Rainbow Valley

I’ll admit: I approached *Rainbow Valley* expecting more of the same—quaint vignettes, red-haired idealism, a dash of romance. Instead, I got a story that *surprised* me. The Meredith children—Carl, Una, Jerry, and Faith—are a whirlwind of contradictions: devout yet rebellious, tender yet ruthless in their truth-telling. Their escapades (like turning a Sunday school picnic into a near-disaster) had me laughing out loud, but it’s the quieter moments—Savage’s delivery of Una’s lonely prayers, or the way she lets Jerry’s bravado falter when he’s scared—that stuck with me. The narration is *exceptionally* well-suited to the material: Savage’s Canadian accent feels authentic without being performative, and she nails the rhythm of Montgomery’s prose, which swings from lyrical to sharp-witted in a sentence. That said, this isn’t a flawless listen. The first hour meanders as Montgomery introduces the sprawling cast, and Savage’s pacing occasionally drags during the more sermonic passages (a risk with any audiobook heavy on 19th-century moralizing). I also wished for more consistency in the kids’ voices—Jerry and Faith, in particular, sometimes blur together in tone. But these are quibbles. The real triumph is how the audiobook balances humor and heartache, especially in the subplot of John Meredith’s grief. When Savage reads his late-night conversations with his dead wife’s portrait, the production choices—minimal background noise, a slight echo—make it haunting. This isn’t *Anne* with a fresh coat of paint; it’s Montgomery at her most human, and Savage’s performance ensures you’ll feel every stubbed toe and secret sorrow.