Nikki Massoud's lively voice welcomes listeners to a charming romance in the Highlands. Ruby Spencer is desperate to make a change, so she quits her publishing job in New York, lands an agent for a cookbook, and escapes to a remote village in Scotland for a year. Massoud shifts smoothly between Ruby's bright, determined voice and the charming Scottish accents of all those who welcome her to her new life. Grace, who has a warm voice and soft lilt, teaches Ruby how to cook traditional meals in her struggling pub, while the mysterious and handsome Brochan keeps coming around to fix up Ruby's cottage. Listeners will hear of rambles in the Highlands, scrumptious food, plenty of romance--and tension as Ruby's beloved new community faces big changes.
Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
Duration: 9 hrs
DD ISBN: 9780593675953
Publisher: Penguin 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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