Hey there. I'm Tinbedermis, and this is NPR's Book of the Day. When it comes to book ideas,

inspiration can come from anywhere. For Ariel Lawan, the idea for her new book, The Frozen River,

came from a newspaper article about a midwife from the 18th century named Martha Ballard.

Ballard was really good at her job, delivering some 1,000 babies with no maternal fatalities,

and in the 1700s, no less.

It was that fact and the digging deeper into the lives of midwives of that era that gave

Arial Law on the idea to make

Ballard the heroine of this tale. But in peeling back the layers of this profession,

Lawhan tells Weekend Edition host Scott Simon that she learned a lot about the tensions of a community,

trying to make sense of a murder, the similarities between the 18th century and today, and why it's

really cool to make a woman in her 50s the hero of your story. Here's Scott Simon. In the U.S.,

national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy

behind closed doors on our new show,

Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

A new novel opens with a body floating in a New England River in the winter of 1789.

The body floats downstream.

But it is late November and the Kinnabek River is starting to freeze.

Large chunks of ice swirling and tumbling through the water, collecting in mounds,

while clear, cold, fingers of ice stretch out from either bank, reaching into the current,

grabbing hold of all that passes by. Already weighted down by soaked clothing and heavy leather boots, the dead man bobs in the ebbing current,

...