THE BEAUTIFUL VISIT

A young woman, the daughter of unremarkable parents, passes through an ordinary childhood with little emotional awareness until age 16 when she's invited by distant acquaintances to a house party, which becomes the beautiful visit and the measuring stick of her past and present. Such a novel deserves a narrator of the highest abilities, and Juliet Stevenson is just that. She captures her audience with determined awareness and delicate timing. She steers each character to its proper niche and manipulates the author's words with an intelligence one can hear. J.P. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 98]