Julia Whelan becomes former child star Fiona St. James, offering just the right amount of backstage gossip, romance, and mystery to keep listeners engaged. Fiona was a pivotal character in “Birds of California,” a successful fictional TV sit-com. The producers want a reboot of the series, and they need Fiona and her costar, Sam Fox, to make it happen. When Sam tries to convince Fiona to join the cast, dormant feelings emerge, and she becomes irrational and unpredictable. Whelan provides credible voices and emotions as details about Fiona’s public breakdown emerge. She develops the romantic undercurrent between Sam and Fiona with subtle shifts in tone and pace, and makes Fiona’s reluctance to reenter the world that caused her to fall apart understandable. Great summer listening. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Fun fact about me, there are certain things in books that I’m automatically all-in for. Kid spies, musicians, and romances between famous people and your average regular Jo(e) are some of the things that pretty much make a book an auto-buy for me. So, when I looked at all the books coming out in June […]
Spring is in full bloom, and our bookshelves are blooming with beautiful, stunning books that will infuse your lives with lots of color! In May, go relax in your hammock, and from the safety of a book, help a friend dispose of a dead body, escape into a dark spin on Cinderella, fall in love […]
In this essay from Katie Cotugno, find out about what inspired Birds of California as well as the connection the book has to Mental Health Awareness Month.
As I take the time to sit back and look at 2022, the books I read, the books I’ve bought, and the goals I set, I’m also looking forward to 2023, to what I want the next year to look like and what I’d like to accomplish as a reader. 2022 was the first time […]
I’ve always been a voracious reader since I was little, but as I grew older, my parents encouraged me to start branching out into adult books more and more. I’m a stubborn soul, though, and the YA section of my local library remained my happy place. I didn’t start adventuring into adult spaces until I […]