Bloodroot

China Bayles receives an urgent call from her mother to return to the family's plantation in Mississippi to help with her ailing Great Aunt Tullie. A hereditary disease, questions about who owns the land, and a homicide turn the visit into a search for the truth about the family. This is Southern storytelling at its best, and Julia Gibson does justice to the writing in her lightly accented speech as she projects the slow tempo of Delta life. Her voice is seductive, drawing the listener in and creating the perfect atmosphere to track the threads of the narrative. Despite the many characters, flashbacks, and intertwined threads, the listener will have no trouble following the story. S.S.R. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine