Narrator Nneka Okoye once again dazzles as she portrays an international cast of characters in the second installment of the Las Léonas romance series. Her deft characterizations and range of accents, including Latinx, Scottish, and French, create an expansive world within the festivities of the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. When the crisply composed Cora Bristol, Duchess of Sundridge, approaches the vivacious heiress Manuela del Carmen Caceres Galvan with a purchase offer for her Venezuelan property, Manuela's counteroffer requires an insider tour of Paris's sapphic delights. As Cora guides her through the City of Lights, listeners meet older lesbian couples and expatriate artists, and experience lively nightlife. Okoye's voice smolders as the women's simmering chemistry envelops them and they strain against family obligations and social expectations.
Pub Date: May 30, 2023
Duration: 12 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9781488227288
Publisher: Harlequin Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
After her divorce, Roberta Jewett, with her three daughters, returns to Camden, Maine, to start a new life. Such an independent move in 1916 brings difficulties with her mother, her in-laws and the townspeople. Dukes's performance, while skillful, sometimes suffer in scenes of emotional content. His pace slows, and his reading acquires the peculiar emphasis of someone trying to get instructions across to a non-English-speaking person. The effect is disturbingly laughable. When he resumes his normal pace, the story revives and personalities emerge again, but the awkwardness remains as an odd interruption to Spencer's drama of pain and love, dispelling Dukes's carefully constructed characterizations.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 3 hrs
Publisher: Dove
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
A young Southern woman marries into an aristocratic Boston family and spends her summers at a vacation community on the Maine coast. Heavy-handed abridgment reduces this novel to an outline which denies the listener any character development. Judith Ivey offers stereotypical dialects which are discordant to a New Englander's ear. In her interpretation the Down East Mainers speak like thugs in raspy voices. Her presentation of a Boston accent is phonetically erratic and also spoken in gruff tones. The color and flavor of Maine are missing from this tasteless rendition.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 3 hrs
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
