
The Turtle House
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Joy Osmanski
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Kelly Wilkinson
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By:
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Amanda Churchill
About this listen
“A heartbreakingly resonant debut, The Turtle House is a tender, big-hearted story about women, family, and the complicated history of Texas. These characters, and their tentative, flawed stumblings toward grace, will stay with me.”—Elizabeth Wetmore, author of Valentine
“Sweeping yet intimate, Amanda Churchill’s Turtle House spans cultures and continents. Minnie and her granddaughter Lia are unforgettable protagonists, whose grit and grace will inspire you. Together, they find a way through in this gripping debut.”—Vanessa Hua, author of Forbidden City
Moving between late 1990s small-town Texas to pre-World War II Japan and occupied Tokyo, an emotionally engaging literary debut about a grandmother and granddaughter who connect over a beloved lost place and the secrets they both carry.
It’s spring 1999, and 25-year-old Lia Cope and her prickly 73-year-old grandmother, Mineko, are sharing a bedroom in Curtain, Texas, the ranching town where Lia grew up and Mineko began her life as a Japanese war bride. Both women are at a turning point: Mineko, long widowed, moved in with her son and daughter-in-law after a suspicious fire destroyed the Cope family ranch house, while Lia, an architect with a promising career in Austin, has unexpectedly returned under circumstances she refuses to explain.
Though Lia never felt especially close to her grandmother, the two grow close sharing late-night conversations. Mineko tells stories of her early life in Japan, of the war that changed everything, and of her two great loves: a man named Akio Sato and an abandoned Japanese country estate they called the Turtle House, where their relationship took root. As Mineko reveals more of her early life—tales of innocent swimming lessons that blossom into something more, a friendship nurtured across oceans, totems saved and hidden, the heartbreak of love lost too soon—Lia comes to understand the depth of her grandmother’s pain and sacrifice and sees her Texas family in a new light. She also recognizes that it’s she who needs to come clean—about the budding career she abandoned and the mysterious man who keeps calling.
When Mineko’s adult children decide, against her wishes, to move her into an assisted living community, she and Lia devise a plan to bring a beloved lost place to life, one that they hope will offer the safety and sense of belonging they both need, no matter the cost.
A story of intergenerational friendship, family, coming of age, identity, and love, The Turtle House illuminates the hidden lives we lead, the secrets we hold close, and what it truly means to find home again when it feels lost forever.
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It is 1943, and for four years, 16-year-old Stefania has been working for the Diamant family in their grocery store in Przemsyl, Poland, singing her way into their lives and hearts. She has even made a promise to one of their sons, Izio - a betrothal they must keep secret since she is Catholic and the Diamants are Jewish.
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Honored...
- By Kami on 03-23-20
By: Sharon Cameron
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The Madstone
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Crook
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Texas, 1868. As nineteen-year-old Benjamin Shreve tends to business in his workshop, he witnesses a stagecoach strand a passenger. When the man persuades Benjamin to help track down the vanished coach—and a mysterious fortune left aboard—he is drawn into a drama whose scope he could never have imagined. The missing coach has a surprise in store: its other passengers include Nell, a pregnant young woman, and her four-year-old son, Tot, who are on the run from Nell’s brutal husband and his murderous brothers.
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Texas History Brought to Life
- By Scott B. Delaney on 08-17-24
By: Elizabeth Crook
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When the Moon Turns Blue
- A Novel
- By: Pamela Terry
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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On the morning after Harry Cline’s funeral, a rare ice storm hits the town of Wesleyan, Georgia. The community wakes up to find its controversial statue of Confederate general Henry Benning destroyed—and not by the weather. Half the town had wanted to remove the statue; the other half had wanted to preserve it. Now that the matter has been taken out of their hands, the town’s long-simmering tensions are laid bare. When the Moon Turns Blue is a timely novel about family, friendship, and what can happen when we discover that we don’t particularly like the people we love.
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Kinda boring
- By Danielle on 05-25-23
By: Pamela Terry
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Perfectly Ordinary People
- By: Nick Alexander
- Narrated by: Mary Jane Wells, David de Vries, Helen Lloyd, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Ruth’s childhood was a happy one, and her family—on her mother’s side—large and loving. But her father’s French origins have always remained a mystery. Now, with aged relatives beginning to die, Ruth decides to research her father’s family before it’s too late. When she discovers a series of long-lost cassettes, everything she thought she knew about them shatters. The tapes expose an unimaginable truth–an epic wartime story of hidden love and sacrifice, stretching back to occupied France.
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Moving story
- By Michelle on 01-30-25
By: Nick Alexander
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They Went Left
- By: Monica Hesse
- Narrated by: Caitlin Davies
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp said the war was over, but nothing feels over to 18-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal; her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else—her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja—they went left.
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Heartbreakingly Beautiful
- By Willow Star Serenity on 04-10-20
By: Monica Hesse
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The Secrets We Kept: Reese's Book Club
- A Novel
- By: Lara Prescott
- Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan, Cynthia Farrell, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dare publish it, and help Pasternak's magnum opus make its way into print around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit all over the world - using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Irina is a complete novice, and is under Sally's tutelage....
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Eh...it was ok.
- By Nunya on 09-06-19
By: Lara Prescott
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The Light in Hidden Places
- By: Sharon Cameron
- Narrated by: Beata Poźniak
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
It is 1943, and for four years, 16-year-old Stefania has been working for the Diamant family in their grocery store in Przemsyl, Poland, singing her way into their lives and hearts. She has even made a promise to one of their sons, Izio - a betrothal they must keep secret since she is Catholic and the Diamants are Jewish.
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Honored...
- By Kami on 03-23-20
By: Sharon Cameron
-
The Madstone
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Crook
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Texas, 1868. As nineteen-year-old Benjamin Shreve tends to business in his workshop, he witnesses a stagecoach strand a passenger. When the man persuades Benjamin to help track down the vanished coach—and a mysterious fortune left aboard—he is drawn into a drama whose scope he could never have imagined. The missing coach has a surprise in store: its other passengers include Nell, a pregnant young woman, and her four-year-old son, Tot, who are on the run from Nell’s brutal husband and his murderous brothers.
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Texas History Brought to Life
- By Scott B. Delaney on 08-17-24
By: Elizabeth Crook
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When the Moon Turns Blue
- A Novel
- By: Pamela Terry
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the morning after Harry Cline’s funeral, a rare ice storm hits the town of Wesleyan, Georgia. The community wakes up to find its controversial statue of Confederate general Henry Benning destroyed—and not by the weather. Half the town had wanted to remove the statue; the other half had wanted to preserve it. Now that the matter has been taken out of their hands, the town’s long-simmering tensions are laid bare. When the Moon Turns Blue is a timely novel about family, friendship, and what can happen when we discover that we don’t particularly like the people we love.
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Kinda boring
- By Danielle on 05-25-23
By: Pamela Terry
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The Wild Road Home
- A Novel
- By: Melissa Payne
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson, Lisa Cordileone
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Mack Anders will do anything for his wife, Daisy. Even die. With the woman he loves fading away from Alzheimer’s, Mack fakes his own passing. The insurance makes certain that Daisy will be taken care of with dignity and comfort until the end. In a lonesome cabin in the Wyoming wilderness, he lives off the grid with nothing but thoughts of the past to keep him company and the belief that Daisy is better off without him.
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Good Story, Well Told
- By Jo from Texas on 11-04-24
By: Melissa Payne
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Red Dog Farm
- A Novel
- By: Nathaniel Ian Miller
- Narrated by: Olafur Darri Olafsson
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up on his family’s cattle farm in western Iceland, young Orri has gained an appreciation for the beauty found in everyday things: the cavorting of a newborn calf, the return of birdsong after a long winter, the steadfast love of a good (or tolerably good) farm dog. But the outer world still beckons, so Orri leaves his no-nonsense Lithuanian Jewish mother and his taciturn father, Pabbi, to attend university in Reykjavík.
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So much animal death.
- By S. Nolte on 03-05-25
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The Keeper of Hidden Books
- A Novel
- By: Madeline Martin
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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All her life, Zofia has found comfort in two things during times of hardship: books and her best friend, Janina. But no one could have imagined the horrors of the Nazi occupation in Warsaw. As the bombs rain down and Hitler’s forces loot and destroy the city, Zofia finds that now books are also in need of saving. With the death count rising and persecution intensifying, Zofia jumps to action to save her friend and salvage whatever books she can from the wreckage, hiding them away, and even starting a clandestine book club.
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Audiobook of the year for me, truly exceptional!
- By john on 08-02-23
By: Madeline Martin
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Even as We Breathe
- A Novel
- By: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. With World War II raging in Europe, the inn is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. Soon, Cowney's refuge becomes a cage when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing.
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Such a well written book.
- By Justice McGhee on 02-17-25
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The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson
- A Novel
- By: Ellen Baker
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1924, four-year-old Cecily Larson’s mother reluctantly drops her off at an orphanage in Chicago, promising to be back once she’s made enough money to support both Cecily and herself. But she never returns, and shortly after high-spirited Cecily turns seven, she is sold to a traveling circus to perform as the “little sister” to glamorous bareback rider Isabelle DuMonde. With Isabelle and the rest of the circus, Cecily finally feels she’s found the family she craves.
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Interesting story took a while to get into.
- By Kayla B on 03-13-24
By: Ellen Baker
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The Road from Belhaven
- A Novel
- By: Margot Livesey
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven farm, Lizzie Craig discovers as a small child that she can see into the future. But her gift is selective—she doesn’t, for instance, see that she has an older sister who will come to join the family. As her “pictures” foretell various incidents and accidents, she begins to realize a painful truth: she may glimpse the future, but she can seldom change it. Nor can Lizzie change the feelings that come when a young man named Louis, visiting Belhaven for the harvest, begins to court her.
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Historical cultural context
- By Tullamore on 05-09-24
By: Margot Livesey
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The Sisters of Belfast
- A Novel
- By: Melanie Maure
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Orphaned during the Second World War, Aelish and Isabel McGuire—known as the twins of Belfast—are given over to the austere care of the Sisters of Bethlehem. Though they are each all the other has, the girls are propelled in opposite directions as they grow up. Rebellious Isabel turns her back on the church and Ireland, traveling to Newfoundland where she pursues a perilous yet independent life. Devout Aelish chooses to remain in Northern Ireland and takes the veil, burying painful truths beneath years of silence. For decades the two are separated, each unaware of the other’s life.
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Completely depressing
- By S. Kyle on 12-01-24
By: Melanie Maure
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Six Days in Bombay
- By: Alka Joshi
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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When renowned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she's expected to make a quick recovery, and Sona is excited to spend time with the worldly woman who shares her half-Indian identity, even if that's where their similarities end. Sona is enraptured by Mira's stories of her travels and shocked by accounts of the many lovers she's left scattered through Europe. Over the course of a week, Mira befriends Sona, seeing in her something bigger than the small life she's living with her mother.
By: Alka Joshi
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The Nine
- The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
- By: Gwen Strauss
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The Nine follows the true story of the author’s great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a 10-day journey across the front lines of World War II from Germany back to Paris. Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.
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Soooo good!
- By anne simpson on 09-28-21
By: Gwen Strauss
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Grace
- A Novel
- By: Natashia Deón
- Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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For a runaway slave in the 1840s South, life on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic master. That's what 15-year-old Naomi learns after she escapes the brutal confines of life on an Alabama plantation. Striking out on her own, she leaves behind her beloved Momma and sister, Hazel, and takes refuge in a Georgia brothel run by a freewheeling, gun-toting Jewish madam named Cynthia.
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Not a fan
- By Laurie on 12-02-16
By: Natashia Deón
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And So I Roar
- A Novel
- By: Abi Daré
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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When Tia accidentally overhears a whispered conversation between her mother—terminally ill and lying in a hospital bed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria—and her aunt, the repercussions will send her on a desperate quest to uncover a secret her mother has been hiding for nearly two decades. Back home in Lagos a few days later, Adunni, a plucky fourteen-year-old runaway, is lying awake in Tia’s guest room. Having escaped from her rural village in a desperate bid to seek a better future, she’s finally found refuge with Tia, who has helped her enroll in school.
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Abi Dare Did It Again!
- By Colleen Gibbons on 02-23-25
By: Abi Daré
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As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
- By: Zoulfa Katouh
- Narrated by: Rasha Zamamiri
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her big brother; she still had her home. She had a normal teenager’s life. Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth. So desperate, that she has manifested a physical embodiment of her fear in the form of her imagined companion.
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Tell me something good
- By Robert on 02-11-24
By: Zoulfa Katouh
What listeners say about The Turtle House
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- J. Bedgood
- 03-16-24
The love of a granddaughter
What a wonderful turn of phrase Amanda has with her writing. I liked the shifts in times and the similarities to Minnie’s and Leah’s stories with overpowering men even generations apart. Both women were strong and resilient. Fantastic book!
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- Therese D. Detrich
- 05-18-24
A Timeless and Timely Read
Amanda Churchill’s novel provides insight into the anguish of being a Japanese-born immmigrant into the US after WWII. Minnie Cope marries an American soldier shortly after her homeland is bombed into submission by the U.S. A character of tremendous strength and keen insight, Minnie has survived war torn Japan through great sacrifice, sending money home to her family, which has never recognized her abilities. Through patience, determination and humor, Minnie learns to navigate a difficult marriage while finding ways to care for her children as she struggles to find acceptance. She and her granddaughter’s lives are thrown together, allowing them to peer at the parallel struggles each has faced or are facing. A wonderful book, painstakingly written, beautifully crafted.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-05-25
Different and moving
Very well enacted. A rich and moving story.
I liked the readers many voices for the characters and you’re able to see the story as it unfolds.
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- Desertdweller
- 03-24-24
The author captured stories that epitomize the indomitable human spirit. Delightful!
As an Audible version I found it difficult to stay on track with the treks from the future to the past and back.
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- warren
- 04-30-24
Absorbing multigenerational story of Japanese Americans
An excellent debut novel, capturing great emotional detail the struggles of a Japanese American family starting after World War II to the present time- the characters were extremely well done, and the narrator was superb, especially in the voice of the grandmother
I think it would be an excellent book club book because it embodies many important topics to discuss about Japanese Society and the post World War II Japanese American experience
Give it a try!
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- Kindle Customer
- 06-26-24
MUST READ
How is this book not on the NYT best seller list yet?! So well written! My mom group has a book club on the side, and this book was chosen because we live in the same town as the author. It was a totally random pick, and wow does it not disappoint. The audible was fantastic, and I was easily immersed into both of the main characters lives. Hoping for more great reads from this author!
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- jane christopher
- 04-10-24
Amazing story and characters
Unique , interesting to follow intertwining stories of grandma and granddaughter Loved the voices and descriptions of Japan
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- Victoria
- 08-15-24
This is Texas
Loved it all. I grew up in Texas and this was spot on Loved the transitions between Japan and Texas too. And the depiction of Japan was enlightening and also touching. I did shed tears when the grandmother read a letter from someone dear to her One of my recent favorites-and I listen to 2-3 books a week, often having difficulty finding one that is well written about a subject that will hold me interest.
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- Reading Grandma
- 07-10-24
At first the halting cadence of the narration bothered me, but then it added to the authenticity of the grandmother’s story
An interesting and compelling story of a Japanese war bride and her settlement into a new world. It gave me a perspective I’d never considered before. Thank you!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Carrie P
- 08-03-24
Disappointing
Such a great idea but it just never really got there. The end was so disappointing. It’s like the author got in a hurry and just ended it before it could be fleshed out.
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