Elaine S. Apthorp
- 3
- reviews
- 1
- helpful vote
- 23
- ratings
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The Nature of Fragile Things
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins, Jason Culp
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,916
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,505
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,487
Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Nature of Fragile Things is a 5 star listen!
- By Kathy… send to help my husband to sleep!! on 02-04-21
- The Nature of Fragile Things
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins, Jason Culp
Great story, very well told and equally well-voiced.
Reviewed: 12-04-23
Skillfully plotted and expressed throughout, this mystery has secrets to reveal from its first chapter to its last, and features both a heroically stalwart protagonist and a meticulously researched, grippingly effective immersion in the experience of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, fire, and refugee aftermath as experienced by its stunned survivors. A compelling read throughout—and the voice performance matches it beautifully.
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Circe
- By: Madeline Miller
- Narrated by: Perdita Weeks
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55,460
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 49,977
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49,746
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Refined writing with an intimate performance
- By Michael - Audible Editor on 04-11-18
- Circe
- By: Madeline Miller
- Narrated by: Perdita Weeks
Magnificent in conception, story, prose, and performance.
Reviewed: 04-11-21
I’ve listened to many an Audible book, but of all those mostly excellent experiences this has been by far the most spectacularly satisfying, a perfect marriage of breathtakingly beautiful prose and flawless performance. Miller has deeply and brilliantly reimagined the story of Circe—and of all the mortal and immortal lives in which she played a role—through a liberated and liberating perspective. And Weeks has performed the novel exquisitely from the first word to the last. Tremendous work.
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Passing Fancies
- A Julia Kydd Novel, Book 2
- By: Marlowe Benn
- Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
When stylish young bibliophile Julia Kydd returns to 1920s New York, she’s determined to launch her own private press. Julia’s aspirations take her into the heart of the Harlem Renaissance, a literary movement unlike any she’s known - where notions of race, sexuality, and power are slippery, and identities can be deceptively fluid.
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1 out of 5 stars
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if you like white fragility then this is your book
- By Raven33 on 08-05-20
- Passing Fancies
- A Julia Kydd Novel, Book 2
- By: Marlowe Benn
- Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
Very well-crafted and woke historical mystery
Reviewed: 06-26-20
Took a chance on two Marlowe Benn mysteries Amazon offered for free in Unlimited and am astonished at how very strong they both are. Benn has done much more than the requisite homework to render the 1920s Harlem Cotton-Club scene from the 3rd-person-intimate POV of Julia Kydd: White, raised in enormous economic privilege, but ethical, compassionate, and open to the evidence of her abysmal ignorance that experience sends cascading into her consciousness. Crucially she does more than learn; she acts in the light of that discovery. The author, clearly a passionate and professionally informed bibliophile, brings so much more to bear on these mysteries than that expertise; Benn is a first-rate prose stylist, a skilled designer of solidly suspenseful as well as emotionally engaging and thoughtful narrative, and a writer of conscience, who weaves social commentary into genre fiction with determined grace. I recommend this novel with many exclamation points.
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1 person found this helpful