Gabra Zackman narrates this audiobook about new discoveries and second chances at love. Like her father, Augusta Stern has devoted her life to pharmacy science after a disastrous attempt to use her great aunt's mysterious mixtures to capture the love and attention of a young man named Irving. Sixty years later, Augusta is forced into retirement and finds herself at a sunny Florida community that happens to house her former beau and a wealth of opportunity for personal reflection. Gabra Zackman's narration captures the irascible nature of Augusta Stern, as well as the way Augusta's tone softens when she thinks about the past and when she encounters Irving.
Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
Duration: 9 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9781250354204
Publisher: Macmillan 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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