AUDIO

Before I Met You

by Lisa Jewell
13 CDs. library ed. unabridged. 15 hrs. Recorded Bks. 2013. ISBN 9781470395131. $72. F
COPY ISBN
Betty's grandmother Arlette has just died, leaving behind a will that awards most of her estate to a woman no one in the family knows, someone named Clara Pickle. There is a one-year deadline for them to find Clara, so Betty decides to relocate from remote Guernsey Island to London, where Arlette had lived in her youth, to try to locate Clara. Jewell alternates between the 1920s, describing Arlette's experiences in London, and the 1990s, where Betty is on her own in a small flat, with a famous rock star as a neighbor. During her quest, Betty learns much about Arlette's life, including her affair with a jazz musician. Narrator Jane Collingwood capably narrates this character-driven novel with a slow-to-develop plot.
VERDICT Recommended for fans of British and women's fiction.
Reviewed by Mary Knapp, Madison P.L., WI , Feb 21, 2014
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