FOLLOW ME TO AFRICA

Thanks to Amy Scanlon's virtuosic narration, paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey's personal and professional lives become historical fiction at its finest. Her story ranges from the 1930s, when she was in her 20s, to the 1970s, when she was a cigar-smoking scientist in her 70s. Listeners hear Mary fall in love with Louis as she illustrates his books on human evolution. The story also includes the challenges the couple experience in Tanzania. Scanlon flawlessly delivers the novel's dual timelines and viewpoints when the elderly Mary is visited by 17-year-old Grace, a young woman who has lost her mother. Audio movingly gives listeners a sense of Mary's painful but well-lived life. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2025]