New Reviews: Historical Fiction

Narrator Saskia Maarleveld escorts American Charlotte "Charlie" St. Clair on a transatlantic voyage in the aftermath of WWII. While in pursuit of her missing cousin, Rose, Charlie meets up with Eve Gardiner, a pistol-toting and whiskey-drinking former spy with a gift for subterfuge and languages, and Finn Kilgore, a charming Scottish mechanic and handyman. Maarleveld slips in... Read More

Narrator Oliver Hembrough enhances Winston Graham's stellar writing in this seventh installment of a 12-part series set in eighteenth-century England. Ross Poldark, who lives in Cornwall and owns a mine, becomes a member of Parliament. Hembrough effectively delivers the vivid descriptions of Poldark's two different lives, one in cosmopolitan London and the other in Truro, where... Read More

In 1918, the Bright family moves to Philadelphia to take over the family funeral business. As they settle in, the great Spanish flu epidemic strikes, and death is everywhere. The story is told through the points of view of the women in the family. Tavia Gilbert as Pauline, the mother, is quietly accepting of the grim specter, treating it as a dark friend. Abigail Revasch... Read More

Xe Sands's ability to create dynamic characters that remain true to the author's intent shines in this story of four people whose lives converge in the military city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during the last year of WWII. Sands's smooth delivery, with a hint of a Southern accent, is softened for June, a smart country girl who is looking for something more than life on the farm.... Read More

The true love story of Abelard and Heloise has a significant impact on the lives of Father Michael Kavanagh and Rachel Vedette, a Jewish woman, in this audiobook written and narrated by author James Carroll. Carroll's voice is solemn and temperate, and his delivery is slow yet perfectly paced for this engrossing novel. Father Michael meets Rachel in The Cloisters, where she has... Read More

Any study of British literature will likely yield time spent with the celebrated poet Lord Byron, the tempestuous antagonist of this fascinating audiobook. Narrator Virginia Leishman's gracefully clipped British accent brings to life the story of Ada, Byron's only legitimate daughter. Simultaneously expansive and precise, Leishman's voice echoes the quintessentially accessible... Read More

Narrating his own novel, David Blixt delivers an intricate historical fiction with a modern vibe based on Shakespearean characters as well as historical Italians in the fourteenth century. Blixt does well voicing the youthful protagonists, especially the wide-eyed yet courageous young Pietro Alighieri, who is suddenly thrust into the world of politics and power under the wing... Read More

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton was brought into the contemporary spotlight by the runaway success of the Broadway musical HAMILTON. As the long-suffering wife of one of America's Founding Fathers, Eliza, as she was known, has a poignant and powerful story. Cassandra Campbell is an excellent choice for such a high-profile character. Her smooth style transports listeners back to... Read More

David Linski's voice conjures the heat and dust of the Australian Outback of the 1800s. Howarth's audiobook is a bleak tale in which childhood innocence isn't lost--it's obliterated. Two teenage boys, 14-year-old Tommy and 16-year-old Billy, are forced to seek revenge after their family is slaughtered. Sullivan, the landowner to whom the family is indebted, takes responsibility... Read More

Ian Mortimer is a respected English historian, so it's no surprise that he gets the historical details right here. Narrator James Cameron Stewart has a more difficult task, conveying the outsider quality of the protagonist's speech when he travels not through space, but through time, living seven single days, each 99 years later than the last, starting in 1348 near Exeter,... Read More

This audiobook is an example of a book that is better to experience as a listener than as a reader. The final novel in Montefiore's Moscow Trilogy takes the listener into the psyche of Benya Golden, a Jewish Communist sentenced to a gulag in 1942 during the final period of Hitler's Russian invasion. Narrator Simon Bubb masterfully conveys the physical and psychological trauma... Read More

Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) is the real-life inspiration for this coming-of-age story. Mozhan Marno narrates the harrowing details of Forugh's strict childhood and forced, loveless marriage at a steady pace that softens the blows. Marno's sultry, throaty voice and narrative style bring across the persistence at the heart of this historic character. A lush... Read More

Cassandra Campbell delivers a stunning narration of this thoughtful novel set in the early 1960s and spanning North Carolina and Nigeria. Tacker is a young architect returning to his hometown in Winston-Salem after working in Nigeria. As he courts Kate, who is in pursuit of her identity after the sudden death of her parents, he experiences emerging discomfort with his white... Read More

In a soft Southern accent, Molly Parker narrates Frazier's recent novel about the life and times of Varina, wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Varina describes her life and times in a nonlinear manner, from the 1840s through the early 1900s, through flashbacks and memories. The dialogue flows into the narrative without shifts in tone or accent, making it difficult... Read More

Tavia Gilbert narrates this disturbing audiobook rapidly, her voice fraught with tension and foreboding. The story focuses on the abduction of two young sisters after a freak blizzard in Albany and what happens when they suddenly reappear during a devastating rain- storm six weeks later. Gilbert animates and enhances characters who, with a less skilled narrator, might seem... Read More