Broken Country, Whistler, Nothing Ventured, Surviving Savannah–Audiobook Mini-Reviews –– #LiteraryFiction #HistoricalFiction #TBT

Here are four more short reviews of audiobooks that will hopefully pique your interest. (Links on individual covers are to Amazon.)

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

A Reese Book Club selection
A 2026 Audie Award Finalist for Fiction
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Historical Fiction (2025)
Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Audiobook (2025)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Narrator: Hattie Morahan

Ah, first love, now a thing of her past. Gabriel Wolfe was Beth’s first love and is now a successful writer who moved back to her rural community where she is married to Frank. Frank is a hard-working, caring, and devoted man who unfortunately bears the searing guilt of the loss of their son.

It’s also unfortunate that Gabriel has a son who is at the age that her son would have been, had he lived. She can’t help but be drawn to him. The problem that might foster, however, will weave an emotional, tension-filled storyline that grows with each chapter as it recreates that first love affair in a balancing act with the love she feels for Frank.

There is a split timeline, eloquently describing that earlier time with the present as secrets unravel a tale of tragedy and guilt and, ultimately, forgiveness.

The characters are fully developed, full of nuance, and the plot flows smoothly. The love triangle brought out a less attractive side of Beth and my sympathy went to Frank.

Whistler by Ann Patchett
Publisher: Harper
Narrator: Ann Patchett

Amazon Charts #9 this week

Sometimes those random happenings are not coincidences. Maybe it’s true—there are no coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. Such is the plot of this beautifully written story about Daphne Fuller and Eddie Triplett. Eddie was her step-father for two years during her childhood, whom she had come to love as deeply as a biological father.

It was purely by accident that Daphne was visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art when he happened to be there and recognized the adult of the child who had truly been his daughter for such a short time.

The profound impact of their shared relationship stayed with both and now won’t be separated. Ever again. It’s a story of found familial relationships and the story of a horse named Whistler.

The characters feel real and as they share their stories of the past forty years, the narrative layers successes and losses, secrets and revelations. Daphne discovers the sudden absence of Eddie was not her fault..

It’s a lovely celebration of the memories and histories that shape us, the people who make a sincere and lasting impact, and that love never truly fades.

Nothing Ventured by Jeffrey Archer
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Narrator: George Blagden

I struggled with this one. Big time. Somehow the character of William Warwick just didn’t click with me. Warwick joins London’s Metropolitan Police Force instead of being a lawyer like papa.

Lucky or well connected, he starts his first big case in Scotland Yard’s arts and antiquities squad. A blessing really as he has an uncanny knowledge of fine art. What follows is a romp in the art world, which did interest me, and the world of forging and art traffickers. Goodness!

Throw in the romance and a light-hearted, fast-paced almost tongue-in-cheek police procedural and you have the making of a new series for the author.

While the world of art history and forgery kept my attention, it tended to seriously wane with the balance of the book, creating some implausible situations or threads not tied off. Not sure this is one for me although I understand the author has quite the history and fan base. You might well enjoy.

Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Narrators: Brittany Pressley, Catherine Taber, Patti Callahan

Love it when I get into the history of these old ships! The Pulaski, then known as “the Titanic of the South,” sank off the coast of North Carolina in 1838. She was carrying some well-known and wealthy residents of Savannah. The novel is written with a dual timeline—1838 and the present.

Everly Winthrop is a curator and will help in the museum collection consisting of artifacts recovered from the sunken steamship. It’s been 180 years, but there are a lot of mysteries surrounding the sinking and the loss of so many passengers and crew.

Everly’s research uncovered a known survivor and her niece. Is it possible she can combine a human story to add to her curation of artifacts? The storylines of both timelines kept my interest, especially the older one with Augusta and Lily, the explosion and their survival in such detail it’ll have you gasping sea water.

I really enjoyed the details of the Pulaski and the stories of the women of the era. Everly is approached by Oliver, engaged to Mora when she died, a best friend of Everly who has not gotten over the accident that killed Mora and is deeply conflicted to be working with Oliver on the project, with whom she must admit attraction. The narrative is well paced and plotted, though once again, I could have done without the requisite romance, which side-tracked somewhat the main plot theme for me.

Whistler was released June 2, 2026; one of the other three in 2025, and the others are older.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to these audiobooks. Any opinion expressed here is my own.

Audiobook heaven

Before We Were Yours: A Novel by Lisa Wingate – #Audiobook Review – #TBT

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

Award Winner

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge – until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents – but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals – in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country – Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.

My Review:

Taken from headlines back in Memphis, Tennessee 1939, this audiobook gripped me quickly and never let go. Yes, I’m probably the last to see this title, but so glad I did. My mother ended up in an orphanage in the late 20s when my grandmother and grandfather split; the Depression, the crushing poverty, and no way to care for two young daughters. So, while my mother didn’t have this horrendous experience, her’s was not pleasant either.

The storyline narration splits between 1939 and present-day Aiken, South Carolina.

It is essentially the true account of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage and Georgia Tann, who in today’s dollars, made a ton of money selling children from the facility. Not just orphans, however, as some were literally stolen from their parents for the bounty they would bring.

Babies were a hot commodity and Tann found a market with well-to-do couples unable to have their own. Then she found further avenues of income by squeezing them further for various trumped-up charges and fees.

The cruel life the children lead in the orphanage is heart-stopping. Tann apparently had cultivated major connections, including judges, politicians, and police who literally turned a blind eye to what was happening.

Historical POV is told through twelve-year-old Rill Foss, the oldest of five children from a family living on the Mississippi River in a shanty, a river houseboat. They are taken from the boat following a nighttime emergency trip to the hospital by their mother and father. Rill’s story is poignant, riveting, heartbreaking, and suspenseful.

In present day Aiken, Avery Stafford is caught up in the family drama of an elderly woman and makes a shocking discovery.

I definitely preferred the voice of Rill—her story captivating—her strength, resolve admiral. She had loving parents and had been well taught but was far too trusting. Avery is more difficult to warm up to—rich, her narrow scope of view rested on the well-to-do, educated, classed gentry. Once she got into the investigation; would not let it go.

There were a few things I didn’t quite understand (the adult sisters hanging onto their secret) and the conclusion that managed a touch of romance (obvious which way it was going), and really—he’s a nice guy and all but wondered how long the nice guy part would last over her kind of privileged background.

Yes, I got the audiobook from my lovely library and thought the narrators did an outstanding job. My heart rose and sank throughout, hanging on every word, until I was emotionally exhausted. I kept thinking of my mother—and understood again—why she was so paranoid about losing my brother and I when our dad left. Thank you, mom.

Book Details:

Genre: Fiction Sagas, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B06Y1MGNL9
Listening Length: 14 hrs 29 mins
Narrator: Emily Rankin, Catherine Taber
Publication Date: June 6, 2017
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Before We Were Yours [Amazon]

The Author: Lisa Wingate is a former journalist, an inspirational speaker, and the bestselling author of more than twenty novels. Her work has won or been nominated for many awards, including the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, the Carol Award, the Christy Award, and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award. Wingate lives in the Ouachita Mountains of southwest Arkansas.