Valley of Ashes

by Cornelia Read Narrated by Hillary Huber

Overview

Madeline Dare trades New York's gritty streets for the tree-lined avenues of Boulder, Colorado when her husband Dean lands a promising job. Madeline, now a full-time homemaker and mother to beautiful toddler twin girls, has achieved everything she thought she always wanted, but with her husband constantly on the road, she's fighting a losing battle against the Betty Friedan riptide of suburban/maternal exhaustion, angst, and sheer loneliness. A new freelance newspaper gig helps her get her mojo back, but Boulder isn't nearly as tranquil as it seems: there's a serial arsonist at large in the city. As Madeline closes in on the culprit, the fires turn deadly-and the stakes tragically personal. She'll need every ounce of strength and courage she has to keep the flames from reaching her own doorstep, threatening all she holds most dear.

Editorial Reviews

OCTOBER 2012 - AudioFile

Witty and foul-mouthed housewife and mother Madeline Dare and her husband, Dean, have moved to Colorado with their twin toddlers. Exhausted, with increasing flashes of insecurity about her marriage and herself, Maddy takes a freelance job at a newspaper reviewing restaurants. But soon she finds herself pursuing a serial arsonist, with toddlers in tow. Narrator Hillary Huber embraces the character of Maddy, becoming the wisecracking young woman who is struggling to overcome her history and handle what life throws at her. Huber cleverly captures the characters, making each subtly distinct. She is especially effective portraying Maddy's mother, giving her tone a snootiness that perfectly projects her character. A pure listening pleasure. A.C.P. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

Fire—both literal and figurative—threatens to consume everything in Madeline Dare’s life in Read’s wrenching fourth suspense novel featuring the former debutante (after 2010’s Invisible Boy). Madeline is eager to return to writing, having relocated in 1995 to Boulder, Colo., for husband Dean’s new job. With Dean at work or away on business more often than he’s home, it’s hard to do more than wrangle their one-year-old twin daughters, Parrish and India, and keep her sanity, but Madeline still jumps at the chance to write restaurant reviews for the local paper. Meanwhile, crime-magnet Madeline can’t help overhearing her editor talking about Boulder’s string of increasingly brazen arson attacks, and soon she’s shadowing arson investigator Mimi Neff, a former New Yorker, unbeknownst to Dean. The tensions rise as Madeline’s marriage begins to buckle. There’s an inevitable sense of doom throughout, which Read doles out in perfectly proportioned doses. Agent: Amy Rennert, the Amy Rennert Agency. (Aug.)

Richmond Times-Dispatch

With remarkable originality, she scores again in a novel that transcends genre and leaves the reader spellbound.

BrodartVibe blog

[T]he main character, Madeline Dare, is so fantastic it made the novel great. . . Madeline is one tough chick. Her attitude and demeanor. . . pulled me in and kept me turning the pages. . . this is a must-have for your shelves so fans of those books can get another dose of this awesome female character . . . anyone who appreciates a strong female lead should find this a satisfying read and be hunting your shelves for the previous novels.

Marilyn Stasio

The sharpest humor comes with a pinch of suffering, and Madeline Dare suffers big time in Cornelia Read's new mystery about this fugitive socialite from Oyster Bay, Long Island. . . Madeline is funny when she's depressed ('I'm fat, my marriage is tanking, and I want to run away with the circus'), but the only person who appreciates her bleak humor is a friend with domestic issues of her own ('I just want to be a widow. Is that so wrong?').
— The New York Times

The Boston Globe

On A Field of Darkness:

"Sparks seem to fly off the pages of Cornelia Read's A FIELD OF DARKNESS...powered by a sensational narrator's voice...Read is a big talent.

New York Times Book Review

On The Crazy School:
"How nice it is to hear that rebel voice again.

Library Journal

Reformed socialite Madeline Dare (A Field of Darkness; The Crazy School; Invisible Boy) relocates from New York City to seemingly bucolic Boulder, CO, when her husband lands a job there. Caring for infant twin girls, Madeline struggles with domesticity and boredom. A freelance writing job at a local newspaper gives her new energy and purpose, but it also gets her intimately involved in a string of arsons occurring around the city. VERDICT Read's dialog and character and scene descriptions are compelling, and the narrative is touching, humorous, and moves at a satisfying and suspenseful pace. Fans of Read's series and readers fond of Karin Slaughter, Gillian Flynn, and Nicci French will enjoy this latest outing. [See Prepub Alert, 2/12/12.]—Nicole A. Cooke, Montclair State Univ. Lib., NJ

OCTOBER 2012 - AudioFile

Witty and foul-mouthed housewife and mother Madeline Dare and her husband, Dean, have moved to Colorado with their twin toddlers. Exhausted, with increasing flashes of insecurity about her marriage and herself, Maddy takes a freelance job at a newspaper reviewing restaurants. But soon she finds herself pursuing a serial arsonist, with toddlers in tow. Narrator Hillary Huber embraces the character of Maddy, becoming the wisecracking young woman who is struggling to overcome her history and handle what life throws at her. Huber cleverly captures the characters, making each subtly distinct. She is especially effective portraying Maddy's mother, giving her tone a snootiness that perfectly projects her character. A pure listening pleasure. A.C.P. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

A funny and sad novel about a woman trying to establish an identity for herself. Madeleine Dare is a stay-at-home mother of twin daughters and the second-class wife of a man who travels a lot on business. A casual housekeeper at best, she wants to find freelance work as a writer. Her rat of a husband belittles her ambitions, but she lands a gig as restaurant critic for a local newspaper. Soon the editor assigns her to report on a series of arsons. Meanwhile, her relationship with her husband is strained as he treats her with a mixture of love and disrespect. In fact, she has plenty of issues with herself as she grapples with self-loathing. She is loyal to her husband (is it mutual?) but enjoys fantasies involving teenage pool boys, and she uses enough gratuitous f-words and their ilk to fill a whole series of books. Madeleine ("Bunny" to her husband) is a sympathetic character in a witty, wiseass sort of way. That wit goes over the top at times, as when she jokes about sex with a chain saw. But she really wants to be a good wife and mother, while damn well wanting to do something for herself. The book seems at first to be mainly about the arson, but that turns out to be less important than Madeleine's relationships with her husband and her friends and the surprising turns those friendships take. The way the book ends, it's easy to imagine at least a sequel or two. The tone is reminiscent of Janet Evanovich's novels, but perhaps with a touch more sadness. Also, Madeleine is more competent at her job than Stephanie Plum. A fast-paced, well-written book that will appeal to readers not bothered by profanity.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173728630
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	08/14/2012
Series:	Madeline Dare Series , #4
Edition description:	Unabridged

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