The Kings and Queens of Roam, Daniel Wallace
The Kings and Queens of Roam, Daniel Wallace
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The Kings and Queens of Roam

Author: Daniel Wallace

Narrator: Angela Brazil

Unabridged: 10 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/07/2013

Synopsis

Helen and Rachel McCallister, who live in a town called Roam, are as different as sisters can be: Helen older, bitter, and conniving; Rachel beautiful, na├»ve—and blind. When their parents die an untimely death, Rachel has to rely on Helen for everything, but Helen embraces her role in all the wrong ways, convincing Rachel that the world is a dark and dangerous place she couldn't possibly survive on her own … or so Helen believes, until Rachel makes a surprising choice that turns both their worlds upside down. In this new novel, Southern literary master Daniel Wallace returns to the tradition of tall tales and folklore made memorable in his bestselling Big Fish. The Kings and Queens of Roam is a wildly inventive, beautifully written, and big-hearted tale of family and the ties that bind.

About Daniel Wallace

Daniel Wallace is the author of five novels. His first, Big Fish, was made into a motion picture of the same name by Tim Burton in 2003, and a musical version is coming to Broadway in 2013. Wallace’s work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages and is studied in high schools and universities across the country. He is a contributing editor to Garden & Gun magazine and is the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he teaches and directs the Creative Writing Program. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with his wife, Laura Kellison Wallace. Visit his website at DanielWallace.org.

About Angela Brazil

Angela Brazil is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator and a professional actor who is proud to be a long-standing member of the Resident Acting Company at Trinity Repertory Company. She also teaches at the Brown/Trinity Conservatory.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Bandit

Every so often I read a book so SO amazing, that I don't think I can do it justice with a review. But I do try. This is my second read by Daniel Wallace and I loved it just as much as Mr. Sebastian and The Negro Magician. And although this book didn't have any direct connection with magic, it was ju......more

Goodreads review by nimrodiel

Roam, a town found in the middle of the wilderness. Once, it was the home of a great silk factory built by Elijah McCallister. When the silk worms stop producing the town slowly falls into disrepair as it's inhabitants slowly move away. Helen and Rachel McCallister are the great-granddaughters of Eli......more

Goodreads review by Lori

I was thrilled to receive an advance copy of this book. "Big Fish" and "Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician", also by Daniel Wallace, are among my favorite books, and this book is as enchanting, if a little darker. The book is about sisters, a dying town, ghosts, lumberjacks, magic water, and the fi......more

Goodreads review by Lauren

This book was great, and everything you'd expect from a Daniel Wallace novel. Whimsy, folklore, quirk, and heartache. Told from several vantage points in time, through many different characters, the separate stories reinforce the importance and consequence of stories themselves, that the tall tales......more

Goodreads review by Jacki

Daniel Wallace, author of 'Big Fish', gives us an original fairy/folk tale that will leave you mesmerized. Two sisters, one ugly, the other blind and beautiful, live in their family's moldering mansion in the near-dead town of Roam. When one learns her lessons, the other leaves the town, only to fin......more

Quotes

“There is much magic in Daniel Wallace’s superb new novel—curses, caves, even a haunted wood—but the most impressive magic is Wallace’s understanding of the human heart’s depths and vagaries. The Kings and Queens of Roam is a fairy tale for adults.” Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author

“An imaginative, sentimental modern-day tall tale…Wallace’s far-fetched, rollicking yarn, written in the vein of Manly Wade Wellman and Fred Chappell, consistently engages the reader.” Publishers Weekly

“Brimming with his brilliant visions and wise observations about life. Part fairy tale, part myth and legend, the city of Roam and her inhabitants—both living and dead—materialize in ways that are equal parts comedy and tragedy.” Jill McCorkle, author of Life after Life

“I paused just as often to savor the beauty of Wallace’s sentences as I did to wipe away tears at his characters’ predicaments. An epic and modern fairy tale of sisters and friendship.” Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief

“Reading The Kings and Queens of Roam is like living, for a few hundred pages, in another world: beautiful, epic, tragic, and ultimately redemptive. In Roam Daniel Wallace has created his own Macondo. This is his best novel yet.” Wesley Stace, author of Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer

“Wallace’s eerie fairy tale for grown-ups is a melancholy yet enchanting pastiche of love, loss, redemption, and revenge.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Awards

  • Indie Next List
  • BookPage Book of the Day
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