The Foreshadowing (or 'Hurrah - I am NOT an audiobook grouch')

After grousing so much about the last two audiobooks I listened to (Austenland and The Sharing Knife: Beguilement), and being a little worried about sharing Gatty's Tale with steepholm, though I quite liked it, it was a bit of a relief to listen to the sample of The Foreshadowing [ETA - not sure about that link, I've tried it again.] and have no hesitation about choosing it.  I could barely make myself stop listening, and had a strong feeling that this was an almost perfect marriage of reader/narrator and book, to the extent that I suspected I might have found it less gripping had I read it instead of listening. Today I had a look to see if the reader had done any other books they had available, and realised Anna Maxwell Martin is a well-known (BAFTA-winning, indeed) actress, though I've only seen her as Bessy in the wonderful production of North and South.  Her voice -- oh, it's just so good.  And reading this spare, atmospheric, stark prose...  Listen to the sample!  It's well worth it. 

Anyway, the story is an interesting one in itself, and I think the reasons the audiobook narration works so well are also.  Sasha (Alexandra) Fox is the 17 year old daughter of an eminent doctor living in Brighton at the start of World War I. She had her first premonition - of death, always of death - at the age of five, though nobody in her family can accept her entirely unwanted ability to predict the future.  She isn't totally sure about the premonitions herself at first, but when she's finally allowed to go the the hospital her father runs as a volunteer nursing assistant, they start to get clearer and more specific and beyond any doubt.  Like hearing the voice of the person say 'I must go now.  I had a bayonet put into my back as I was doing the same to another man. I must go now. I am dead and I must go.'  (Yeah - imagine that read by someone with beautifully clear diction, and controlled emotional depth.  Chills!) Before she knows he's dead.  She can't do anything about the prophecies, but feels totally alone as nobody believes her - like Cassandra, surely one of the more heart-rending characters of literature. 

When she has a dream showing her brother Tom (just a year older than Sasha and always closer to her than the eldest, Edgar, who went off eagerly as soon as the war began, to 'do his bit') being killed, however, she knows she has time to try to do something to prevent its happening.  She manages to get herself to France, pretending to be a trained nurse and starts working in a rest station in Boulogne.  If you might get a hint just reading this that finding Tom will be a hugely difficult problem in itself, let alone preventing his getting in the way of a bullet, you're not wrong.  I've no intention of saying more about what happens, as there's such tension between the seeming inevitability of the future Sasha has seen and her absolute determination to risk and do anything to stop it happening.  And then the climax - everything goes into slow motion and the tension is even greater when you suddenly realise what's about to happen and what could result...

( More about audio/book, and a *little* about historical fiction in general... )

Now mixing reading the paperback (with flags!  and notes!) with E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, which arrived the other day.  Now that is a mind-bending combo.  But the impatient wait for Frankie is being so well-rewarded.  And I've got two of Sherwood Smith's just arrived to read and Catherine Gilbert Murdock's Princess Ben is on its way, and my first Carrie Jones is here, and In the Serpent's Coils, which sartorias recommended recently is ordered, and there's a new Skulduggery Pleasant out....  Yep, I am one very happy reader.