By Barbara Linn Probst
Intense, inner journey is ultimately explosive.
Like a triptych’s last panel, The Color of Ice (Barbara Linn Probst’s third novel) is another thoughtful composition exploring parallels between an art form and a woman’s internal journey. Yet, this third book treats the reader to a new element: diving deep into setting as a backdrop to the protagonist’s internal experience.
In this narrative, it’s the evocative, otherworldly setting of Iceland, a sensory explosion with the undulating color of Northern Lights, the stench of mudflats, the crackling sounds of ice shifting.
The exotic backdrop adds a third dimension to protagonist Cathryn’s story. Driven by an impulse, Cathryn grasps the opportunity to travel to Iceland on a professional photography assignment.
Far away from her adult children, detached from her mainland life, Cathryn abandons her tourist itinerary to follow her photography subject, a glass artist named Mack, to learn about glass blowing in his studio. What follows is an intense, inner journey, aptly reflected in the artisan craft of working with molten glass—fragile, pliable, and heated before taking shape—as well as an evasive love affair. Cathryn’s relentless drive to be true to herself, to trust herself, after so many years of detachment is ultimately explosive. And beautiful.