When Women Were Dragons

Barnhill’s (The Girl Who Drank the Moon) adult debut is set in a 1950s United States after hundreds of thousands of women transformed into rampaging dragons and then vanished into the skies with other similarly changed women. The book is split into two threads, each performed by a different narrator. Kimberly Farr voices Alex Green, who begins the story as a young girl whose beloved aunt was lost in the Mass Dragoning of 1955. With a timeless storyteller’s voice, Farr ably portrays Alex’s first-person point of view as she grows up with her cousin Beatrice, moving out of her grim childhood and cautiously gaining a new sense of self. Mark Bramhall narrates interstitial chapters in the form of interviews, articles, and other ephemera that give context to the idea of dragoning. Bramhill’s scholarly delivery can feel a bit dry, but his warm tone ensures that listeners will never be bored.