Firefly Cloak

Eight-year-old Tessa Lee tells of being abandoned by her mother in a campground with her 4-year-old brother. At 15, Tessa Lee finds and confronts her mother, who flatly denies having had children. Narrator Jenna Lamia's sunny Southern optimism fits Tessa Lee, a wily child with a quick tongue. Lamia is equally believable as Sheila, Tessa Lee's addict mother, and her grandmother, Lil. Through flashbacks and subtle details, Lamia fleshes out their lives, keeping each separate yet inextricably joined with the others. The combination of an absorbing story spanning three generations; multi-layered, well-defined characters; precisely crafted writing; and Jenna Lamia's admirable performance makes this audio worthwhile. S.J.H. [Editor's Note: A soundreview is also available at Audiopolis, www.audiofilemagazine.com.] (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Starred review from July 10, 2006
Lamia is fast becoming a treasure to the audiobook world—her reading of The Secret Life of Bees
earned her an Audie nomination. Lamia's performance of Reynolds's novel is a thing of beauty, pitch perfect and dead on. The story of 14-year-old Tessa Lee, who, at seven, was abandoned along with her little brother, Travis, is elevated beyond Reynolds's (The Rapture of Cannan
) already poetic text by Lamia's exquisite and skillful interpretation. The pain and anger of abandonment mixed with the ache of yearning to see her ne'er-do-well mother again is made palpable by Lamia's uncanny empathy toward her characters. Lil, Tessa Lee's grandmother and caretaker, tries to hold on to and protect her growing and hurting granddaughter. Though all the characters shine, Lamia's depiction of Tessa Lee is inspired. This is fine acting, not just reading. As one hears Tessa Lee breathing and smiling along with her thoughts, it makes the listener smile, too. Simultaneous release with the Shaye Areheart Books hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 13).

February 13, 2006
Reynolds's The Rapture of Cannan
was a list-topping Oprah pick in 1996. Tenyears later, Reynolds's fourth novel gets going quickly by page five: alcoholic, drug-addicted single mom Sheila, taking up in Alabama with the latest in a string of ne'er-do-wells, deserts her two young children at a campground. Eight-year-old Tessa Lee awakes to find toddler Travis wandering around with a phone number magic-markered on his back and has only the shawl left by her mother, festooned with fireflies made of colorful thread, for comfort. Four pages and seven years later, Tessa Lee, who has been living with her grandparents, runs away to confront her mother, who has been sighted working as a mermaid at a Massachusetts boardwalk; she tells Sheila of Travis's death two years earlier and promptly loses her mother a second time. Ranging over the points of view of Tessa Lee, Sheila and distraught grandmother Lil, Reynolds flashes back periodically while the three try to eke out a present. Reynolds is frank in depicting Sheila's often reprehensible behavior and tender in portraying the warmth between Tessa Lee and Lil. The book never fully gels, but it is uplifting in its explorations of family, forgiveness and redemption.