Three Stories, Many Points of View

About this episode

Host Jo Reed discusses three audiobooks that utilize multiple narrators to present distinct perspectives on their stories.

Host Jo Reed is joined by Michele Cobb to look at three audiobooks that use multiple narrators to tell stories from distinct perspectives. In Joan Silber’s Mercy, a cast of voices traces how an experience reverberates across lives and decades, with narration providing the emotional throughline. Rachel Hawkins’s The Storm leans into suspense and atmosphere, with strong performances sharpening a layered, true-crime-tinged mystery. And in Craig Thomas’s That’s Not How It Happened, four narrators bring clarity and texture to the story of a family and the uneasy overlap between private life and public storytelling. Three very different books, each shaped by shifting perspectives—and in each case, it’s the narration that makes the whole story cohere. Audiobooks Discussed: Mercy by Joan Silber, read by L.J. Ganser, Nan McNamara, Christina Moore, Alyssa Bresnahan, Helen Laser & Nick Walther (Recorded Books Inc.) The Storm by Rachel Hawkins, read by Stephanie Németh-Parker, Alex Knox, Cathi Colas, Dan Bittner, Jane Oppenheimer, Patti Murin, and Petrea Burchard (Macmillan Audio) That’s Not How It Happened by Craig Thomas, read by Marli Watson, Cobie Smulders, Josh Radnor, and Kevin…

People in this episode

Host: Jo Reed

Guest: Michele Cobb

Topics covered

• audiobooks
• multiple narrators
• storytelling
• perspectives
• suspense
• true crime

Keywords

• audiobooks
• multiple narrators
• Joan Silber
• Rachel Hawkins
• Craig Thomas

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Mercy, The Storm, That’s Not How It Happened

More episodes of Behind the Mic With Kirkus Reviews

• Finding the Voice · June 11, 2026 · 25 min
• Navigating The Divorce by Freida McFadden · June 5, 2026 · 17 min
• Three Very Different Roads Through Fiction · June 4, 2026 · 21 min
• Still Here: Three Memoirs That Don’t Look Away · May 28, 2026 · 26 min
• Working Lives in Three Audiobooks · May 21, 2026 · 29 min
• Exploring Kathryn Stockett’s The Calamity Club · May 15, 2026 · 13 min