After Lisa Scottoline's introduction, Edoardo Ballerini transports listeners to Sicily with his perfect Italian and his intelligent grasp of the people who inhabit this historical novel. Five-year-old Dante is kidnapped and hidden in a madhouse. A young lawyer, a member of an elite group of aristocrats who investigate crime in Palermo, determines to find the boy. While he's searching, listeners meet the cheese-maker who's secretly the last Jew in Sicily and a woman whose daughter is born an albino. From the decent attorney to the greedy baron to the murderous lemon grove owners, Ballerini makes them all authentic. He makes Sicily itself a character, portraying its people in a style as rugged and uncompromising as its landscape. Violence, a vendetta, and passion fill the stories in this saga.
Pub Date: March 28, 2023
Duration: 11 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9781984883391
Publisher: Penguin 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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