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Title: The Making of June

Author: Annie Ward

Narrator: Aasne Vigesaa

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-30-08

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

At first, June appears to be the ideal California girl - blond hair, blue eyes, a production assistant at a film company, and married to a hot property about to get his doctorate - but she abandons her home and job to follow her husband to Bulgaria. Within a month of their arrival, June turns 30 and her husband leaves her for a young local girl. As difficult as it is for her to be without him and virtually friendless in a country on the verge of civil war, June doesn't run home. She drinks too much, falls into the arms of a Mafia kingpin, gets caught up in the revolution, and little by little revels in her new vision of the world outside the American periscope. She survives and learns that loss can be an opportunity and that loneliness gives a person time to change her life.

(P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Members Reviews:

An incredible story about self-discovery and growth in times of loss

From the moment I opened the book until its very last page, I was taken on an insightful and hopeful journey through the complexities of the Bulgarian and American psyche. The characters are imperfect but develop in beatifully vulnerable and unexpectedly powerful ways. I fell in love with their broken hearts and strong persevering spirit. As I read about them taking big risks in high-stake times, I got empowered to never quit searching for love, happiness, and a better life. Page by page and chapter by chapter, I saw the allusion, illusion and elusion of the Dream, be it an American, European, or Bulgarian dream, turn into a different reality... a reality of creating a new meaningful and uniquely personal role for yourself in our world. The book wouldn't be the same if it wasn't set in the post-Communist Balkans and if it didn't touch upon the historically significant Christian-Muslim conflicts of the area. The pace felt dynamic and easy to keep up with even with each and every adventure being spiced up and sometimes overly sprinkled with organized crime dangers and civil and political protests. I loved the ending... it's karmic and yet not quintessentially Hollywood-esque.

Good depiction of era and place

Having lived in Eastern Europe in that era, it was great fun to go back and see it again through June's eyes. I can attest to the authenticity of the environment that Ward recreates in the book, the darkness, sleaze, uncertainty, and human spirit that plugged through it all. June is a bit of a retard at first, but as the book proceeds you get to know and understand her and her environment. Good writing of an era and place that existed pretty much as written in the book.

Captivating. Can't wait to read more by this author ...

Captivating. Can't wait to read more by this author.

Tense, suspenseful and very captivating!

From the moment he finishes the first page of this novel the reader and his curiosity are hooked. This is a page-turner and the story of twenty-something June Carver who finds herself living an inconvenient life in Sofia, Bulgaria. She has followed her husband to that city when he receives a grant to write a dissertation on new democracies in eastern Europe. June struggles to adjust in a backward country and to fit in with the expatriate community in Sofia but there are many obstacles in her way. Life in Bulgaria introduces June to new threats to her marriage, cultural differences, the Bulgarian mafia and new insight into the lives of people who have survived the iron fist of Soviet power.