Acquired Audiobook By: I started to listen to audiobooks in [2016] as a way to offset my readings of print books whilst noting there was a rumour about how audiobooks could help curb chronic migraines as you are switching up how your reading rather than allowing only one format to be your bookish choice. As I found colouring, knitting and playing solitaire agreeable companions to listening to audiobooks, I embarked on a new chapter of my reading life where I spend time outside of print editions of the stories I love reading and exchange them for audio versions.
Through hosting for Audiobookworm Promotions, I’ve expanded my knowledge of authors who are producing audio versions of their stories whilst finding podcasters who are sharing their bookish lives through pods. Meanwhile, I am also curating my own wanderings in audio via my local library who uses Overdrive for their digital audiobook catalogue wherein I can also request new digital audiobooks to become added to their OverDrive selections. Aside from OverDrive I also enjoy having Audible & Scribd memberships as my budget allows. It is a wonderful new journey and one I enjoy sharing – I have been able to expand the percentage of how many audios I listen to per year since 2018.
I received a complimentary audiobook copy of “In A Grove of Maples” via Audiobook Empire who is working with the author on this blog tour in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
NOTE: This was meant to mark my first full review featuring an audiobook released by the Audiobook Empire, however, I had to shorten my showcase for this story for the blog tour whilst I continue to listen to the story whilst I intend to share my full ruminations next Monday post-tour. The Audiobook Empire is run and owned by Jess @ Audiobookworm Promotions; as a reviewer and book blogger with her promotions company for audiobooks, audio publishers, narrators and authors – it felt like a natural transition to find titles I would be interested in reviewing via Audiobook Empire. Some of those reviews will run during audio blog tours and some will run outside of them.
Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
You might remember how excited I was about discovering the narrator Jenn Lee!? She narrated the emotionally captivating The Fall of Mrs Parsons (see also Review) in which I had such a steadfast and personal reaction to listening whilst I also had the delightful joy in hosting her during @SatBookChat! Of which, this Autumn I look forward to welcoming her back to the chat, as this Summer has proved to be chaotic and inclusive of too many lightning storms to even attempt to schedule new guests and returning favourites, such as Ms Lee!
I’ve been working a lot more hours this Summer without a lot of days off whilst the high frequency of lightning storms has all but derailed my efforts to listen to both audiobooks or to read stories in general. I thought we were going to have a reprieve from these in August, but this month proved to have its own share of mishaps and misalignments. I was also offline for most of last week whilst I found myself unable to properly attach into listening to this story the few moments I had to settle into it. Part of that was my own fault – as I was delayed sorting out how to use the Authors Direct platform which of course delayed me a bit more than usual into opening the audiobook directly.
Which is why I am spotlighting this story vs offering my fuller thoughts which I intend to share next Monday, as I’ll have a blessed few days off on the weekend in which to recharge – not just my energy but my spirits, as I will be reading and listening to the stories which I’ve ached to properly attach inside for the past several weeks; this one in particular, as I have a penchant for Historical Fiction and I love finding Historical Romances under the INSPY umbrella of stories. INSPY of course refers to Inspirational Fiction – in this instance, Christian Fiction as this is a Christian Historical Fiction release. As a hybrid reader and listener to both mainstream and INSPY Lit, it is always a joy whenever I can find stories which speak to me as a reader and thereby, bring different perspectives of stories to the readers of my blog Jorie Loves A Story.
In A Grove of Maples
Subtitle: Sheltering Trees : Book One
by Jenny Knipfer
Source: Audiobook Empire
Narrator: Jenn Lee
A HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE PERILS OF NEWLYWED LIFE AND ALL THAT COMES TO DIVIDE LOVERS
In 1897 newly married Beryl and Edward Massart travel more than one thousand miles from Quebec to farm a plot of land in Wisconsin that they bought sight-unseen. An almost magical grove of maples on their property inspires them to dream of a real home built within the grove, not the tiny log cabin they’ve come to live in.
Misunderstandings and tempers get the better of them when difficulties and troubles arise. Just months after they wed, Edward leaves pregnant Beryl in the midst of the coming winter to tend the farm and animals while he goes to be a teamster at a northern Wisconsin logging camp.
Will Beryl and Edward walk into the future together to build their house of dreams in the grove of maples, or will their plans topple like a house of sticks when the winds of misunderstanding and disaster strike?
Readers of Christian historical fiction, Historical fiction, Women’s fiction, and Christian historical romance will be endeared to this slice of late 19th century farm life.
Places to find the book:
ASIN: B099LX6X8S
Published by Audiobook Empire
on 16th July, 2021
Format: Audiobook | Digital
Length: 7 hours and 9 minutes (unabridged)
The Sheltering Tree series:
In A Grove of Maples (book one)
Under the Weeping Willow (book two)
← *forthcoming, October, 2021!
Published by: The Audiobook Empire (@AudiobookEmpire)
Converse via: #HistoricalFiction, #HistFic or #HistRom
as well as #AudiobookwormPromotions OR #TheAudiobookEmpire
+ #loveaudiobooks and #audiobook
About Jenny Knipfer
Jenny lives in Wisconsin with her husband, Ken, and their pet Yorkie, Ruby. She is also a mom and loves being a grandma. She enjoys many creative pursuits but finds writing the most fulfilling.
Spending many years as a librarian in a local public library, Jenny recently switched to using her skills as a floral designer in a retail flower shop. She is now retired from work due to disability. Her education background stems from psychology, music, and cultural missions.
Jenny’s favorite place to relax is by the western shore of Lake Superior, where her novel series, By The Light of the Moon, is set.
She deems a cup of tea and a good book an essential part of every day. When not writing, Jenny can be found reading, tending to her many houseplants, or piecing quilt blocks at her sewing machine.
Her new historical fiction, four-part series entitled, Sheltering Trees, is set in the area Jenny grew up in, where she currently lives, and places along Minnesota’s Northern Shore, where she loves to visit. She is currently writing a four-part novella series entitled: Botanical Seasons.
About Jenn Lee
After 20+ years as professional NYC actor, I stumbled into some documentary voiceover work. From that moment on, I knew the trajectory of my career had been changed forever. I adore narrating and doing VO, and every job feels like a gift.
In regards to the audiobook directly:
As soon as you put in your earphones and start to listen to Ms Lee’s narration on belalf of In A Grove of Maples, you feel emotionally connected to the character and to the story. I felt the same way when I was listening to her narration of The Fall of Mrs Parsons. She has a way of emoting so much depth out of her narration, it doesn’t take long to align yourself into the tempo of her narrative style. What I wished I had had was more time to enjoy the story and to pull harder into her narration – as when we first start listening to In A Grove of Maples – you almost feel as if your about to entreat into someone’s life via their interpersonal thoughts as they were left behind in a journal.
The story opens with a quotation from a poem which is cleverly intuitive I think of what will be found lateron in the story or as a precursor to the journey we’re about to undertake directly – however, as the story unfolds with passages from a journal, it made the threshold into this woman’s life a bit more intimate and personal as well. She’s on the throes of her life changing – a point in her life where she’s a bit at odds with her mother’s opinions and you can see how she wants to breakaway from those preconceived ideas and step forward. Except this is in the past, not the foreground – as where we first meet her, she’s in the future – speaking about where things lie now in the present vs where they had first begun.
There is an older and wiser woman speaking in the beginning – trying to put the pieces of her life together in a way that not only made sense to her looking back upon her life but it felt like an attempt at self-healing as well. To better understand the path led and walked by rechronicling how it unspun from the beginning and that is where I felt I had entered the story directly. Peering into how she arrived at that current moment by having the story backspin into her past, how she married and what her life was like prior to when everything changed.
I happen to love dimensional stories like this and especially Epistolary novels – as whenever you can tuck close to a person’s internal thoughts and murmurings – through letters or journals, you are privy to things that you might not have been able to ‘see’ if that layer of the story had been absent. I fully look forward to continuing this literary journey and revealling my fuller takeaways and impressions next week. It is one of those stories where the narrator grabs you at hallo and the author’s words give you something to chew on which is the best combination when listening to an audio narrative!
This Audio blog tour is courtesy of:
Whilst this audiobook was provided by:
Follow the Virtual Road Map
as you visit others participating:
{SOURCES: Book cover for “In A Grove of Maples”, book synopsis, author biography, author photograph of Jenny Knipfer as well as the audio tour banner and tour host badge were all provided by Audiobookworm Promotions and are used with permission. Post dividers and My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: #HistoricalMondays banner, Audiobook Spotlight banner and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2021.
Leave a Reply