, beauty, and the redemptive power of unconditional love. 

The stunning new novel by the author of award-winning novels Queen of the Owls and The Sound Between the Notes . . .

Cathryn McAllister, a freelance photographer, travels to Iceland for a photo shoot with an enigmatic artist who wants to capture the country’s iconic blue icebergs in glass. Her plan is to head out, when the job is done, on a carefully curated “best of Iceland” solo vacation. Widowed young, Cathryn has raised two children while achieving professional success. If the price of that efficiency has been the dimming of her fire—well, she hasn’t let herself think about it. Until now. 

 
Bit by bit, Cathryn abandons her itinerary to remain with Mack, the glassblower, who awakens a hunger for all the things she’s told herself she doesn’t need anymore. Passion. Vulnerability. Risk. Cathryn finds herself torn between the life—and self—she’s come to know and the new world Mack offers. Commitments await her back in America. But if she walks away, she’ll lose this chance to feel deeply again. Just when her path seems clear, she’s faced with a shocking discovery—and a devastating choice that shows her what love really is.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647422592
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	10/18/2022
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	492,991
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Barbara Linn Probst is an award-winning author of contemporary women’s fiction living on an historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Each of her novels has been a medalist for prestigious national awards, including the Nautilus Award, the Hawthorne Prize, the Independent Book Publishers Award in both literary and popular fiction, and the Sarton Award for Contemporary Fiction, for which she was the gold medalist. Barbara’s newest book, Roll the Sun Across the Sky, launches in May 2025.

Barbara has a PhD in clinical social work and is a former researcher, teacher, and therapist. She has conducted workshops for organizations including the Author Learning Center, the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and the Kauai Writers Conference, and has published more than 80 essays on the craft of writing and the writing life. In her spare time, she is a “serious amateur pianist” and an avid traveler to places such as India, Alaska, Spain, Italy, Armenia, and Iceland. Learn more on https://www.barbaralinnprobst.com/

Editorial Reviews

For The Color of Ice:

2023 National Indie Excellence Awards Winner in Women’s Fiction
2023 Winner in Women's Fiction for the National Indie Excellence Awards
Medalist in Literary Fiction from the Independent Book Publishers Association (IPPY)
Finalist for The Hawthorne Prize

“ . . .exquisite new novel . . . filled with spectacular moments of awakening . . . a passionate tale of love, loss, redemption, and healing as seen through the power of glass and ice. Color, form, and light ignite this woman’s journey by an artist who manages to open Cathryn’s closed heart. Probst gifts the reader with a seamless, rich portrayal of Iceland and how its natural beauty reflects and transforms everyone who touches its magnificent landscape.”
—Lisa Barr, New York Times best-selling author of The Unbreakables and Woman on Fire

“Barbara Linn Probst has written a brilliant novel of art and passion set against a stunning Icelandic backdrop. Readers will be drawn to Cathryn and Mack, two distinctly unique characters navigating the richly textured beauty of ice and light. Through vivid descriptions and a keen insightfulness, Probst creates a seamless journey of self-discovery culminating in acceptance, healing, and ultimately, unconditional love.” 

—Rochelle Weinstein, bestselling author of This is Not How It Ends and When We Let Go

“Seamlessly portrayed, tenderly sculpted, The Color of Ice is an alluring, stunning literary vision that’ll stay in your mind long after you finish it!”
—Weina Dai Randel, award-winning author of The Last Rose of Shanghai  

“In The Color of Ice, Barbara Linn Probst has gifted us another luminous story of art and passion. Her tale of discovery and forgiveness moves like a glassblower’s rod, always turning, always moving, like the breathtaking ice and glass—all the way to a stunning and unexpected ending that feels just right.”
—Diane Zinna, author of The All-Night Sun

“In The Color of Ice, Barbara Linn Probst gives us a vivid travelogue, an ode to art, and a compelling journey of self-discovery—all in one remarkable, utterly engrossing novel. The two main characters—one cerebral and restrained, the other, corporeal and instinctual—find in each other the key to unlock their artistic voice.”
—Katherine Gray, award-winning glass artist and resident evaluator on the Netflix series Blown Away

“Writing with beauty and insight, Barbara Linn Probst explores the power of landscape to influence the unfolding of artistic creation and the mysterious journey from passion to unconditional love and redemption.”
—JoAnne Tompkins, author of What Comes After

“An engaging narrative with an ending you won’t expect. A sensitive and sensual story of renewal.”
—Kirkus Reviews 




“Great for public libraries.”

—Booklist

Past praise for the author:

For The Sound Between The Notes

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2021
2021 Sarton Book Awards: Contemporary Fiction, Gold Medal Winner
2021 Nautilus Awards: Fiction, Silver Medal
2021 Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Finalist
2020 Readers Favorite Award: Women's Fiction
2020 DaVinci Eye Award, Eric Hoffer Awards: Best Cover Design

“The climax, on the night of her performance, is a tour de force steeped in suspense, and Susannah’s subsequent revelations are satisfying and authentic. A sensitive, astute exploration of artistic passion, family, and perseverance.”
—Kirkus Reviews, STARRED

“The Sound Between the Notes is so beautiful, so lyrical, so musical that it was hard to put down. . . . This is a wonderful story from a skillful writer, one that appeals strongly to the heart. It features awesome characters, a twisty plot, and gorgeous writing.”
—Readers’ Favorite 5-star review

“In her second novel, Barbara Linn Probst delivers yet another powerful story, balancing lyrical language with a skillfully paced plot to build a sensory-rich world that will delight those who loved Queen of the Owls and win countless new readers. Offering a deep exploration of the search for identity and connection, The Sound Between Notes reminds us to embrace everything we are—and everything that’s made us who we are.”
—Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY best-selling author of Perennials

“Family ties can bind or blind us—even with relatives we've never met. In The Sound Between the Notes, trails of music connect generations separated by adoption—while the same notes threaten a family believed sewn with steel threads.In this spellbinding novel, Barbara Linn Probst examines how the truth of love transcends genetics, even as strands of biology grip us. Once you begin this story, suffused with the majesty of music and the reveries of creation, the 'gotta know' will carry you all the way to the final note.”
—Randy Susan Meyers, international best-selling author of Waisted and The Comfort of Lies

“As soaring as the music it so lovingly describes, poignantly human, and relatable to anyone who’s ever wondered if it’s too late for their dream, The Sound Between the Notes is an exploration of our vulnerability to life’s timing and chance occurrences that influence our decisions, for better or worse. Probst creates her trademark intelligent suspense as Susannah, an adoptee trying for a mid-life resurrection of an abandoned music career, confronts lifelong questions of who she is. A story that speaks to our universal need to have someone who believes in us unequivocally, and how that person had better be ourselves.”
—Ellen Notbohm, award-winning author of The River by Starlight

Praise for Queen of the Owls

2020 Eric Hoffer First Horizon Award Finalist
2020 IPPY Awards Bronze Winner in Popular Fiction
2020 Eric Hoffer Award 1st Runner up in General Fiction

“A nuanced, insightful, culturally relevant investigation of one woman’s personal and artistic awakening, Queen of the Owls limns the distance between artist and muse, creator and critic, concealment and exposure.”
—Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times best-selling author of A Piece of the World and Orphan Train

“This is a stunner about the true cost of creativity, and about what it means to be really seen. Gorgeously written and so, so smart (and how can you resist any novel that has Georgia O’Keeffe in it?), Probst’s novel is a work of art in itself.”
—Caroline Leavitt, best-selling author of Pictures of You, Is This Tomorrow and Cruel Beautiful World

“Probst plumbs the depths of Elizabeth’s desperation with a delicacy that underlines the brutal truths her protagonist must face .... A thought-provoking, introspective examination of self and sexuality.”
—Booklist

“Readers will root for Elizabeth—and wince in amusement at her pratfalls—as she strikes out in improbable new directions . . . An entertaining, psychologically rich story of a sometimes giddy, sometimes painful awakening.”
—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2022-05-09
Probst’s novel follows a career photographer as she revives her artistic and romantic passions in Iceland.

Cathryn McAllister, an American single mother of two grown children, has long sacrificed her art for the security of commercial photography and catered to her kids’ every whim. In dire need of a break, she seizes upon the opportunity to shoot a spread of photographs in the stunning Icelandic landscape, both as a crown jewel to her portfolio and as a chance to take some time for herself. She doesn’t expect to fall in love with the subject of her photos, the alluring glass blower Henry Malcolm “Mack” Charbonneau, but she soon finds herself abandoning her preplanned itinerary for the cramped, steamy quarters of a glass blowing hot shop in Akureyri. The heat of their mutual desire is tempered by Mack’s strange reticence to let Cathryn know him. She offers as little of her past as he does his, and the two exist in a liminal space of artistic exploration and intimate passion, untethered by the ties that bind them to their daily lives. Yet readers will feel the weight of Cathryn’s life pressing in, as each of her children calls in turn to complain of minute yet personally monumental crises. As her relationship with Mack unfolds, Cathryn realizes her own agency, suppressed for so long along with the traumas of her late husband’s infidelity and untimely death. Probst grapples with questions of the essence of art and the possibility of redemption in this novel and conveys some gorgeous and potent images along the way. However, some passages suffer from overwriting. For example, Mack’s stirring observation on glass blowing (“After all, what other art form requires the breath of its creator?”) is undercut by Cathryn’s gratuitous response (“That’s an extraordinary way to put it”). Metaphors and symbols are also laid bare and dissected. The author has a keen skill at crafting nuanced and textured relationships, but she brings less grace to the construction of the plot. Still, she delivers an often engaging narrative with an ending you won’t expect.

A sensitive and sensual story of renewal that’s hampered somewhat by overexplanation.

Kirkus Reviews