The Baby I Stole

Emily Sutton-Smith doesn’t just narrate *The Baby I Stole*—she weaponizes her voice to make this audiobook impossible to pause. Her performance is a masterclass in controlled desperation, shifting seamlessly from the exhausted monotone of a woman clinging to sanity to the shrill, erratic panic of someone realizing they’ve dug their own grave. The real strength of this production is how it forces you to side with a protagonist who’s objectively monstrous, yet rendered tragically human through Sutton-Smith’s nuanced work. The pacing, too, is a standout—Black’s script keeps you off-balance, doling out revelations with the precision of a surgeon, though the middle act occasionally meanders like a woman circling her own mistakes. My biggest critique? The ending feels rushed, as if the final twist needed more buildup to land the punch it thinks it’s throwing. Still, the audiobook’s flaws are as riveting as its strengths, and by the final hour, you’ll be questioning whether you just listened to a crime story or a confession.