A relatable and reflective romance about navigating hustle culture and redefining what it means to live a fulfilling life.
Narrator Jen Zhao charms listeners in this contemporary romance, which explores ambition, burnout, and the search for fulfillment. Mei Li is a workaholic marketing professional in bustling New York City, fully committed to her career and engaged to her fiancé, Joey DiGiacomo. But after she gets to know her sister’s brother-in-law, college professor Alexandre Brodeur, Mei begins to question the life she has built. As their connection deepens, both Mei and Alexandre find themselves re-examining their priorities and imagining a life beyond the rat race. Zhao’s gentle, breathy delivery enhances the story’s slow-burn romance with emotional depth.
A relatable and reflective romance about navigating hustle culture and redefining what it means to live a fulfilling life.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
Duration: 9 hrs, 47 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217285457
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 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.
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