The Blue Bench
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The Blue Bench
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Narrated by:
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Colleen MacMahon
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By:
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Paul Marriner
About this listen
Margate 1920. The Great War is over, but Britain mourns, and its spirit is not yet mended.
Edward and William have returned from the front as changed men. Together, they have survived grotesque horrors and remain haunted by memories of comrades who did not come home. The summer season in Margate is a chance for them to rebuild their lives and reconcile the past.
Evelyn and Catherine are young women ready to live life to the full. Their independence has been hard-won, and with little knowledge of the cost of their freedom, they are ready to face new challenges side by side.
Can they define their own future and open their hearts to the prospect of finding love? Will the summer of 1920 be a turning point for these new friends? As the body of the unknown warrior is returned, can the nation find a way forward?
©2018 Paul Marriner (P)2019 Paul MarrinerListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 28
Daughters of Eden focuses on the lives and fortunes of four very different young women at the outbreak of the Second World War. Marjorie, left at a boarding school by her emigrating mother; plain Poppy, pushed into marriage with a mean-spirited aristocrat; Kate, despised by her father, but determined to prove herself; and man-mad Lily, who turns out to be the bravest of them all. That all of them are chosen to work undercover for the espionage unit at Eden Park is a surprise, not least to them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An amazing book everyone should read.
- By XX on 09-11-05
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The District Nurses of Victory Walk
- By: Annie Groves
- Narrated by: Alex Tregear
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
Alice Lake has arrived in London from Liverpool to start her training as a District Nurse, but her journey has been far from easy. Her parents think that she should settle down and get married, but she has already had her heart broken once and isn’t about to make the same mistake again. Alice and her best friend, Edith, are based in the East End, but before they’ve even got their smart new uniforms on, war breaks out, and Hitler’s bombs are raining down on London.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Look at the Role of the District Nurse
- By Jean on 04-30-19
By: Annie Groves
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Lights Out Liverpool
- By: Maureen Lee
- Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
As Britain stands alone against a monstrous enemy, the inhabitants of Pearl Street face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour. The war touches each of them in a different way: for Annie Poulson, a widow, it means never-ending worry when her twin boys are called up and sent to France; Sheila Reilly's husband, Cal, faces the terror of U-Boat attacks; Eileen Costello is liberated from a bitter, loveless marriage when her husband is sent to Egypt.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
- By Tansy Adderley on 10-03-18
By: Maureen Lee
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The Tea Rose
- By: Jennifer Donnelly
- Narrated by: Jill Tanner
- Length: 28 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,996
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,838
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,825
East London, 1888 - a city apart. A place of shadow and light where thieves, whores, and dreamers mingle, where children play in the cobbled streets by day and a killer stalks at night, where bright hopes meet the darkest truths. Here, by the whispering waters of the Thames, Fiona Finnegan, a worker in a tea factory, hopes to own a shop one day, together with her lifelong love, Joe Bristow, a costermonger's son. With nothing but their faith in each other to spur them on, Fiona and Joe struggle, save, and sacrifice to achieve their dreams.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow. Wow wow wow!
- By I like to shop on 04-26-16
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The Postcard
- By: Leah Fleming
- Narrated by: Elaine Claxton
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 172
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 156
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Story4 out of 5 stars 160
2002, Australia. When Melissa discovers a postcard addressed to 'Desmond' among her recently deceased father's effects, she is determined to discover this person's identity and his relationship to her father. She soon embarks on a journey that will take her across oceans and into the past...
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3 out of 5 stars
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Meh
- By Summer Layne on 03-06-15
By: Leah Fleming
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Maisie Dobbs
- Maisie Dobbs, Book 1
- By: Jacqueline Winspear
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 964
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 849
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 845
Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan’s friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts. The outbreak of war changed everything. Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive.
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5 out of 5 stars
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All ‘round tip top
- By nancy M on 01-10-23
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The Secret Keeper
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15,975
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 14,274
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 14,248
England, 1959: Laurel Nicolson is 16 years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Kate Morton (and Caroline Lee) does it again!
- By Maria on 10-20-12
By: Kate Morton
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44 Scotland Street
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,792
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,422
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,418
The brilliant Alexander McCall Smith became an international sensation with his New York Times best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels. His award-winning wit, made famous through that series, is fully on display in 44 Scotland Street.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Smith's answer to Maupin
- By Amazon Customer on 10-23-05
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Duet
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,099
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 897
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 892
From the London pop scene, to the opera stages of Europe; from a tiny Greek island, to a stifling manor house full of secrets and deceptions; from the sun-drenched Queensland coast, to the silent outback; Angela and Ellie are two women both looking for something. One in search of her identity and her memory; the other in search of the love that she had and lost; theirs is a duet whose last note will not be sung until the heart-stopping climax, when a shadow from the past returns to claim them both.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gosh that was a great story!
- By Anonymous User on 06-10-09
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Season of Darkness
- By: Maureen Jennings
- Narrated by: Tom Craig
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
Following the disastrous retreat of the British army from Dunkirk in 1940, England is plunged into a state of fear. The threat of a German invasion is real, and many German Nationals are interned in camps across the country. One such camp is on the ancient moor land of Prees Heath, near the small town of Whitchurch in Shropshire, where Tom Tyler is the sole detective inspector. Young women from all walks of life have joined the Land Army, to help desperate farmers keep the country fed. Then one turns up dead.
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4 out of 5 stars
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much better than average historical detective
- By connie on 09-30-12
By: Maureen Jennings
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The Nightingale Girls
- By: Donna Douglas
- Narrated by: Penelope Freeman
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
Three very different girls sign up as trainee nurses at a big London teaching hospital in 1934. Dora leaves her overcrowded, squalid working-class home for a better life. But has she got what it takes to keep up with other, better-educated girls? And will her hated stepfather ever let her go? Helen is born for the job; her brother is a doctor, her all-powerful mother a hospital trustee. But will Helen’s secret misery be her downfall? An aristocratic rebel, Millie’s carefree attitude will find her up in front of Matron again and again. Will she ever care enough to make a nurse? Or will she go back to the glamorous life she was born to?
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2 out of 5 stars
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For young girls
- By deborah jernigan on 12-31-16
By: Donna Douglas
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Mrs Queen Takes the Train
- By: William Kuhn
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,125
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,914
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,907
An absolute delight of a debut novel by William Kuhn - author of Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books - Mrs Queen Takes the Train wittily imagines the kerfuffle that transpires when a bored Queen Elizabeth strolls out of the palace in search of a little fun, leaving behind a desperate team of courtiers who must find the missing Windsor before a national scandal erupts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Can't believe how much I loved this story
- By analyzethis on 03-10-13
By: William Kuhn
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Shadow of a Century
- By: Jean Grainger
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 265
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 232
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 229
Mary Doyle arrives in Dublin in 1913, doomed, she fears, to a life of domestic service. Instead, however, she finds herself deeply affected by the social and political turmoil of a fledgling nation struggling for independence. Suddenly, all that was once inevitable is no longer a certainty as she is embroiled in the very heart of the Easter Rising.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this book!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-20
By: Jean Grainger
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The Ambassador's Daughter
- By: Pam Jenoff
- Narrated by: Joanna Daniel
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 244
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 222
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Story4 out of 5 stars 221
Brought to the peace conference by her father, a German diplomat, Margot Rosenthal initially resents being trapped in the congested French capital, where she is still looked upon as the enemy. But as she contemplates returning to Berlin and a life with Stefan, the wounded fiancé she hardly knows anymore, she decides that being in Paris is not so bad after all. Bored and torn between duty and the desire to be free, Margot strikes up unlikely alliances: with Krysia, an accomplished musician with radical acquaintances and a secret to protect; and with Georg, the handsome, damaged naval officer who gives Margot a job.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Book 0 in the series
- By Stevon on 12-12-17
By: Pam Jenoff
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The Last Summer
- By: Judith Kinghorn
- Narrated by: Jane Wymark
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
Clarissa is almost 17 when the spell of her childhood is broken. It is 1914, the beginning of a blissful, golden summer - and the end of an era. Deyning Park is in its heyday, the large country house filled with the laughter and excitement of privileged youth preparing for a weekend party. When Clarissa meets Tom Cuthbert, home from university and staying with his mother, the housekeeper, she is dazzled.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Last Summer Delivers
- By Carmen dela Cruz on 05-22-16
By: Judith Kinghorn
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Winter in Madrid
- By: C. J. Sansom
- Narrated by: Gordon Gordon
- Length: 21 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 181
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Story4 out of 5 stars 124
Winter in Madrid is set just after the bloody Spanish Civil War, with World War II looming over Europe. Reluctantly, Harry Brett looks for an old schoolmate who's become a person of interest for British intelligence.
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4 out of 5 stars
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realistic characters in historical context
- By Annie on 10-04-09
By: C. J. Sansom
What listeners say about The Blue Bench
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jan M
- 05-04-19
Symbolic
The Blue Bench by Paul Marriner is a very symbolic historical listen. This book takes place after the ravages of World War I in 1920. I found the descriptions to be quite vivid, and noticed the un-diagnosed PTSD in some of the characters, The story definitely has some heartbreaking scenes. The background of Westminster Abby and the grave of the Unknown Soldier added to the depth and descriptions of the story. I found several of the characters to have great resilience to what life had given them. The journey in this book not depressing, but eye opening and heartbreaking. The narration by Colleen MacMahon was perfect. She brought the characters to life with her distinguishable voices , I will listen to more books by this author and narrator.
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