Alexander Amado and Vanessa Vasquez narrate a romance set on the Day of the Dead and loosely inspired by ROMEO AND JULIET. Julieta Campos is a chef at a restaurant in a vibrant San Diego neighborhood. Ramón Montez is CEO of the company that has purchased the block where the restaurant is located. Amado captures the brash swagger of the rich and privileged businessman but is less successful in his portrayal of female characters, tending to make them shrill. Vasquez captures Julieta's confusion with respect to her feelings about Ramón. When it comes to the other characters, however, Vasquez delivers one-note performances. While both Amado and Vasquez are adequate narrators, they are hindered by stilted dialogue and a thin plot.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
Duration: 8 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780593552162
Publisher: Penguin 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
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