PRECIOUS BANE

It is a genuine pleasure to listen to Justine Eyre narrate this treasure of an audiobook set in the English countryside of the early nineteenth century. There is a naturalness and fluidity to her performance that renders the formal language fresh for contemporary ears. Eyre's characterizations are excellent as she shifts among the male and female personalities, giving each a beating heart and a textured vibrancy. The story centers on the kindhearted Prudence, born with a cleft palate (her "precious bane"), who lives with her domineering brother, Gideon. The fullness of life is found in the rhythm and flow of this rural community as romances spark and pale, tensions build and ease between family members and among neighbors, and the natural world is a continuing force to be reckoned with. M.J. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2020]