WONDER VALLEY

This audiobook starts out with a bang: Los Angeles's morning rush hour comes to a halt because a naked man is seen running along the 101 against traffic. From here, the story, which alternates between past and present, slowly reveals how the lives of a handful of people converged in a dusty desert town four years earlier and now come together again. Initially, narrator Will Damron's rhythmic cadence sounds forced, but listeners will quickly come to appreciate how well his delivery stresses the author's poetic language, even as the action turns violent. Damron's measured performance avoids foreshadowing, allowing listeners to discover the interconnections among the characters and to form their own opinions of the way each person handles the far-reaching consequences of his or her impulsive choices. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2018]