Mia Hutchinson-Shaw and Pete Cross narrate a festive gay update of a holiday classic. Bailey George wants to change her life and leave her hometown but feels stuck. With the unexpected assistance of fabulous drag queens from the House of Angel, Bailey just might get her wish granted. Bailey's ambivalence and frustration are captured by Hutchinson-Shaw: Everyone she loves lives in Lanford Falls, but Bailey has always put their needs ahead of her own. Hutchinson-Shaw creates a nuanced portrait of Bailey, expressing all her emotions without sounding petulant. Cross gives Clara Angel and her two companions plenty of opportunities to shine in their small but pivotal roles as they guide Bailey on her journey.
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
Duration: 9 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9781666648911
Publisher: Dreamscape
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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