Adding the audiobook to my reading regimen has enabled me to get lots done when I don’t have time to be still and read.  As I mentioned before, the audiobook has reinvigorated my appreciation for words and the many brilliant combinations therein.  This issue of Bookisshh listens in on Sara Gruen’s, “At The Water’s Edge” and the emphasis of Scottish Brogues.  Enjoy!

  “At The Water’s Edge” by Sara Gruen  🖊 🖊 🖊  Three Pens

The audio aspect is what made this an enjoyable.  Reader/listeners are whisked away from Philadelphia to Scotland during World War II.  “At The Water’s Edge” is a story of a woman’s helplessness, classism, failed families and true love.  It is the story of a couple who paired based on a coin toss and how their lovelessness established a deep codependency.  It is a story of monster chasing and finding.  It is the story of lost and found love.

The reader can enjoy the variety of Scottish brogues as the narrator has done a fine job of crafting voices for each character.  You can hear the sea captain, the sassy maid, the dandy entitled boys of Philadelphia and the warm naive voice of Maddie.  The narration of the story does more for the story than the actual story.  The narrator, went to great lengths to learn the local dialects which elevates the reader/listener’s interest.

Gruen does an excellent job at capturing the period in very specific detail.  We see the socks being darned, ration books flapping in the air, and feel the heavy gas masks on our faces.  The pacing is a little jagged and the peaks simply come and go to frequently leaving the reader on long plateaus.  Entertaining in an audio sense but mildly in a narrative sense.