mary
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- helpful votes
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Murder at Queen’s Landing
- Wrexford & Sloane Mystery, Book 4
- By: Andrea Penrose
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 646
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 558
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 558
When Lady Cordelia, a brilliant mathematician, and her brother, Lord Woodbridge, disappear from London, rumors swirl concerning fraudulent bank loans and a secret consortium engaged in an illicit - and highly profitable - trading scheme that threatens the entire British economy. The incriminating evidence mounts, but for Charlotte and Wrexford, it's a question of loyalty and friendship. And so they begin a new investigation to clear the siblings' names, uncover their whereabouts, and unravel the truth behind the whispers.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Boring
- By Stanzi on 10-05-20
- Murder at Queen’s Landing
- Wrexford & Sloane Mystery, Book 4
- By: Andrea Penrose
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
Plot was less engaging than previous
Reviewed: 04-12-25
I had a hard time getting swept along by the plot than previous books in the series.
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Isola
- A Novel
- By: Allegra Goodman
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham, Allegra Goodman
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 828
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 805
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 805
Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes a unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Magical and marooned
- By Gaylene Knowles on 03-13-25
- Isola
- A Novel
- By: Allegra Goodman
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham, Allegra Goodman
Brilliant historical fiction
Reviewed: 02-28-25
Goodman takes a brief true story from the 1540s and transforms it into a gripping narrative that feels true to the historical period, transcending the vast majority of historical fiction I have read. I could not stop listening!
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A Fatal Illusion
- A Lady Darby Mystery, Book 11
- By: Anna Lee Huber
- Narrated by: Heather Wilds
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 108
Yorkshire, England. August 1832. Relations between Sebastian Gage and his father have never been easy, especially since the discovery that Lord Gage has been concealing the existence of an illegitimate son. But when Lord Gage is nearly fatally attacked on a journey to Scotland, Sebastian and Kiera race to his side. Given the tumult over the recent passage of the Reform Bill and the Anatomy Act, in which Lord Gage played a part, Sebastian wonders if the attack could be politically motivated. But something suspicious is afoot in the sleepy village where Lord Gage is being cared for.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Absolutely wonderful
- By Kindle Customer on 01-31-24
- A Fatal Illusion
- A Lady Darby Mystery, Book 11
- By: Anna Lee Huber
- Narrated by: Heather Wilds
Too much family drama
Reviewed: 01-29-25
This particular entry in the series irritated me. Kiera seems like a smug therapist steering the men towards relationship breakthroughs, not an interesting character in the story. Less cringey modern psychology, more mystery, please.
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Lolly Willowes
- Or the Loving Huntsman
- By: Sylvia Townsend Warner
- Narrated by: Sarah Nichols
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4 out of 5 stars 32
In Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner tells of an aging spinster's struggle to break away from her controlling family - a classic story that she treats with cool feminist intelligence, while adding a dimension of the supernatural and strange. Warner is one of the outstanding and indispensable mavericks of 20th-century literature, a writer to set beside Djuna Barnes and Jane Bowles, with a subversive genius that anticipates the fantastic flights of such contemporaries as Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson.
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3 out of 5 stars
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So uneven, disappointing
- By mary on 12-30-24
- Lolly Willowes
- Or the Loving Huntsman
- By: Sylvia Townsend Warner
- Narrated by: Sarah Nichols
So uneven, disappointing
Reviewed: 12-30-24
This is a strange book, and I like strange books. But it didn’t convince me with its unexpected turn in the second half. It felt like an idea half executed. Excellent narration.
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The Hunter
- A Novel
- By: Tana French
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,767
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,567
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,567
It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The timing and sequences. Slow pace but excellent conclusion.
- By Phyllis Silber on 03-23-24
- The Hunter
- A Novel
- By: Tana French
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
Fantastic gold rush noir
Reviewed: 09-11-24
Brilliant story, fantastic characters. Narrator is a bit of a yeller, but the book was too good to give up.
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Autocracy, Inc.
- The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 653
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 611
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 611
We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Triumphant Work -Puts It All Together With Laser Clarity
- By Sjhoffman on 09-19-24
- Autocracy, Inc.
- The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
Short but powerful
Reviewed: 09-06-24
Excellent summary of core geopolitical threats to democracy. Applebaum is not a great narrator—I would have enjoyed a professional narrator much more, though I often enjoy other authors as readers of their own books.
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1 person found this helpful
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Call Me Maybe
- By: Cara Bastone
- Narrated by: Luci Christian, Neil Hellegers
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26,910
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 25,002
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24,913
Paint your toes. Pick up the wrong coffee and bagel order. Drive from Brooklyn to Jersey in traffic so slow you want to tear your hair out. It’s amazing all the useless things I can accomplish while on hold for three hours with customer service. Three hours when I should be getting the Date-in-a-Box website ready to launch at the big business expo in a few days. Except my shiny new website is glitching, and my inner rage-monster is ready to scorch some earth...when he finally picks up. Not the robot voice I expected but a real live human named Kal.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Greatest Audible Preformance
- By Apple momma on 10-24-20
- Call Me Maybe
- By: Cara Bastone
- Narrated by: Luci Christian, Neil Hellegers
Charming but strung out
Reviewed: 08-22-24
This was a quick easy fun read. I found the main female characters voice to be just a little too much. And the way the story just kept getting strung out further and further on the same conceit got a little too repetitive for my taste.
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Enlightenment
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4 out of 5 stars 35
Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits—torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Oddly uncompelling
- By mary on 06-16-24
- Enlightenment
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings
Oddly uncompelling
Reviewed: 06-16-24
A frustrating novel, filled with many ridiculous coincidences as the characters tracked down evidence of a 19th century female astronomer. I often couldn’t figure out why it was written in the way it was, historical artifacts discovered in ridiculously unbelievable moments. Deus ex machina, but to no satisfying effect. I also found many of the characters underwritten. Nathan—does he have any substance? Why is Maria from Romania? And why so many injuries to characters? I appreciated the book’s approach to loneliness and solitude. I got a glimpse of what the author was trying to accomplish, but I was frequently distracted by the odd qualities of the plot, and don’t feel it succeeded as the epic tale it hoped to be. Excellent narration.
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2 people found this helpful
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Code Name Hélène
- A Novel
- By: Ariel Lawhon
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik, Peter Ganim
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 6,846
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 6,162
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Story5 out of 5 stars 6,133
It is 1936, and Nancy Wake is an intrepid Australian expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name. As Lucienne Carlier, Nancy smuggles people and documents across the border and earns a new nickname from the Gestapo for her remarkable ability to evade capture: The White Mouse.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Mixed Feelings
- By carpsmarsh on 02-14-21
- Code Name Hélène
- A Novel
- By: Ariel Lawhon
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik, Peter Ganim
Compelling true story
Reviewed: 06-03-24
The dual timeline got a bit clunky at the end of the novel. Beside that, a really interesting novel!
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Veritas
- A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 253
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 214
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 209
In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star religion professor at Harvard, announced a breathtaking discovery just steps from the Vatican: she’d found an ancient scrap of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene “my wife”. The mysterious manuscript, which King provocatively titled “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”, had the power to topple the Roman Catholic Church. It threatened not just the all-male priesthood, but centuries of sacred teachings on marriage, sex, and women’s leadership, much of it premised on the hallowed tradition of a celibate Jesus.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow
- By Dorothy on 08-23-20
- Veritas
- A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
A tour de force. Brilliant.
Reviewed: 04-14-24
It’s hard to describe excellence of this book without giving away parts of the story. All I can say is that it raises questions of interest to anyone who cares about the ethics of cultural heritage work, the difficulties inherent in religious inquiry in an academic environment, and the power of institutions like Harvard. Despite its high level of detail at times, it is easy to follow the narrative on audiobook, which says a lot for the author’s control over the material and ability to make it comprehensible to a listening audience. Exciting and thought provoking—my dream audiobook.
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2 people found this helpful