Shadows Over Paradise

By: Isabel Wolff

Narrated by: Susan Duerden, Wanda McCaddon

Jenni Clark is a ghostwriter. She loves to immerse herself in other people's stories--it's a respite from her own life and from a relationship that appears to be nearing its end. Jenni's latest assignment takes her to a coastal hamlet in England, where she has agreed to pen the memoir of an elderly farm owner named Klara. Jenni assumes the project will be easy: a quiet, ordinary tale of a life well lived. But Klara's story is far from quiet. She recounts the tale of a family torn apart by World War II and of disgraceful acts committed against a community in the Japanese prison camps on the Pacific island paradise of Java.

As harrowing details emerge, and stunning truths come to light, Jenni is compelled to confront a secret she's spent a lifetime burying. Weaving together the lives of two very different women, Isabel Wolff has created a captivating novel of love, loss, and hope that reaches across generations.

©2015 Isabel Wolff (P)2015 Tantor

Entertaining historical fiction

I enjoyed this quite a lot; it is well written, and seemed to be well researched (for the sequences in Indonesia during WWII). Both narrators were good and added to the emotional impact of the story.

Horrendous narration

Loved the story but this was the worst audible performance! The voice of the main character is breathy with no animation. Just a monotone read with no punctuation. Stuck with because I liked this well written story.

Well told story

I really liked the Audio readers for the story. it was a good choice to use two people to designate the two narrators. I have enjoyed several of Wolff's stories. She does tend to have a pattern to her stories you can recognize but if you like her style it works. It was really interesting to her about WW2 from a Pacific perspective (Dutch Java). It does gloss over ideas of Dutch colonialism and a countries fight for independence. But it was interesting to hear a bit about what it is like after a war ends and a world tries to put itself back together.