The narrators of Chris Bohjalian's new historical novel cleverly deliver a measured pace that sharply contrasts with chilling events set in motion in Tuscany during WWII. Cassandra Campbell's precise, lovely enunciation suits the perceptions voiced by 18-year-old Cristina Rosati, whose family is of noble Italian lineage. As the story shifts to the year 1955, Campbell also delivers the more modern observations of Florence police detective Serafina Bettini during her investigation of a serial killer who is targeting all the living Rosatis. Ultimately, her digging uncovers secrets that terrorize the family and expose her own horrifying past. Mark Bramhall's raw consummate performance enlivens terrifying acts with subtle, almost offhand, simplicity. This gripping listen mesmerizes with its suspense, reverence for ancient art, and portrayal of a love doomed by war.
Pub Date: July 9, 2013
Duration: 11 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780307917423
Publisher: Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Class lurks in varying degrees behind every great English comedy, its ineffable code being so endlessly conducive to ironic subtlety. QUEEN LUCIA, the first of the great Lucia novels of E.F. Benson, is imbued with it. Nonetheless, social striving rather than class per se gives the novel its real comic force. At its center is Lucia, the regnant, self-appointed social and cultural leader of a genteel, middle-class circle. She’s a schemer and poser of awesome theatricality and self-delusion. Although the narrative is conducted in the third person, the characters’ doings, most especially Lucia’s, are as often as not reported in the light in which the perpetrators hope to be viewed. Still, the true facts and motivations, usually base, shine luminously through. Geraldine McEwen’s reading truly enhances the work, being a model of cultivated discretion and ironic pacing.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 9 hrs
Publisher: ISIS Audio Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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