Narrator Nicola Barber builds tensions and personalities with a delicate touch. Newlyweds Tom and Kezia keep busy with the family farm even as the ominous rumblings of WWI are being felt around the world. Barber keeps her performance understated and charming. Later, as Tom fights on the front in France, his sister, Thea, Kezia’s best friend, enlists as an ambulance driver. From the homefront, Kezia writes to Tom, describing sumptuous meals she imagines preparing for him. Barber’s sensitive delivery of Winspear’s precise period details and mannered character behaviors is entirely convincing. Listeners spend time with a group of ethical, decent people, and Barber makes them real.
Pub Date: July 1, 2014
Duration: 9 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9780062220547
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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