Narrator Ari Fliakos has complete control over this tale of magical realism as he underplays the drama and makes the outlandish seem plausible. The story jumps in time between narratives--one set in the present day, in which first-person narrator Simon finds his life falling apart, and the other set amid the eighteenth-century traveling "menagerie" of Simon's ancestors. Fliakos delivers the present-day sections with a tone of resignation. Simon is an exhausted man, strained almost to the breaking point, and his sighs are frequent. The people of the menagerie are big and bold and brassy. Fliakos's performance enhances a terrific book. Listeners will enjoy letting him guide them through the surreal elements of Swyler's story.
Pub Date: June 23, 2015
Duration: 11 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9781427261441
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
This highly satisfying quest brims with humor and friendship courtesy of Church.
During a magical adventure set in a traveling bookshop, narrator Imogen Church ensures that each conversation is a dramatic experience. Listeners meet failed book witch Louella Twig, whose strident tones mask her loneliness. She encounters former thief Everett Sharp who, intrigued, parries Louella's defenses with his deep, rolling voice. When Louella's former mentor, Feralorn, asks for her help finding pages from his grimoire, Louella accepts the quest. Church's voice for Feralorn is that of a creaky trumpet—highly distinctive, occasionally overwhelming. Church gives each character their own voice and mannerisms, including gnomes and a European wizard. Pacing, phrasing, and inflection are deployed skillfully to denote emotion, especially between Louella and Everett.
This highly satisfying quest brims with humor and friendship courtesy of Church.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
Duration: 12 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9798898856663
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
Suvari’s strong performance commits to the drama, increasing the stakes of a plot that has more atmospherics than...
This audiobook’s plot satisfyingly deploys familiar motifs of retro New England academia and of witchery as metaphor for the stigmatization of women’s power. Ava and Lauren, in their first year at the elite women’s Radcliffe College in the 1950s, are recruited into the secret Lilith Society of witches. When Mena Suvari is portraying adult Ava and Lauren and their Radcliffe milieu, her narration is delivered as seriously as the women take themselves, in defiance of a sexist era that belittles them. Memories of Ava’s childhood in small-town Maine sound guileless and open, bright with the child’s sparkling potential and curiosity, even as her family cruelly attempts to suppress her magical destiny.
Suvari’s strong performance commits to the drama, increasing the stakes of a plot that has more atmospherics than action.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
Duration: 12 hrs, 50 mins
DD ISBN: 9781668117026
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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