A Change of Climate

A Novel

By: Hilary Mantel

Narrated by: Sandra Duncan

Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.

©1994 Hilary Mantel (P)2011 W.F. Howes

Writing

If I could leave more than five stars I would! Brilliant writing and well developed characters.

Brilliant writing

Rarely does a novel provoke and instigate the inquiry into unanswerable questions of how to live with the human condition. I’m an avid reader and have maybe five all time best books I’ve read, and I put this one in that category. Mesmerizing, lyrical, sophisticated, hauntingly beautiful with a forgettable (yes, forgettable, as we all are) heroine who recognizes that she “had not lived her life in a way that attracted sympathy.” Isn’t that marvelous to be that real?

Moving tale of a family who try to "do good."

Believable people in a family story that includes a season in South Africa under apartheid. I listened to it twice.

Beautifully written

I read again immediately on finishing as time frames rolled forward and back again. ...and because I wanted to live the story itself again.

Wish for more!

Hilary Mantel is such an astounding author. I wish this novel would go on and on. It would have made a wonderful ‘Forsyth Saga’ genre of a book with continual volumes of the family members. I’ll just have to listen to it again! Sandra Duncan’s narration is just perfection!