Soft-voiced Imani Jade Powers narrates the bulk of this novel set in Vichy, France. She is especially skilled at capturing nerve-wracking narrow escapes. Indomitable, gutsy American heiress Naneé Gold, portrayed alternately as a lighthearted socialite and a cautious spy, serves as "postmistress" to the French Resistance, delivering messages to artists and writers hiding from the Nazis. In contrast, Graham Halstead adopts a gritty, sometimes sorrowful voice for surrealist Jewish photographer Edouard Moss who, having escaped from a Nazi work camp, dreams of a reunion with his 5-year-old daughter and escape from France. Powers and Halstead fluidly shift from English to French and other European accents while emotionally depicting intense scenes of Nazi encounters. The tension is broken when Powers shifts to descriptions of somewhat normal life in Nanée's villa in Marseilles.
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2021
Duration: 13 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9780062947017
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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