Good Time Coming

By: C. S. Harris

Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon

Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

I killed a man the summer I turned 13....

Thus begins C. S. Harris's haunting, lyrically beautiful tale of coming of age in Civil War-torn Louisiana.

Eleven-year-old Amrie St. Pierre is catching tadpoles with her friend Finn O'Reilly when the Federal fleet first steams up the Mississippi River in the spring of 1862. With the surrender of New Orleans, Amrie's sleepy little village of St. Francisville - strategically located between the last river outposts of Vicksburg and Port Hudson - is now frighteningly vulnerable. As the roar of canons inches ever closer and food, shoes, and life-giving medicines become increasingly scarce, Amrie is forced to grow up fast.

But it is her own fateful encounter with a tall, golden-haired Union captain named Gabriel that threatens to destroy everything and everyone she holds most dear.

Told with rare compassion and insight, this is a gripping, heart-wrenching story of loss and survival; of the bonds that form among women and children left alone to face the hardships, deprivations, and dangers of war; and of one unforgettable girl's slow and painful recognition of the good and evil that exists within us all.

©2016 Two Talers, LLC (P)2018 Recorded Books

A southern female experience of the civil war

This story and the narration had me experiencing the gamut of human emotions. War is a terrible thing for any civilian on any side but especially for the women, children and elderly.

Bad narration, slow, slavery justifying story

I normally love CS Harris, but this book is unlistenable.
- Terrible narration - Fake southern accent is so annoying. Got to Chapter 30, determined to give the book a real try, but ugh. Had to give up. I just can't listen to that horrid fake accent, anymore.
- Justification of slavery - Book documents atrocities committed by Northern troops, and romanticizes southern troops, tells the lie that Lee had no slaves (never mind him going to court in attempts to keep his slaves - don't let facts interfere with your agenda), and treats slavery as a normal thing, and claims that abolitionists in the north were as bad as slave-owning plantation owners in the South.
Don't waste your Audible credit on this one. Sadly lacking.
Update: I finished the book. Gets worse. Time I can't get back, All the way to the end, amd the themes of the book don't change - the slave owners were wonderful and righteous, the northerners are horrible, and no one on the book has any issue with slaves, except the main character hating the fact the slaves were branded. Other than that, tho, no issues with it from any of the characters.

Good story. Awful narration

Though I have been a member of Audible for many years, this is the first review I have written. The book was recommended to me by a friend so I was determined to hear it out but I have to say it was difficult to persevere as the narration was so distracting. First, this has to be The Worst effort to imitate a Southern accent I have ever heard. Why did someone not stop this woman? Having been lived in Memphis, Tennessee my entire life, with family scattered throughout Mississippi, I am very aware of the many different Southern accents but Ms.Witherspoon's take is positively tone-deaf. Secondly, her cadence and inflection were just bizarre. It sounded like a child reading to the end of the line and pausing, without regard to the flow of the sentence or punctuation.
This is especially sad because I think Ms. Harris has written a very thoughtful and readable story with a good interpretation of the impossible positions of both sides. Please get someone to redo the reading. Forget the Southern accent. Just read it.

I was so looking forward to this

I’m glad I finished it, she is one of my favorite authors. I’ve read every book in her St Cyr series.
I found this book very slow to grab my interest, but persevered.
So many interesting facets to the people in the book . I would not get the next one if the narrator is the same though.

Story about woman surviving war

The absolute story of the futalality of war, the only owns who
benefit are the men who scavenge the bones of the men who fight, and the women they left behind.

Hopefully just a slow start

... a REALLY slow start! I chose this book because I love historical fiction, I love stories set in Louisiana, and I really like CS Harris. I’m about 14 chapters in and, as of yet, nothing interesting has happened. Nothing. Or maybe it has but the narration is so dull and lifeless I missed it.

I REALLY Tried

There was no getting past the awful narration - I tried several times but still couldn’t keep it up.

worst narration ever

I love CS Harris so I wanted to give this book a chance, even though the first review about the narration was so negative. Pilar Witherspoon makes the book unbearable, I couldn't wait until the book was over (I had to hear the ending, although it's TOTALLY not worth the slog through the story/narration!)! She is the most AWKWARD reader i've ever listened to, and I listen to hundreds of audiobooks. Super weird pauses mid sentence, I thought I could get through it but it was PAINFUL!! I'm sorry CS but this is REALLY REALLY bad!!!!!