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The Last Runaway

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About this listen

Laurel Lefkow reads the stunning new novel from the bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring

When modest Quaker Honor Bright sails from Bristol with her sister, she is fleeing heartache for a new life in America, far from home. But tragedy leaves her alone and vulnerable, torn between two worlds and dependent on the kindness of strangers. Life in 1850s Ohio is precarious and unsentimental. The sun is too hot, the thunderstorms too violent, the snow too deep. The roads are spattered with mud and spit. The woods are home to skunks and porcupines and raccoons. They also shelter slaves escaping north to freedom.

Should Honor hide runaways from the ruthless men who hunt them down? The Quaker community she has joined may oppose slavery in principle, but does it have the courage to help her defy the law? Set in the tangled forests and sunlit cornfields of Ohio, Tracy Chevalier's vivid novel is the story of bad men and spirited women, surprising marriages and unlikely friendships, and the remarkable power of defiance.

©2013 Tracy Chevalier (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Fiction Historical Fiction Heartfelt Law Ohio
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loved it, wanted to just keep listening. Highly recommend. Will look for other books by the same author for sure

loved it!

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Would you consider the audio edition of The Last Runaway to be better than the print version?

Don't know as can't see well enough to read whole books any more.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I really liked Virginee (sic) who brought a degree of reality to her situation and that of her children.

Have you listened to any of Laurel Lefkow’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Not to my knowledge.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I don't have time to even consider a single sitting listen but I would have got through it quicker on holiday,

Any additional comments?

As this was someone else's choice, I was very agreeably surprised to findI liked it. I would actually rate it as one of the best books I have listened to this year. The narrator brilliantly dealt with the varying accents in the book and it was difficult to switch off at times so compelling was the story. Excellent all round.

Book group choice

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This is an amazing tale – a naive young woman from Dorset, a Quaker, who accompanies her sister emigrating to Ohio. She soon discovers that even the northern states are riven with moral conflicts around slavery. She tries hard to hold fast to her beliefs, but comes under massive pressure to compromise. A beautifully told tale, superbly read.

Moral conflicts in pre-abolition America

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I love Tracy Chevalier books and really enjoyed this one. The story builds and the characters really come to life. The narrator is American which is fine as it is set in Ohio and in short bursts her Voicing of the Dorset accent of the main character is fine however in the longer passages which required a Dorset accent we drifted off to Yorkshire or even Lancashire!! 😉 Anyway - I recommend this book.

Story and characters build through the book

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Tracy Chevalier learned to quilt whilst writing this story of a Quaker girl in the 19th century caught up in the underground railroad which helped slaves escape from the horrors of the Southern States. The result is a patchwork of characters that come together to give a picture of that time with as satisfying a denouement as anything Chevalier has given before.

Stitching together a history

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