In This Moment

Rachel Botchan’s narration is the secret sauce of this audiobook. She doesn’t just deliver lines; she *embodies* them, slipping effortlessly between Maggie’s three distinct voices—each with its own cadence, inflection, and emotional timbre. The 1861 segments are rich with Southern gentility, the 1941 wartime urgency hums with a clipped, no-nonsense energy, and the 2001 chapters crackle with modern exhaustion, as if Maggie’s just barely holding it all together. Botchan’s performance is so immersive that I found myself checking the time only to realize hours had vanished into the story. That said, the pacing in the final third stumbles slightly, as if Meyer rushed to tie up too many threads at once. And while the historical research is impressive, the 2001 timeline occasionally feels like a concession to contemporary tropes rather than a fully fleshed-out era. Still, these are minor quibbles in a performance and story that otherwise feel cinematic in scope. If you’re hesitant about time-travel narratives, let Maggie’s quiet strength—voiced so powerfully by Botchan—win you over.