Narrator Dara Rosenberg whirls listeners through Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt's desperate plan to save her writing career. Rachel is Jewish, but she secretly writes Christmas romances. Rosenberg expresses Rachel's panic when her editor demands a Hanukkah romance. When Rachel begs her archnemesis, Jacob, for a ticket to his exclusive New York City Matzah Ball, their childhood camp romance rekindles. Without stereotypes, Rosenberg creates a variety of New York accents for Rachel's Jewish community. She incorporates Yiddish and Hebrew words seamlessly and clearly shares the author's in-text definitions. Dealing with Rachel's secret chronic disease with sensitivity, she builds dramatic tension as Jacob unknowingly asks Rachel to do volunteer work she can't physically accomplish. Rachel's sweet, feisty voice and Jacob's rough, clipped speech perfectly mix to show listeners the magic of Hanukkah.
Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
Duration: 10 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9781488212505
Publisher: Harlequin Audio
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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