Author Evison does an amazing job of getting into the mind of 78-year-old widow Harriet Chance. She is plagued with “visits” from her deceased husband, Bernard. When she decides to take the Alaskan cruise he had planned before his death, her life turns into a long, revealing episode of the old “This Is Your Life” television program. Susan Boyce’s voice for the elderly Harriet is spot-on; she provides the careful, precise diction of a person who has lived her life weighing her words to protect her secrets. The story’s narrator has two voices: One reveals Harriet’s past with an honest and unsentimental delivery of a series of flashbacks, and one stays in the present to guide the listener through Harriet’s awakening. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
A novel of a doomed cruise provides bittersweet laughs and an opportunity for the mother at its helm to examine her marriage, daughter, and self-image. Review by Katherine A. Powers.
Some of us are versed in the fine art of pairing wine with food. Not me, but I do know a thing or two about pairing books with vacations. Those of us who feel the reading enjoyed on a vacation is just as important as location know a trip can be enhanced by a perfectly chosen book. Here […]