Orphan Monster Spy - Matt Killeen Audiobook

Written by Matt Killeen
Read by Saskia Maarleveld
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date: March 20, 2018
Duration: 11:51:25

Her name is Sarah. She’s blonde, blue-eyed, and Jewish in 1939 Germany. And her act of resistance is about to change the world.

August 1939, just after a 15-year-old Jewish girl named Sarah and her mother drive through a Nazi checkpoint in a German town. Sarah’s mother dies in the crash, but Sarah evades capture thanks to Helmut Haller, aka Captain Jeremy Floyd, a British spy, a mysterious man with an ambiguous accent, a suspiciously bare apartment, and a lockbox full of weapons.

He’s part of the secret resistance against the Third Reich, and he needs Sarah to hide in plain sight at a school for the daughters of top Nazi brass, posing as one of them. If she can befriend the daughter of a key scientist and get invited to her house, she might be able to steal the blueprints to a bomb that could destroy the cities of Western Europe.

Nothing could prepare Sarah for her cutthroat schoolmates, and soon she finds herself in a battle for survival unlike any she’d ever imagined. But anyone who underestimates this innocent-seeming girl does so at their peril. She may look sweet, but she’s the Nazis’ worst nightmare.

Two reviews - Despite a dynamite premise, dizzyingly high stakes, and some devastating moments, Killeen’s tale falls short of its potential. While the story’s adult characters are complex and realistically flawed, Rothenstadt’s residents read like mean-girl caricatures, and the frequency with which the intelligent, empathetic Sarah refers to herself as a dumme Schlampe (“stupid bitch”) is off-putting and out of character. The book starts strong and ends with a bang, but the muddy middle highlights the paucity of plot. Ages 12–up. Agent: Molly Ker Hawn, Bent Agency.

Celebrated narrator Saskia Maarleveld offers an exceptional narration of this thrilling WWII drama. Portraying a full cast of characters, including a Jewish orphan, a U.S. spy, and the German students of an elite boarding school, Maarleveld seamlessly incorporates a wide range of European and American accents. Fifteen-year-old Sarah is portrayed with a strong and confident tone that Maarleveld effortlessly changes according to the heroine’s many roles as an actress and spy. Listeners will notice the maturity that steadily grows in Sarah’s voice as she transforms from a sullen teen who feels rejected to a resourceful undercover operative. V.C. Winner of AudioFIle Earphones Award � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine