BALM

Lisa Renee Pitts narrates this moving audiobook with a deliberate pace and arduously precise pronunciation. Although her tempo doesn't enliven the production, it may be fitting for the story of three people who strive to find their identities amid difficult circumstances in post-Civil-War Chicago. Sadie is a white woman who is widowed immediately after her unhappy marriage to a near stranger. Pitts portrays her without embellishment, except for her near hysteria as she discovers her ability to communicate with the dead. Pitts provides more depth for Madge, an unsophisticated free black woman from Tennessee with a gift for healing, and Hemp, a former Kentucky slave who is seeking his lost wife. As their lives intertwine, they begin to rely on each other, and their healing begins. N.M.C. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2015]