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Sweetgirl: A Novel Audiobook
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Publisher Description
With the heart, daring, and evocative atmosphere of Winter’s Bone and True Grit, and driven by the raw, whip-smart voice of Percy James, a blistering debut about a fearless sixteen-year old girl whose search for her missing mother leads to an unexpected discovery, and a life or death struggle in the harsh frozen landscape of the Upper Midwest.
As a blizzard bears down, Percy James sets off to find her troubled mother, Carletta. For years, Percy has had to take care of herself and Mama—a woman who’s been unraveling for as long as her daughter can remember. Fearing Carletta is strung out on meth and that she won’t survive the storm, Percy heads for Shelton Potter’s cabin, deep in the woods of Northern Michigan. A two-bit criminal, as incompetent as he his violent, Shelton has been smoking his own cook and grieving the death of his beloved Labrador, Old Bo.
But when Percy arrives, there is no sign of Carletta. Searching the house, she finds Shelton and his girlfriend drugged into oblivion—and a crying baby girl left alone in a freezing room upstairs. From the moment the baby wraps a tiny hand around her finger, Percy knows she must save her—a split-second decision that is the beginning of a dangerous odyssey in which she must battle the elements and evade Shelton and a small band of desperate criminals, hell-bent on getting that baby back.
Knowing she and the child cannot make it alone, Percy seeks help from Carletta’s ex, Portis Dale, who is the closest thing she’s ever had to a father. As the storm breaks and violence erupts, Percy will be forced to confront the haunting nature of her mother’s affliction and finds her own fate tied more and more inextricably to the baby she is determined to save.
Filled with the sweeping sense of cultural and geographic isolation of its setting—the hills of fictional Cutler County in northern Michigan—and told in Percy’s unflinching style, Sweetgirl is an affecting exploration of courage, sacrifice, and the ties that bind—a taut and darkly humorous tour-de-force that is horrifying, tender, and hopeful.
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“Narrator Cassandra Morris is extraordinary as the voice of sixteen-year-old Percy James…[and] characters who interact with Percy. Macleod Andrews has a different challenge as he narrates alternating chapters that tell the story from the perspective of Shelton Potter, a low-life drug dealer…Somehow Andrews manages to speak Shelton’s thoughts intimately while keeping the distance of the third-person voice, an approach that shines a light on Shelton’s drug-addled thought processes. A tour de force. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
Quotes
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“A gritty, compelling novel…Mulhauser depicts his people and their landscape with uncompromising fidelity.”
— Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author -
“Sweetgirl…[is] hilarious, heartbreaking, and true, a major accomplishment.”
— NPR -
“A lean, gut punch of a novel…a lyrical tale that practically demands to be read in a single sitting.”
— Paste Magazine -
“[A] disarmingly original novel.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune -
“Smart, taut, and believable writing.”
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch -
“Though meth and drugs infest almost every page, this debut novel is chillingly lyrical and filled with a love so raw and fierce it takes your breath.”
— Charlotte Observer (North Carolina) -
“The perfect balance of humor and heartache…Masterful…as wise as it is suspenseful, as funny as it is tragic…Written with guts, grit, and grace, Sweetgirl is the book you want to keep you company on a cold winter’s night.”
— Ploughshares magazine -
“This title boasts fine writing and memorable characters, making it a solid pick for readers who enjoy Woodrell or Tom Franklin.”
— Library Journal -
“Mulhauser evocatively describes the bleak landscape and starkly degraded social mores of an isolated community after the tourists have departed.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“A riveting novel.”
— Brock Clarke, author of The Happiest People in the World -
“There’s a big old neon heart pulsing on every page of Sweetgirl, like the sign to a bar you can’t help but enter.”
— Lindsay Hunter, author of Don’t Kiss Me -
“Filled with true wit, cunning, and the unwanted wisdom of a child denied a childhood. This novel comes on like the blizzard at its center.”
— Michael Parker, author of All I Have in this World
Awards
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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A Ploughshares Pick for Best Books of the New Year
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About Travis Mulhauser
Travis Mulhauser is from Petoskey, Michigan. He earned his MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and currently lives in Durham, North Carolina with his family.
About the Narrators
Cassandra Morris has received critical acclaim for her voice-over work from Publishers Weekly and AudioFile magazine, earning a dozen Earphones Awards and twice been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. Her voice has also been heard on television in commercial campaigns and numerous Nickelodeon and Disney products. She is the voice of many cartoon characters, including Leo and Luna in Yu-Gi-Oh, Carrie in Barbie: A Fairy Secret, Nathan in Pokémon, and Lola in Angelo Rules.
MacLeod Andrews is a multiple Audie, Earphones, and SOVAS award-winning and Grammy-nominated narrator with hundreds of credits to his name. Perhaps best known for a cinematic approach with full characterizations and intimate deliveries in series such as The Reckoners, Sandman Slim, and Warriors, he’s also been noted for his straight reads ranging from memoirs to modern classics. When not doing books you can hear him in video games, cartoons, commercials, podcasts, and reading you the news on Apple News +. Or check out one of his films.