Lucky Turtle

Narrator Brittany Pressley’s empathetic delivery adds more tenderness to this captivating coming-of-age story, the fifth novel from Kirkus Prize finalist Roorbach (The Remedy of Love). Cindra Zoeller lives in Boston with her beloved, brilliant son Ricky and her unpleasant partner Walter—an older man who had been her therapist. From this mostly stable vantage point, Cindra recalls her tumultuous teenage years. Present during a felonious assault at age 16, she was sentenced to Camp Challenge reform school in Montana. Though she loves the outdoors, Cindra finds the austere camp oppressive, until she gets to know Lucky, the school’s inscrutable van driver, a handsome young man she believes to be Crow. When Lucky rescues Cindra from solitary confinement, they escape and live off the grid for a time, with the help of friends. As former city girl Cindra learns wildness survival skills, Pressley gives her a voice that waivers between excitement at this incredible adventure and longing for her father and the creature comforts of civilization. Pressley lingers over Roorbach’s poetic descriptions of the spectacular landscape, making listeners feel as though they are sitting beside the characters under the vast Montana sky.