Today’s Throwback Thursday throws way, way back – it’s of a 2014 re-release of a recording done in 2000 of a book published in 1993. At 30 years, the book has slipped from Contemporary to Vintage/Historical. Karen Robards’ writing is still compelling and Kate Fleming is still one of the greatest narrators of all time – this might now be considered a classic! The original post was in February, 2014.
Narrated by Kate Fleming
(One Summer is also the subject of a Two Gals Talking event)
This story of the redemptive powers of love is wound around a psycho-thriller suspense plot that I wasn’t even expecting! Bad boy Johnny Harris returns from being wrongly imprisoned for murder 10 years before to his small Kentucky town. The only person he can turn to is his former high school teacher, Rachel Grant, who gives him a job at her family’s hardware store. Soon she gives him even more than her trust and her support, as she struggles with her straight-laced upbringing and the surge of overpowering lust she feels with Johnny, 5 years her junior. But if Johnny didn’t kill that girl 10 years earlier, who did?
One Summer was originally published in print in 1993, and as I relistened [in 2014] to this audiobook re-release originally recorded in 2000, it occurred to me that the time setting for the book could have been more than 20 years ago [from 2014]. The prim, easily-shocked teacher heroine and the James-Dean-like bad boy hero were reminiscent of an even earlier time. I could imagine this as having taken place in the 50s or 60s; there are only a few slightly newer references in the book, for instance when she compares a co-worker to Marlon Brando’s character in The Godfather (1972). Listening to it more as “historical” and less as “contemporary” renders some of the issues and reactions more plausible, because it was hard for me to imagine Rachel as a 35-year-old woman in 2014.
I’m a huge fan of Kate Fleming’s narrations. I can’t really find any better words to describe her incredible gift for narration: she simply is the voice of all the books she reads. And I had to keep listening until it was done, until I knew what happened, until I was satisfied that the ending had been reached and the protagonists were finally safe, because her voice compelled me to do so. And damn, if Fleming as Johnny reciting poetry wasn’t some of the sexiest stuff in the book! She was able to convey male-ness with her voice better than any other female narrator I’ve heard – not just in the lowering of pitch, but in so many other, subtle ways.
I compared the current Downpour edition in several places with one digitized from cassette and could not discern any difference or improvement in the sound in the newer release. Occasionally the hiss of earlier recording methods can be heard in both, although usually I wasn’t aware of it. There were at least two “pick-ups” that were obvious because of the change in the sound – places where the narrator/publisher replaced existing phrases with new, for instance, to correct errors. These can’t be corrected now*, but current recording techniques make it easier to do so unnoticed. Listeners today might notice those as out of place.
This rerelease of an audiobook long unavailable has been at the top of all of our favorite-but-impossible-to-find lists for years and years, and audiobook enthusiasts need to grab a copy and a bottle of wine to enjoy this classic romance/romantic suspense. Kate Fleming is also known by her pseudonym Anna Fields, the name she used in most of the recordings she did of Susan Elizabeth Phillips books (all but one of SEP’s backlist before Fleming’s tragic death in 2006) as well as over 150 other recordings. She used the name as a tribute to her great-grandmother, a vaudeville performer.
One Summer is a treat not to be missed – thank you Blackstone Audio for reviving this incredible recording!
*2023 note: I wonder if AI will be used to create pickups in re-recordings now, using the original voices. A topic to revisit, no doubt! MP
Melinda
Buy One Summer by Karen Robards on Amazon
Thank you for letting us know about this rerelease. I too am an avid Kate Fleming (Anna Fields) fan. I look forward to reading this one also.
Thanks to several previous recommendations by many of you Gals, I am now enjoying this treasure of an audiobook and discovering Anna Fields’ brilliant narration skills for the first time. No matter how many times I reread this book in print in the past I am enjoying it through a different light in an enhanced experience. Amazing!