The Swallow's Nest

The Swallow's Nest is a story of three women fighting to raise the child they've all grown to love. When home decor blogger Lilia Swallow throws a party to celebrate her husband Graham's remission after a year of lymphoma treatments, a woman arrives, thrusts a baby boy into Lilia's arms, claims he is Graham's son, and disappears. Lilia is completely unprepared for the betrayal that the child represents; however, she begins to love the baby once the shock subsides. Now this tiny baby changes her life, as well as that of Marina, who bore him and abandoned him only to change her mind later, and Ellen, Graham's mother, who sees him as a second chance to correct all the mistakes she made raising Graham. A custody battle ensues and all the drama unfolds.

Listening to this audiobook was quite a struggle for me, as I found it difficult to get attached to any of the characters, and most of the characters I actually found to be hateful and deceitful without many redeeming characteristics. I found the character development to be rather one-dimensional, and the only one that I could really envision very well was the little boy, Toby. I also thought the story was even more depressing than what I read in the synopsis. I did, however, find it really interesting when, at the beginning of each part of the book, the author compared the characters' situation to that of different species of swallow; for example, she compared their mating rituals and the way they raise their young to the characters' situation as it unfolded throughout the book.

Though I felt that this book would have been very suitable for audio adaptation, the narration, in my opinion, did not quite live up to my usual standards of listening. I felt like the narrator, Karen White, would have been more suited to non-fiction materials rather than this fictional story. While she did differentiate between genders well, I sometimes found it difficult to determine who was speaking, as a lot of the male voices sounded similar to each other, and likewise with the female voices. Also, there were a few characters with accents, and they seemed rather forced and unnatural in the narration.

While White stayed pretty consistently paced throughout the production, she read quite a bit too slowly for my taste. On the upside, I didn't notice any flaws or blatant edits in the audiobook.

I really struggled to read and finish this book, and I'm struggling to review it now. I felt like the story and the narration were both of less than average quality. Accents and character voices seemed forced, and I just had a lot of trouble getting attached to any of the characters. Glancing through at other reviews, I noticed that a lot of people really enjoyed this book, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.

Title: The Swallow's Nest
Author: Emilie Richards
Narrator: Karen White
Publisher: Blackstone Audio (2017; Unabridged)
Length of Production: 16 hrs.