THE BELOVED DAUGHTER

For this harrowing story of hardship and hard-won faith, Kathy Garver succeeds in delivering authentic-sounding Asian characters. Garver focuses on conveying the emotional truth of the story; her presentation carries the weight of a family torn apart by a father's ideological differences with a nation's government. The horrors of a military state and the realities of life as a prisoner are brought across in a terse, vivid delivery that evokes empathy for the young protagonist. Garver moves from male to female characters smoothly, maintaining realism with raspy, lower tones for the father and more modulated ones for the child. M.R. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2014]