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    Troubling a Star: The Austin Family Chronicles, Book 5
    Unavailable
    Troubling a Star: The Austin Family Chronicles, Book 5
    Unavailable
    Troubling a Star: The Austin Family Chronicles, Book 5
    Audiobook8 hours

    Troubling a Star: The Austin Family Chronicles, Book 5

    Written by Madeleine L'Engle

    Narrated by Maggi-Meg Reed

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The Austins have settled back into their beloved home in the country after more than a year away.

    Though they had all missed the predictability and security of life in Thornhill, Vicky Austin is discovering that slipping back into her old life isn't easy. She's been changed by life in New York City and her travels around the country while her old friends seem to have stayed the same. So Vicky finds herself spending time with a new friend, Serena Eddington—the great-aunt of a boy Vicky met over the summer.

    Aunt Serena gives Vicky an incredible birthday gift—a month-long trip to Antarctica. It's the opportunity of a lifetime. But Vicky is nervous. She's never been away from her family before.

    Once she sets off though, she finds that's the least of her worries. She receives threatening letters. She's surrounded by suspicious characters. Vicky no longer knows who to trust. And she may not make it home alive.

    A Macmillan Audio production.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateSep 2, 2008
    ISBN9781427205865
    Author

    Madeleine L'Engle

    Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) was the Newbery Medal-winning author of more than 60 books, including the much-loved A Wrinkle in Time. Born in 1918, L'Engle grew up in New York City, Switzerland, South Carolina and Massachusetts. Her father was a reporter and her mother had studied to be a pianist, and their house was always full of musicians and theater people. L'Engle graduated cum laude from Smith College, then returned to New York to work in the theater. While touring with a play, she wrote her first book, The Small Rain, originally published in 1945. She met her future husband, Hugh Franklin, when they both appeared in The Cherry Orchard. Upon becoming Mrs. Franklin, L'Engle gave up the stage in favor of the typewriter. In the years her three children were growing up, she wrote four more novels. Hugh Franklin temporarily retired from the theater, and the family moved to western Connecticut and for ten years ran a general store. Her book Meet the Austins, an American Library Association Notable Children's Book of 1960, was based on this experience. Her science fantasy classic A Wrinkle in Time was awarded the 1963 Newbery Medal. Two companion novels, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet (a Newbery Honor book), complete what has come to be known as The Time Trilogy, a series that continues to grow in popularity with a new generation of readers. Her 1980 book A Ring of Endless Light won the Newbery Honor. L'Engle passed away in 2007 in Litchfield, Connecticut.

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    Reviews for Troubling a Star

    4/5

    275 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Fifth and last in the Austin family series of novels for teenagers. Vicky, who narrates approaches sixteen at the chronological start of the book, although brief introductions to each chapter show her getting colder and colder on an iceberg in the Antarctic.Very well written, with a great pace, slowly leading towards the reason why she is in such danger, and what the result is. It's a tense book, but the thriller theme is punctuated with Shakespeare, marine biology, and a few mentions of angels. It's political in places (although Vicky, like me, is mostly politically illiterate). The book is also very concerned with ecology, and the importance of preserving the Antarctic. Definitely recommended to teens and anyone who enjoys a good series. Best read after the other Austin family books, but it's not essential.
    • 4/5
      L'Engle returns to the world of international intrigue and Cold War fears in a way that recalls the best of the O'Keefe family stories but has the best of her later characters: Vicky and Adam. Bonus: NO ZACHARY! It's a win for all, minus the fact that a lot of guys still make eyes at Vicky. I think that's kind of a weakness of L'Engles--her average female protagonists get an awful lot of play, and it's kinda suspicious.

      That said, we get to meet a LOT of penguins, which I am perfectly okay with. And the time travels back and forth to ratchet up the suspense. I enjoyed the mystery and the ecological aspects of it. 4.5 stars.
    • 5/5
      Very engrossing. Mystery, danger, shoot-outs, romance...
    • 5/5
      By far my favourite of the Austin novels. The book contiues in the sligltly bizzare vein of the rest of Madeliene L'Engle's books. The reader must understand and take for granted that the books do not occur in any set time period, so the setting sometimes seems to take place in the future and sometimes in the past, (such is the charm of Madeline L'Engle's novels. In the story Vicky Austin goes on the trip of a lifetime to Antartica where she becomes entangled in an international mystery that involes both her and her friend, Adam, as well as several other passangers on the journey. Written in the early 90's the plot contains references to early enviormentalism and the breakdown of the Soviet Union. I would reccomend to anyone who has enjoyed Madeline L'Engle books in the past.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Troubling a Star is one of my all-time favorite books. In this novel, Vicky Austin, beloved heroine of many of L'Engle's novels, goes on a cruise to Antarctica, and gets wrapped up in political intrigue along the way. The book does a fantastic job of weaving the story of Vicky's personal struggles as a teenage girl and the political situation she has stumbled into.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      After a difficult year away from her small-town home, Vicky Austin struggles to readjust to the life she once new with her old school and old friends. Then she is introduced to her friend Adam's great-aunt, Serena, and finds herself increasingly happier and encouraged in both her writing and in her own identity. When Vicky receives a trip of a lifetime to Antarctica from Aunt Serena, she anticipates seeing new worlds with new people, as well as spending time with Adam. However, she is surprised when her new friendships bring with them mystery, adventure and intrigue. Vicky must unravel the clues and learn who to trust in order to make it home again. Readers of L'Engle's other Austin books will enjoy reading another story with Vicky as the protagonist - especially one set in the international locales of South America and Antarctica. Once again L'Engle tackles big issues, such as greed and political corruption. While this story dabbles less in the spirituality and philosophy present in other YA books by L'Engle, fans of her work will still be pleased with this addition to the Austin family series.
    • 2/5
      A Wrinkle in Time it ain't. It's part of a series, so maybe it doesn't matter, especially if the reader is young enough--probably no more than 12. The protagonist, Vicky, is a senior (or junior?) in high school. The book takes place in the early 1990s in Connecticut, but the curriculum would be weak tea for a girl in the 1890s. She isn't taking physics or chemistry but "science." She has already taken one year of French in New York, her brother is at Harvard, but the high school only offers first year Spanish, which she doesn't even take. (Any 4-year high school in Ct in the 1990s offered at least 3 years of Spanish and you'd better have at least 3 years of a foreign language if you're aiming higher than the nearest community college.) These complaints probably seem petty, but any reader with an older sibling is going to know this is out of whack.The adult reader will notice other things; conversations are beyond stilted, especially between the girl and her would-be boyfriend. L'Engle isn't good at characterization or nature descrptions either. I was most annoyed when the girl ended up on an iceberg in Antartica: well, what the hell does it look like? Flat? Mountains? Ice mounds? Is there wind? Do you try to walk around? Doesn't the ice and wet seep through to your bum? Which reminds me, what is she wearing anyway? Specifically. The mystery re which of several charming young-ish men might be crooks is weak too.On the plus side--this is the early 1990s, recall--the book is trying to get across basic info about global warming. I think a pre-teenager will place this novel the way we used to read Nancy Drew: it's some never-never not very specific time before the internet and mobile phones but after ...I'm not sure, actually. TV , music, bitchy schoolmates, a driver's license and clothes aren't significant at all to this girl. It's never-never teenage land.Maybe none of this matters. This could just well be the kind of YA book that doesn't grab nostalgic adults. It's a series about a family so there must be a built-in readership.