A SKINFUL OF SHADOWS

Narrator Hallie Ricardo delivers Hardinge's lyricism in a genre mash-up that merges elements of ghost, adventure, and horror stories in a seventeenth-century English Civil War setting. Ricardo presents the narrative in an American accent, transitioning easily to a variety of British voices for the many English characters. She shifts as easily between the many emotions of Makepeace, the 15-year-old heroine. Makepeace is accustomed to being ostracized and ordered about, but Ricardo allows her bright curiosity to shine amid her understandable meekness and fear. In the frightening world in which Makepeace lives, she continues to show compliance, but Ricardo projects the heroine's growing wit and will as she learns of her power to host spirits and use their fierceness to her benefit. S.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2018]