Justine Eyre's spirited reading is as lively as Kate Addison's theater company, which is stuck in her former lover Brandon Balfour's quirky British village. While Kate keeps Brandon's mooncalf nephew at arm's length, the village looks on as the couple reignites their romance. Eyre sets a brisk pace that keeps listeners' attention and is attentive to Maxwell's sense of the dramatic. Kate's voice, with its appealing mid-range timbre, is steeped in indignation at Balfour's youthful desertion. Balfour's is deeper, with a rough edge, that ranges from mild in conversations with his whinging sister, the dowager duchess, to hard-edged when dealing with unreasonable theater crowds. As several calamities test the lovers' tenuous connection, Eyre navigates Maxwell's comedy of errors with memorable secondary characters whom listeners will want to hear in future installments.
Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
Duration: 7 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780062998606
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Ayla, one of the "others," is adopted by a clan of Neanderthal cave people. She struggles to conform to their ways, but her advanced human traits overwhelm and threaten their primitive culture in this initial installment of an immensely popular series. Although the story might benefit from abridgment, Rowena Cooper easily carries out the formidable task of enlivening the mostly silent and stereotypical characters with consistent, diverse personalities and human dimension. Through skillful phrasing and inflection, she maintains the reader's interest and suspense, especially with Ayla and her plight, throughout this rambling and imaginative story.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 22 hrs
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America/ Chivers
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
This lyrical, sensual novel of woman's lot in Manchu, China, is as well researched as it is well written. Authentic in tone, it's nonetheless written for Westerners by a Western expert on China. Moreover, Susan Clark performs the demanding text superbly, with only occasional signs of fatigue. For the most part she not only sustains the quaint diction and Asian atmosphere, but also, creates whole worlds with her voice. She acts the book, rather than reads it, and, in so doing, turns a pretty trifle into a stupendous beauty.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 4 hrs, 30 mins
Publisher: Audio Literature
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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