Reviews: What They Say About Jill's Work
JUDE THE OBSCURE
"Jill Masters has just the perfect voice and manners for this book (and all the others I've heard her read). I think I fell in love with her sometime around the 3d or 4th book I listened to by her--this is probably a common occurance in the BOT listenership. Intelligent, articulate, understated but evocative. What a woman!"
--BOOKS ON TAPE
WIDE SARGASSO SEA
"Caribbean writer Rhys' now classic novel published in 1966, explores the Caribbean roots and background of the myterious 'mad' woman, Antoinette Bertha Cosway, in Charolette Bronte's Jane Eyre. ...MASTERS' British-accented, eccentric, semi-voiced narration is outstanding mesmerizing and poetic. Her authentic sounding Jamaican accents evoke a mood that enhances Rhys' exotic language, which explores the sensual sights, sounds and smells of the lush Caribbean landscape, the complex emotions, and racial tensions endemic to the time and place. When I read this book I will enjoy hearing MASTERS' voice in my mind's eye. Highly recommended."
--KLIATT
"To read this masterpiece is to be transported to a landscape shimmering with jewel-like colors and resounding with the cries of tropical birds ... one is swept up in the desparation of the trapped heroine. To listen to MASTERS' superb reading is to intensify the experience. Her voice has a silken, hypnotic quality perfectly matched to the purity of the Rhys' prose, and her rendition of West Indian accents adds exotic notes to the haunting music of the book."
--KLIATT
DINNER AT THE HOMESICK RESTAURANT
"JILL MASTERS' skillfully controlled reading of Anne Tyler's ninth novel, published in 1982 is, at times, almost unbearably poingnant and enhances an acknowledged masterpiece. Tyler's precise words combined with MASTERS' carefully modulated voice reveal the developing layers of each character, explore a complexity of emotions. MASTERS' uses subtle tone changes to delineate each character and her style is consistently appealing. These characters seem very real and live in a very real world. This is an audio cassette of unusual beauty."
--KLIATT
ELIZABETH AND ESSEX
"JILL MASTERS is to totally consistent in the exquisite use of her hightly polished diction... Well known figures become like Shakespeare's driven characters. A top-to-bottom analysis of Elizabeth and a detailed narrative of her execution of Essex are highlights."
--LIBRARY JOURNAL
ANNA KARENINA
"Jill Masters is an elegant reader who is completely up to the challenge of reading Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is a marvelous story on every level: plot, characters, heartache, Russian culture and politics, images of 19th century Western Europe -- it's all there. And Jill Masters does a first-rate job with the narration and, importantly, with the pronunciation of the Russian names. Highly recommended."
--BOOKS ON TAPE
A ROOM WITH A VIEW
"Successful narrators of fiction are masters of a range of voices. They articulate the primary expository voice of the author of the work. When handling dialogue they assume the identities of a range of characters, each speaking as a distinct but subtle variant of their voice and personality. MASTERS fulfills these high expectations by subsuming the tone of the author through her own cultivated, exquisitely pronounced and polished command of language. She signals the speaking parts of various characters by means of easy shifts in tone, inflection, modulation, energy and quickness of speech ... Every word of Forster's 1908 .novel of upperclass Edwardian courtship and manners conies through audibly and with understanding. The tapes are technically superb, clear and distinct."
--KLIATT
THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE
"Not the least of the pleasures of this rendition is JILL MASTERS' narration. She is one our most accomplished recording artists: her own insights and sensitive interpretation add dramatically to the power of Hardy's original conception."
--BOOKS ON TAPE
TESS OF D'URBERVILLES
"Often labeled Hardy's masterpiece...this reading by JILL MASTERS is outstanding. Through her interpretation we gain new insights into the life and times and appreciate more than ever the balance and rhythmical prose which made Hardy not only a great novelist but also a poet of outstanding renown."
--BOOKS ON TAPE
PRECIOUS BANE
"A leading is a signpost on the road self-discovery. Often it is a book that reveals to us certain truths and imparts a clear sense of our own destiny. Precious Bane, Mary Webb's flawless novel of love and rural life in 19th Century England, has long been treasured. Now that unique classic has been performed as an audio-book by JILL MASTERS, whose superb narration captures the magic of the text. This gem restores 'reading aloud' to the art form it was in Jane Austen's day."
--THE WITCHES' ALMANAC
MY SMALL COUNTRY LIVING
"My Small Country Living is Jeanine McMullen's lively account of her successful attempts to maintain a farm in rural England some 200 miles from London while at the same time pursuing a living as a producer for BBC in the 1970s. MASTERS' skillful reading reveals a plucky, warm, intelligent McMullen. She evokes a magical, charming Wales, King Arthur country, that McMullen describes in detail. She brings to life the author's troop of incredible animals - a horse, pigs, goats, chickens, geese, many dogs and cats; transmits McMullen's triumph and pleasure . . . MASTERS' reading of McMullen's juggling of radio and television work with farm life is entertaining and informative. McMullen's respect and affection for her crew of farm animals is moving and instructive and the spirit conveyed in this reading is wonderfully similar to James Herriot's. Highly recommended.
--KLIATT
"An amusing, lively account of BBC producer Jeanine McMullen's inspiring life on her rustic farm in Wales with some very special animals. JILL MASTERS' endearing reading is for all ages."
--MS MAGAZINE
THE LONGEST JOURNEY
"The Longest Journey may be E.M. Forster's best novel. JILL MASTERS gives a superb interpretaion of this complex, largely autobiographical novel which offers insight into Forster's education ... a miserable public school experience and an idyllic Cambridge interlude in which friendship and philosophy are predominent. MASTERS' sympathetic reading, her understanding of the characters and the complexity of their relationships comes across in subtly individualized voices and in her phrasing of dialogue, overall a clear and expressive presentation of a thought-provoking novel."
--AUDIO FILE
"E.M. Forster is perhaps best known for his novels A Room With a View, Howard's End and A Passage to India. Yet The Longest Journey, published in 1907, is considered by many to be his most dramatic, passionate and brillant work ... Forster was a great artist whose fine interpretation by JILL MASTERS brings real and lasting joy to the listener."
--BOOKS ON TAPE
WAR IN VAL D'ORCIA
"This reading is Iris Origo's Italian War Diary, 1943-44 is a shining example of an audio book's ability to bring some chaotic, devastating, and very real events in history breathtakingly to life. War in Val D'Orcia is a simple, unrevised daily record of events as experienced and kept by the Marchesa Origo at her country estate just north of Rome. With great ingenuity, warmth and bravery the Origos sheltered, fed and cared for more than 20 refugee children...and countless needy soldiers and civilians during this period. It is an informative, moving, unrelentingly honest, and optimistic account of incredible fortitude and the confusion, waste, and terror of war up-close. To listen to JILL MASTERS' accomplished reading is to experience life in Val D'Orcia from 1943-1944. Highly recommended."
--LIBRARY JOURNAL
"An account of fortitude, patience, and generosity in the face of the confusion and terror of war in the countryside outside Rome. Historian Iris Origo's unrevised record of events as she experienced them is beautifully read by JILL MASTERS."
--MS. MAGAZINE