Witch Child preview

CHILDS PLAY
By Moira McCormick
Billboard
11 June 2001
BPI Entertainment News Wire
(c) Copyright 2001 BPI Communications, Inc.

Also due in July is Listening Library's other big summer audiobook, Witch Child, by Celia Rees. Described by Ditlow as containing elements of The Blair Witch Project, The Crucible, and the novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Witch Child is read in its entirety by British actress Jennifer Ehle (indelible as heroine Elizabeth Bennet in A&E's TV miniseries Pride and Prejudice.) Rees, who was autographing copies of Witch Child at BEA, said she couldn't be happier with the choice of Tony winner Ehle, with whom she exchanged exultant e-mails: "I wrote, 'I loved Pride and Prejudice! I can't believe you're going to do this!' " Rees recalled. "I knew she'd be perfect."

"We like Tony winners," Ditlow says. "There's usually a correlation between Tony winners and good voice-over artists. TV and movie actors don't always have the sustained breath control you need to read audiobooks. When we're considering actors, we scan their bios to see if they have stage work in their resumes. If they don't, we get a little nervous."

Listening Library's Witch Child will be released in July -- on Friday the 13th. Ditlow plans to get all the mileage possible out of its macabre elements, with Rees scheduled for a promotional (and further research-gathering) visit to Salem, Mass., in October, around Halloween. Ditlow says, "Jennifer Ehle's open to doing [promotion] with us as well."