Varina Audiobook By Charles Frazier cover art

Varina

A Novel

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

Varina

By: Charles Frazier
Narrated by: Molly Parker
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $24.29

Buy for $24.29

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

In his powerful fourth novel, Charles Frazier returns to the time and place of Cold Mountain, vividly bringing to life the chaos and devastation of the Civil War.

With her marriage prospects limited, teenage Varina Howell agrees to wed the much-older widower Jefferson Davis, with whom she expects a life of security as a Mississippi landowner. He instead pursues a career in politics and is eventually appointed president of the Confederacy, placing Varina at the white-hot center of one of the darkest moments in American history - culpable regardless of her intentions.

The Confederacy falling, her marriage in tatters, and the country divided, Varina and her children escape Richmond and travel south on their own, now fugitives with "bounties on their heads, an entire nation in pursuit."

Intimate in its detailed observations of one woman's tragic life and epic in its scope and power, Varina is a novel of an American war and its aftermath. Ultimately, the audiobook is a portrait of a woman who comes to realize that complicity carries consequences.

©2018 3 Crows Corporation (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Biographical Fiction Genre Fiction War & Military Emotionally Gripping
Beautiful Prose • Rich Historical Detail • Perfect Narration • Poetic Storytelling • Mesmerizing Cadence
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
Chilling and surreal and two words I would use to describe this gloriously poetic book.

On my top 10

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
History presented poetically is what keeps it alive. what bridges our past to our present, looking with hope toward our future. Charles Frazier creates paintings with words and stories which sing songs of American people, places and politics. Well worth listening for style and story.

politics, poetry and people

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Narration brings this otherwise excellent Frazier book down a disappointing degree. Clearly delivered and well-articulated, it is understandable, but that’s the best that can be said of it.

Narration a disappointment

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautiful, rich storytelling filled with texture and a sense of being there with the characters.

Draws you in...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator used a monotonous tone throughout, making it difficult to differentiate which character was talking. She seems not to have read the book herself. Words, especially proper nouns, were mispronounced all through the book, and her inflections are extremely awkward. I finished the book only because I was reading it for a book club.

Awful narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
So enjoyed this book and Charles Frazier’s superb writing. I have read all his books and look forward to the next one.

Wonderful Writing!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I absolutely loved this story. At times I felt the audio reading was inconsistent. Sometimes too slow. If I increased the speed, it was too fast at times. Overall though, I highly recommend this story in an audio version.

Audio Varina

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Enjoyed a women's perspective of life before, during, and after the Civil War. The au dio version is harder to follow because the time shifts do often, but you get used to it.

A special glimpse of Civil War era history

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I knew nothing about Varina and next to nothing about Jefferson Davis and this was a wonderful opportunity to learn about them in a way both empathetic and damning at the same time. Fraiziers writing and Parker’s narration are perfectly suited to each other. The length of the book also seemed just right to escape to for a time but didn’t feel like a long march.

What a treat from start to finish

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As a southerner I really did enjoy hearing a different perspective on life before and after the war. Most of which I’ve never even thought about. I’ll listen again.

Wonderful to hear from a wife’s point of view.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews