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Shop nowIn the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
A Novel
Narrator
Janina Edwards
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Length
11 hours 45 minutes
Language
English
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills combines the force of literature with the allure of women’s fiction in a family saga that spans from Atlanta during the Civil Rights Movement to postgenocide Rwanda. At the heart of this novel that crosses racial and cultural boundaries is the search for family on a personal and global level.
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills follows the intertwining stories of three women from vastly diverse cultures searching for personal peace in post-genocide Rwanda. Lillian Carlson, an African-American civil-rights activist now in her early fifties, traveled to Africa from Atlanta in 1970 to grieve the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She dreamed of bettering the world, one child at a time, with an orphanage in Rwanda’s rift valley.
Two decades later, in New York City, Rachel Shepherd, a white bartender in her mid-thirties, lost and looking for her purpose in life, embarks on a journey to find the father who abandoned her as a child during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.When Rachel travels to Rwanda, searching for her father, she finds Lillian and a young Rwandan woman with secrets that bind her to her father. Together, they all discover something unexpected: grace when there can be no forgiveness.
Jennifer Haupt is fascinated by the ways in which people define, discover, and pursue something more. She has written about all aspects of passion—from travel and food, to putting more heart in your home, to relationships, to spirituality, to making a difference in the world. She has worked as a magazine writer, blogger, author, teacher, and marketing and publicity consultant.
Janina Edwards, a graduate of New York University's Tisch Schools of the Arts, recorded her first audiobook in 1987. She was born in Chicago, soaked in New York City's African and West Indian accents for 11 years, and for the past twenty years has swum in the swagger of the south (Atlanta, Georgia). As a result, she excels in portraying authentic characters and voices the African Diaspora. Her 2018 audiobook, The Wedding Date, is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner, and Voice of Freedom (2016, Dreamscape) was an Audie Award finalist. In addition to narrating audiobooks, she is a certified yoga teacher, sings kirtan, and plays the violin.
Reviews
“Janina Edwards capably narrates this eloquent audiobook about broken family ties, American civil rights in the 1960s, and twenty-first-century grace after the Rwandan genocide…Edwards reveals Rachel’s desperation and Lillian’s heartbroken reluctance to deal with her. Edwards is especially skilled at delivering the descriptions of of Rwanda’s stark beauty and the horrors of tribal warfare. Her depictions of two Rwandans—a young doctor and a Tutsi woman who survived torture—capture the careful shells both have constructed to protect their hearts.”
“Both an evocative page-turner and an eye-opening meditation on the ways we survive profoundly painful memories and negotiate the complexities of love.”
“An intricate and moving tale of family and culture, of conflict and love, and of the challenges of healing after unthinkable loss…Told with remarkable compassion and grace.”
“This blazingly original novel is about the illusions of love, the way memory can confound or release you, and the knotted threads that make up family—and forgiveness. Profound, powerful, and oh, so, so moving.”
“More than a page-turning narrative; it’s an embrace of the Kinyarwanda greeting amahoro—‘peace.’"
“One of the best debut novels coming in 2018.”
“Each heartrending detail is revealed with perfect timing, the expert pacing of the story escalating at every turn.”
“The Rwanda described in the text is beautiful…and, like the main narrative, it is alive with people working to come together and heal…Haupt’s story is one of humanity and hope.”
“Journalist Haupt spent time in Rwanda researching the nature of grief and forgiveness. In this intensely beautiful debut, she shows that it’s indeed the women who hold up half the sky.”
“As Haupt examines events through different perspectives, the focus is on healing rather than revenge and anger. This debut novel is a good choice for those seeking tales of hope after adversity.”
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