VICTORINE

As a child, Victorine meets a boy who returns each summer to the beach where her family vacations. As an adult, the man returns to her life, but she is married to another man and has two children. She leaves her responsibilities behind and travels to Indochina with her love--where her life takes on both pleasures and pressing guilt. This is where reader Josephine Bailey takes over and guides us through the Mekong Delta, Saigon, and the French colonization of that area before it became the battleground we remember. Bailey’s French is impeccable, and her other accents and voices are also faultlessly spoken. She reads this story with such clarity that one can clearly understand the reasons the French wanted to control Vietnam. J.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 04]