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Half a Lifelong Romance
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
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Half a Lifelong Romance
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Publisher's summary
From one of 20th-century China's greatest writers and the author of Lust, Caution comes an unforgettable story of a love affair set in 1930s Shanghai.
Manzhen is a young worker in a Shanghai factory where she meets Shijun, the son of wealthy merchants. Despite family complications, they fall in love and begin to dream of a shared life together - until circumstances force them apart. When they are reunited after many years, can they start their relationship again? Or is it destined to be the romance of only half a lifetime?
This affectionate and captivating novel tells the moving story of an enduring love affair and offers a fascinating window onto Chinese life in the first half of the 20th century.
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Molly Murphy always knew she'd end up in trouble, just as her mother predicted. So, when she commits murder in self-defense, she flees her cherished Ireland, under cover of a false identity, for the anonymous shores of late 19th-century America. When she arrives in New York and sees the welcoming promise of freedom in the Statue of Liberty, Molly begins to breathe easier. But when a man is murdered on Ellis Island, a man Molly was seen arguing with, she becomes a prime suspect in the crime.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Cream Puff Read
- By Jan on 12-19-13
By: Rhys Bowen
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Secrets of a Charmed Life
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,131
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,612
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,593
Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades...beginning with who she really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden--one that will test her convictions and her heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Rare 5-Star Across the Board!
- By Imamomof4 on 06-14-15
By: Susan Meissner
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Three Souls
- A Novel
- By: Janie Chang
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
We have three souls, or so I'd been told. But only in death could I confirm this.... So begins the haunting and captivating tale, set in 1935 China, of the ghost of a young woman named Leiyin, who watches her own funeral from above and wonders why she is being denied entry to the afterlife. Beside her are three souls - stern and scholarly yang; impulsive, romantic yin; and wise, shining hun - who will guide her toward understanding. She must, they tell her, make amends.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very different but compelling point of view.
- By Kevin Wickline on 06-08-23
By: Janie Chang
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Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 94
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
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2 out of 5 stars
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A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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The Nightingale Girls
- By: Donna Douglas
- Narrated by: Penelope Freeman
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
Three very different girls sign up as trainee nurses at a big London teaching hospital in 1934. Dora leaves her overcrowded, squalid working-class home for a better life. But has she got what it takes to keep up with other, better-educated girls? And will her hated stepfather ever let her go? Helen is born for the job; her brother is a doctor, her all-powerful mother a hospital trustee. But will Helen’s secret misery be her downfall? An aristocratic rebel, Millie’s carefree attitude will find her up in front of Matron again and again. Will she ever care enough to make a nurse? Or will she go back to the glamorous life she was born to?
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2 out of 5 stars
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For young girls
- By deborah jernigan on 12-31-16
By: Donna Douglas
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Silver Wattle
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 441
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 395
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 385
In fear for their lives after the sudden death of their mother, Adéla and Klára must flee Prague to find refuge with their uncle in Australia. Later, Adéla becomes a film director at a time when the local industry is starting to feel the competition from Hollywood. But even while success is imminent, the issues of family and an impossible love are never far away.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Groan, Snore and Wince!
- By OrangeWisteria on 02-12-12
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East of the Sun
- By: Julia Gregson
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 161
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4 out of 5 stars 113
Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Indian history takes a back seat to 3 young women
- By Richard on 05-24-16
By: Julia Gregson
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After the War Is Over
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Robson
- Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
After four years as a military nurse, Charlotte Brown is ready to leave behind the devastation of the Great War. The daughter of a vicar, she has always been determined to dedicate her life to helping others. Moving to busy Liverpool, she throws herself into her work with those most in need, only tearing herself away for the lively dinners she enjoys with the women at her boardinghouse.
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3 out of 5 stars
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More romance than history
- By RueRue on 08-17-16
By: Jennifer Robson
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Evergreen Falls
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 252
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 230
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 232
A long-forgotten secret, a scandalous attraction and a place where two women's lives are changed forever. 1926: Violet Armstrong is one of the few remaining members of staff working at the grand Evergreen Spa Hotel as it closes down over winter. Only a handful of guests are left, including the heir to a rich grazing family, his sister and her suave suitor. When a snowstorm moves in, the hotel is cut off and they are all trapped. No-one could have predicted what would unfold.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Soooo Boring
- By Merford on 10-09-19
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Gold Dust
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 266
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 248
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Story4 out of 5 stars 245
Three women linked by their blood, their dreams...and their sins. From Leningrad in the '70s to America and London in the present day, Kimberley Freeman's new novel follows the lives of two sisters, Lena and Natalia, and their cousin, Sofi, as they move away from Russia and all they have known. Despite promising to always take care of each other, a pact to meet every winter is shattered as their lives change and long-held resentments begin to surface. Can that resentment turn to hatred? To murder?
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4 out of 5 stars
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It's just not the same without Caroline Lee
- By Maria on 12-04-17
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Modern Girls
- By: Jennifer S. Brown
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4 out of 5 stars 68
In 1935, Dottie Krasinsky is the epitome of the modern girl. A bookkeeper in midtown Manhattan, Dottie steals kisses from her steady beau, meets her girlfriends for drinks, and eyes the latest fashions. Yet at heart, she is a dutiful daughter, living with her Yiddish-speaking parents on the Lower East Side. So when, after a single careless night, she finds herself in a family way by a charismatic but unsuitable man, she is desperate: unwed, unsure, and running out of options.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Super annoying voiceover
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-17
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Before We Visit the Goddess
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Priya Ayyar, Vikas Adam
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 790
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 723
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Story4 out of 5 stars 726
The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family's situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her wing, but her generosity soon proves dangerous after the girl makes a single unforgivable misstep. Years later, Sabitri's own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother's choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover - but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she'd imagined.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Absolutely Worth a Credit
- By Texastanya on 08-27-16
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The Vagrants
- By: Yiyun Li
- Narrated by: Jackie Chung
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Yiyun Li is the winner of the prestigious Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. The Vagrants, set in 1979 China, is the story of those affected by the execution of a 28-year-old counterrevolutionary. Though suffering, Li's characters nevertheless struggle to maintain hope amid cruel circumstance.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Lovely prose, good story, deadly narration
- By Athene on 05-10-13
By: Yiyun Li
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The Amish Girl Who Never Belonged
- By: Samantha Price
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 3 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
After Emma's parents died, her disagreeable grandmother often sent her to stay with the Eshes, a nearby family. When her grandmother died, Emma was sent to live with distant relatives. While Emma was comfortable at their home, she never felt she truly belonged. On her 20th birthday, things took a turn for the worse when her uncle announced he was finding her a suitable husband. Emma was shocked to learn the man was Thomas Esh, who was said to be a secret drunkard and a gambler.
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5 out of 5 stars
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absolutely love it!
- By Joy on 06-16-21
By: Samantha Price
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 677
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 610
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 608
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
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Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 117
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 101
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
What listeners say about Half a Lifelong Romance
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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Story4 out of 5 stars
- david h
- 03-24-23
Engaging romance set in a very interesting context
Slightly too long but beautifully read story set in 1920s and 1930s Shanghai. Deals with relationships, family and romance entirely from the Chinese perspective. Describes the social hierarchy, from street vendors to lothario fat cats, and economic circumstances of families and especially women, with not a hint of anger or sarcasm. I loved this book but was sad at the ending.
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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
- Chit Y.
- 10-11-18
A classic Chinese romance novel
The narrator is so professional and I almost forgot the narrator is a female when she was acting on the male character. I’m really impressed.
I have long heard about this classic novel. They even made it into a movie which is also popular. Eileen Chang is the role model of many contemporary Chinese romance novelists nowadays. They try to follow her style.
The author describe everything in very detail and it made the story’s pace seem a bit slow. But the good side is that the reader really get to experience the subtle change of the characters’ psychological state.
As for non-Chinese readers, it is also a good source from learning about how Chinese view about “love” in the second world-war era.
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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
- NHWY
- 09-26-21
Great book! Eileen Chang is astounding!
My favorite novel by Eileen Chang. Well translated. Well read. Really enjoy it! Looking forward to more Eileen Chang novels/essays in Audible.
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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
- Marcus Aurelius
- 10-05-17
super
wonderful book. rich psychological portraits. one of the best narrators I have ever heard. listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Tasha Mae DelRosario
- 08-26-23
Great story. Even better reader!
Slow buildup but worth while. Great character development. Reader had a lot of energy and really brought the characters to life !
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