Barbara's War

By: Fenella J. Miller

Narrated by: Sandra Garston

As war rages over Europe, Barbara Sinclair is desperate to escape from her unhappy home, which is a target of the German Luftwaffe. Caught up by the emotion of the moment, she agrees to marry John, her childhood friend who's leaving to join the RAF; but a meeting with Simon Farley, the son of a local industrialist, and an encounter with Alex Everton, a Spitfire pilot, complicate matters. With rationing, bombing, and the constant threat of death all around her, Barbara must unravel the complexities of her home life and the difficulties of her emotional relationships in this gripping coming-of-age wartime drama.

©2012 Fenella J Miller (P)2015 Fenella J Miller

Written version a better option

Oh my, where to start? Normally I find the narration adds much to the telling of a story, especially when a British accent is involved, but not so in this case. Barbara's War may have been a decent historical/fiction/romance/mystery, but I was so distracted by the amateurish performance, it was hard to concentrate on anything except the terrible reading. It reminds me of what I may have sounded like at school reading a story to my fourth graders after lunch, only worse. Vocal inflections remained maddeningly the same, whether discussing new puppies or a murder. The reader's pauses after every line or two was distracting and the loss of momentum during what should have been discussions or arguments slowed the story-telling to a mind-numbing crawl. There was no differentiation between characters' voices: Grandpa and Barbara were basically the same. Was this really the performance of a professional, Audible?!
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