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What We Inherit
- A Secret War and a Family's Search for Answers
- Narrated by: Jessica Pearce Rotondi
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
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What We Inherit
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Publisher's Summary
In the wake of her mother's death, Jessica Pearce Rotondi uncovers boxes of letters, declassified CIA reports, and newspaper clippings that bring to light a family ghost: her uncle Jack, who disappeared during the CIA-led "Secret War" in Laos in 1972. The letters lead her across Southeast Asia in search of the truth that has eluded her family for decades.
On the night of March 29, 1972, Jack's plane vanishes over the mountains bordering Vietnam. The crash eerily echoes the one Jack's father, Ed Pearce, survived over Germany in World War II, when Ed parachuted out of a burning plane before being captured and sent to Stalag 17 prison camp.
Years later, Ed will become convinced that his son is still alive and that the US government he fought for is lying to him. What We Inherit is Rotondi's story of her own hunt for answers as she retraces her grandfather's journey to Laos in search of his son.
An excavation of intergenerational trauma on a personal and national scale, What We Inherit reveals the power of a father's refusal to be silenced and a daughter's quest to rediscover her voice in the wake of loss.
Critic Reviews
"Jessica Pearce Rotondi brilliantly probes the mysteries of a secret war while simultaneously exploring the secrets of her own family, to give us a book about coming to terms with many kinds of loss. Exceptional." (Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize-winning author of Midnight's Children)
What listeners say about What We Inherit
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 01-22-21
Fantastic
This book transported and riveted me—a must-read/listen. So grateful to Jess for telling her story!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Taylor Moyer
- 08-01-20
Great Book
Edwin Jack Pearce is from my hometown. Reading about the faith, determination and persistence the Pearce family had in bringing Jack home was astounding. Throughly enjoyed hearing Jessica share the story and her emotion throughout the reading. Highly recommend.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Elizabeth D. McNamee
- 05-19-20
A riveting and emotionally-wrought journey
What We Inherit is an exquisite story that traverses a grieving daughter's loss, a family's hidden saga, and the landscape of a country's secret war. Jessica Pearce Rotondi -- my dear friend and personal role model -- recounts how, in the days after losing her mother to cancer, she uncovers her family's decades-long search for an uncle who went MIA in Laos in 1972. The discovery sends her searching for answers, and the journey is one of personal and historical reckoning. Told with poignancy and grace, this story will resonate for anyone who has lost a loved one and been left with unanswered questions.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- DPP
- 05-15-20
An excellent personal history of the Vietnam War.
This book is a unique angle on the Vietnam War. The narrator takes you along on her journey as she uncovers the mystery of what happened to her uncle after his plane was shot down on Laos. The story switches very effectivly from past to present to tie everything together and has a very heartfelt conclusion. The author reads the book and she is a pleasure to listen to!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- M. Cooper
- 05-05-20
Incredible story, storytelling and narration.
This is one of the best books I’ve read in years, combining an unnerving blend of honesty, heartbreak, and talent. The author is an incredible storyteller, the story itself is remarkable, and I’m touched by the strength of the family it depicts. A strong recommendation to all.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- mkCAVANAUGH
- 04-21-20
Family memoir, military service, Laos 1970s
Captivating, suspenseful saga of one family’s loyalty and perseverance in the face of enormous tragedy and the unbreakable bonds of family hold true through decades and generations. . .a tale of grit and purpose read with great tenderness and love. VERY highly recommend.
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- A Novel
- By: Gian Sardar
- Narrated by: Vaneh Assadourian
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 229
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 208
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 207
It’s 1979. Olivia Murray, a secretary at a Los Angeles newspaper, is determined to become a photojournalist and make a difference with her work. When opportunity arrives, she seizes it, accompanying her Kurdish boyfriend, Delan, to northern Iraq for a family wedding, hoping to capture an image that lands her a job in the photo department. More important, though, the trip is a chance to understand Delan’s childhood and bridge the differences of their pasts. Yet when the return home proves less safe than Delan believed, Olivia is confronted with a reality she had not expected.
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3 out of 5 stars
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read, don't listen
- By Annielewme on 05-17-21
By: Gian Sardar
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Memories of Glass
- By: Melanie Dobson
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 957
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 861
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 855
Reminiscent of Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife, this stunning novel draws from true accounts to shine a light on a period of Holland’s darkest history and bravest heroes. 1942. As war rips through the heart of Holland, childhood friends Josie van Rees and Eliese Linden partner with a few daring citizens to rescue Eliese’s son and hundreds of other Jewish children who await deportation in a converted theater in Amsterdam. But amid their resistance work, Josie and Eliese’s dangerous secrets could derail their friendship and their entire mission.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Memorable, Inspirational WWII Story
- By A+D on 09-08-19
By: Melanie Dobson
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After Visiting Friends
- A Son's Story
- By: Michael Hainey
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 82
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 83
Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Son's Search for Father Brings on Self-knowledge
- By sheila kehoe on 08-15-13
By: Michael Hainey
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A House in the Sky
- A Memoir
- By: Amanda Lindhout, Sara Corbett
- Narrated by: Amanda Lindhout
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,011
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,804
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,801
Amanda Lindhout reads her spectacularly dramatic memoir of a woman whose curiosity about the world led her from rural Canada to imperiled and dangerous countries on every continent, and then into 15 months of harrowing captivity in Somalia - a story of courage, resilience, and extraordinary grace. In August 2008, she traveled to Mogadishu, Somalia - "the most dangerous place on Earth." On her fourth day in the country, she and her photojournalist companion were abducted.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Drawing Strength from an Empty Well
- By Mel on 09-12-13
By: Amanda Lindhout, and others
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Girl at War
- A Novel
- By: Sara Novic
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 657
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 578
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 577
Zagreb, 1991. Ana Jurić is a carefree 10-year-old, living with her family in a small apartment in Croatia's capital. But that year, civil war breaks out across Yugoslavia, splintering Ana's idyllic childhood. Daily life is altered by food rations and air raid drills, and soccer matches are replaced by sniper fire. Neighbors grow suspicious of one another, and Ana's sense of safety starts to fray. When the war arrives at her doorstep, Ana must find her way in a dangerous world.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A perfectly timed departure from the predictable template.
- By Sara on 06-03-15
By: Sara Novic
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Apeirogon
- A Novel
- By: Colum McCann
- Narrated by: Colum McCann
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 568
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 483
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 487
Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on, to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend, to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate. Their worlds shift irreparably after 10-year-old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet and 13-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers. When Bassam and Rami learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Too many chapters & interruptions
- By sara robbins on 03-02-20
By: Colum McCann
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Take What You Can Carry
- A Novel
- By: Gian Sardar
- Narrated by: Vaneh Assadourian
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 229
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 208
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 207
It’s 1979. Olivia Murray, a secretary at a Los Angeles newspaper, is determined to become a photojournalist and make a difference with her work. When opportunity arrives, she seizes it, accompanying her Kurdish boyfriend, Delan, to northern Iraq for a family wedding, hoping to capture an image that lands her a job in the photo department. More important, though, the trip is a chance to understand Delan’s childhood and bridge the differences of their pasts. Yet when the return home proves less safe than Delan believed, Olivia is confronted with a reality she had not expected.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
read, don't listen
- By Annielewme on 05-17-21
By: Gian Sardar
-
Memories of Glass
- By: Melanie Dobson
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 957
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 861
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 855
Reminiscent of Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife, this stunning novel draws from true accounts to shine a light on a period of Holland’s darkest history and bravest heroes. 1942. As war rips through the heart of Holland, childhood friends Josie van Rees and Eliese Linden partner with a few daring citizens to rescue Eliese’s son and hundreds of other Jewish children who await deportation in a converted theater in Amsterdam. But amid their resistance work, Josie and Eliese’s dangerous secrets could derail their friendship and their entire mission.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Memorable, Inspirational WWII Story
- By A+D on 09-08-19
By: Melanie Dobson
-
After Visiting Friends
- A Son's Story
- By: Michael Hainey
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 82
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 83
Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Son's Search for Father Brings on Self-knowledge
- By sheila kehoe on 08-15-13
By: Michael Hainey
-
Love, Africa
- A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival
- By: Jeffrey Gettleman
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 188
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 164
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 166
A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past 20 years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there - and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this book!!!
- By Benjamin on 05-26-17
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Forgiveness
- A Gift from My Grandparents
- By: Mark Sakamoto
- Narrated by: Geoff Sugiyama
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
When the Second World War broke out, Ralph MacLean chose to escape his troubled life on the Magdalen Islands in eastern Canada and volunteer to serve his country overseas. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Mitsue Sakamoto saw her family and her stable community torn apart after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Admirable progenitors
- By M. D. Baines on 04-24-18
By: Mark Sakamoto
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The Line Becomes a River
- Dispatches from the Border
- By: Francisco Cantú
- Narrated by: Francisco Cantú
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 974
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 869
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 867
For Francisco Cantú, the border is in the blood: His mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Driven to understand the hard realities of the landscape he loves, Cantú joins the Border Patrol. He and his partners learn to track other humans under blistering sun and through frigid nights. They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Plagued by a growing awareness of his complicity in a dehumanizing enterprise, he abandons the patrol for civilian life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A necessary read, I am thankful for
- By LB on 02-10-18
By: Francisco Cantú
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Moonglow
- A Novel
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,501
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,342
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,339
Moonglow unfolds as the deathbed confession, made to his grandson, of a man the narrator refers to only as "my grandfather". It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and desire and ordinary love, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact - and the creative power - of the keeping of secrets and the telling of lies.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful novel, terrible narrator
- By Joyce M. Bernheim on 12-30-16
By: Michael Chabon
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The Refugees
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 879
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 770
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Story4 out of 5 stars 773
With the coruscating gaze that informed The Sympathizer, in The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good collection of short stories
- By Thomas More on 03-19-17
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Mystery Writers of America Presents Ice Cold
- Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War
- By: Mystery Writers of America, Jeffery Deaver - editor, Raymond Benson - editor
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner, Stephen R. Thorne, Meredith Mitchell, and others
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 70
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Nuclear brinksmanship, psychological warfare, spies, double agents, femmes fatales, and dead drops… The Cold War - a terrifying time when nuclear war between the world's two superpowers was an ever-present threat, an all-too-real possibility that could be set off at the touch of a button - provides a chilling backdrop to this collection of all-new short stories from today's most celebrated mystery writers.
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3 out of 5 stars
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What the?
- By yenalsekim on 04-26-18
By: Mystery Writers of America, and others
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The Dragons, the Giant, the Women
- A Memoir
- By: Wayétu Moore
- Narrated by: Tovah Ott
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 175
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 147
When Wayétu Moore turns five years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big birthday party at their home in Monrovia, Liberia, but all she can think about is how much she misses her mother, who is working and studying in faraway New York. Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Lyricism didn't translate to audio
- By Coleen Michelle Montgomery on 02-24-21
By: Wayétu Moore
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American War
- A Novel
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,268
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,063
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 2,057
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. And when her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Best listen in years
- By odin on 04-08-17
By: Omar El Akkad
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Chateau of Secrets: A Novel
- By: Melanie Dobson
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 789
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 704
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 706
A courageous young noblewoman risks her life to hide French resistance fighters; 70 years later, her granddaughter visits the family’s abandoned chateau and uncovers shocking secrets from the past. Gisèle Duchant guards a secret that could cost her life. Tunnels snake through the hill under her family’s medieval chateau in Normandy. Now, with Hitler’s army bearing down, her brother and several friends are hiding in the tunnels, resisting the German occupation of France. But when German soldiers take over the family’s château, Gisèle is forced to host them as well.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Unexpected Twist
- By Chastity Lee on 06-14-20
By: Melanie Dobson