Christine Mirzayan's dynamic narration is perfect for this rom-com about rival Armenian American families in the food industry who are competing for a Super Bowl commercial. Nazeli begrudgingly takes time off from her marketing job in tech to help her parents win the competition. While doing so, she meets confident and cute Vanya. One amazing date later, the women find out their parents have been sworn enemies for decades. Nazeli struggles to keep her romance a secret from her parents and her micromanaging tech boss satisfied. Between the lies and the feud, something is bound to blow. Mirzayan smoothly switches between accents. A frantic, loud voice during a tense conversation contrasts with flirty banter and a soft, adoring tone. The countdown of the remaining seconds in a competition creates excitement.
Pub Date: May 7, 2024
Duration: 7 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780593825785
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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