Devon Sorvari brings this contemporary urban fairy tale to life with her portrayal of Rose and Cecilia. The two sisters, who live in New York City, are struggling to find their way in the world. In doing so, they must navigate their relationships with each other and with a mystical and mysterious cabaret troupe called Avalon. Sorvari's narration morphs during the book, giving a chilling reality to the journey these women undertake as each decides whether to embrace the cultish world of Avalon. As each sister becomes more and more involved with Avalon, Sorvari alters her narration to depict their surrender of independent thought. Although the vocal change seems like an odd choice in the beginning, as the narration continues, it has a chilling and sinister effect that is appropriate to the story.
Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
Duration: 11 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781797167558
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
American colleges are favorable locales for ghastly event and hair-tearing circumstance. There is, for instance, a good deal of pleasure to be had out of professor and past-prodigy Grady Tripp's awful life, as portrayed by Michael Chabon in WONDER BOYS. There is a certain amount of slapstick here, but it's balanced by Chabon's superb portrait of a gale-force mid-life crisis, a soul-destroying albatross of an unfinished novel and the mind-numbing inconsequence of writers' conferences. David Colacci sounds a little starved for oxygen in his reading, but that's not exactly out of keeping with Grady Tripp's personal gestalt.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: N/A
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Class lurks in varying degrees behind every great English comedy, its ineffable code being so endlessly conducive to ironic subtlety. QUEEN LUCIA, the first of the great Lucia novels of E.F. Benson, is imbued with it. Nonetheless, social striving rather than class per se gives the novel its real comic force. At its center is Lucia, the regnant, self-appointed social and cultural leader of a genteel, middle-class circle. She’s a schemer and poser of awesome theatricality and self-delusion. Although the narrative is conducted in the third person, the characters’ doings, most especially Lucia’s, are as often as not reported in the light in which the perpetrators hope to be viewed. Still, the true facts and motivations, usually base, shine luminously through. Geraldine McEwen’s reading truly enhances the work, being a model of cultivated discretion and ironic pacing.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 9 hrs
Publisher: ISIS Audio Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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