Samantha Brentmoor's voice is flippant yet vulnerable as she portrays Joonie, who is looking for love. But no man measures up to Ryke, the merman from her favorite romance series. When Joonie learns that Ryke is based on a real person, she sets out to find him, only to have her plans derailed once her brother's friend, Nico, unexpectedly joins her. Brentmoor's slightly gravelly voice is a great match for Joonie's determination and stubbornness. Chapters alternate between scenes from Joonie's real-life adventures and passages from Joonie's favorite romantasy novel, which Brentmoor reads with reverence. When Joonie and Nico find themselves in a ridiculous Mob-related scheme, Joonie wonders if her soul mate is closer than she ever realized. Fantasy and reality collide in Hariri-Kia's latest.
Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
Duration: 9 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9798897569403
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
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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