Try free for 30 days
-
Peony
- A Novel of China
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $31.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
Imperial Woman
- The Story of the Last Empress of China
- By: Pearl S. Buck
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of Tzu Hsi is the story of the last empress in China. In this audiobook, Pearl S. Buck recreates the life of one of the most intriguing rules during a time of intense turbulence. Tzu Hsi was born into one of the lowly ranks of the Imperial dynasty. According to custom, she moved to the Forbidden City at the age of 17 to become one of hundreds of concubines. But her singular beauty and powers of manipulation quickly moved her into the position of Second Consort.
-
-
Beautiful, loved it
- By alison on 04-06-2015
-
Pavilion of Women
- By: Pearl S. Buck
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On her 40th birthday, Madame Wu carries out a decision she has been planning for a long time: she tells her husband that after 24 years their physical life together is now over and she wishes him to take a second wife. The House of Wu, one of the oldest and most revered in China, is thrown into an uproar by her decision, but Madame Wu will not be dissuaded and arranges for a young country girl to come take her place in bed.
-
Dragon Seed
- By: Pearl S. Buck
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Chinese the dragon is not an evil creature, but is a god and the friend of men who worship him. He "holds in his power prosperity and peace." Ruling the waters and the winds, he sends the good rain, is hence the symbol of fecundity. In the Hsia dynasty two dragons fought a great duel until both disappeared, leaving only a fertile foam from which were born the descendants of the Hsia. Thus, the dragons came to be looked upon as the ancestors of a race of heroes. This is the story of China at War.
-
Moonlight on Linoleum
- A Daughter's Memoir
- By: Terry Helwig
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even if others abandon you, you must never abandon yourself. This simple truth became Terry Helwig’s lifeline as she was forced to grow up too soon. Terry grew up the oldest of six girls in the big-sky country of the American Southwest, where she attended 12 schools in 11 years. Helwig’s stepfather, Davy, a good-hearted and loving man, proudly purchased a mobile home to enable his family to move more easily from one oil town to another, where Davy eked out a living in the oil fields.
-
The Walled Garden
- A Novel
- By: Robin Farrar Maass
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Klett
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American grad student Lucy Silver arrives in England hoping to solve a longstanding literary mystery, write her dissertation, and finish her graduate studies in a blaze of academic glory. But as Lucy starts to piece together the correspondence between her late grandmother and Elizabeth Blackspear, the famous poet and garden writer who’s the subject of Lucy’s dissertation, she discovers puzzling coded references in the letters.
-
Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse
- A Novel
- By: Faith Sullivan
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nell Stillman's road is not easy. When her boorish husband dies soon after they move to the small town of Harvester, Minnesota, Nell is alone, penniless yet responsible for her beloved baby boy, Hillyard. Not an easy fate in small-town America at the beginning of the 20th century. In the face of nearly insurmountable odds, Nell finds strength in lasting friendships and in the rich inner life awakened by the novels she loves.
-
Imperial Woman
- The Story of the Last Empress of China
- By: Pearl S. Buck
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of Tzu Hsi is the story of the last empress in China. In this audiobook, Pearl S. Buck recreates the life of one of the most intriguing rules during a time of intense turbulence. Tzu Hsi was born into one of the lowly ranks of the Imperial dynasty. According to custom, she moved to the Forbidden City at the age of 17 to become one of hundreds of concubines. But her singular beauty and powers of manipulation quickly moved her into the position of Second Consort.
-
-
Beautiful, loved it
- By alison on 04-06-2015
-
Pavilion of Women
- By: Pearl S. Buck
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On her 40th birthday, Madame Wu carries out a decision she has been planning for a long time: she tells her husband that after 24 years their physical life together is now over and she wishes him to take a second wife. The House of Wu, one of the oldest and most revered in China, is thrown into an uproar by her decision, but Madame Wu will not be dissuaded and arranges for a young country girl to come take her place in bed.
-
Dragon Seed
- By: Pearl S. Buck
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Chinese the dragon is not an evil creature, but is a god and the friend of men who worship him. He "holds in his power prosperity and peace." Ruling the waters and the winds, he sends the good rain, is hence the symbol of fecundity. In the Hsia dynasty two dragons fought a great duel until both disappeared, leaving only a fertile foam from which were born the descendants of the Hsia. Thus, the dragons came to be looked upon as the ancestors of a race of heroes. This is the story of China at War.
-
Moonlight on Linoleum
- A Daughter's Memoir
- By: Terry Helwig
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even if others abandon you, you must never abandon yourself. This simple truth became Terry Helwig’s lifeline as she was forced to grow up too soon. Terry grew up the oldest of six girls in the big-sky country of the American Southwest, where she attended 12 schools in 11 years. Helwig’s stepfather, Davy, a good-hearted and loving man, proudly purchased a mobile home to enable his family to move more easily from one oil town to another, where Davy eked out a living in the oil fields.
-
The Walled Garden
- A Novel
- By: Robin Farrar Maass
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Klett
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American grad student Lucy Silver arrives in England hoping to solve a longstanding literary mystery, write her dissertation, and finish her graduate studies in a blaze of academic glory. But as Lucy starts to piece together the correspondence between her late grandmother and Elizabeth Blackspear, the famous poet and garden writer who’s the subject of Lucy’s dissertation, she discovers puzzling coded references in the letters.
-
Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse
- A Novel
- By: Faith Sullivan
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nell Stillman's road is not easy. When her boorish husband dies soon after they move to the small town of Harvester, Minnesota, Nell is alone, penniless yet responsible for her beloved baby boy, Hillyard. Not an easy fate in small-town America at the beginning of the 20th century. In the face of nearly insurmountable odds, Nell finds strength in lasting friendships and in the rich inner life awakened by the novels she loves.
-
Finding Grace
- By: Maren Cooper
- Narrated by: Eric Altheide, Katie Hagaman, Marnye Young
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Caroline, a gifted ornithologist who wants a life of travel and adventure, gets pregnant against her wishes, her husband, Charlie, assumes she will change her mind. She doesn't—and as their daughter, Grace, grows up, she falls through the devastating schism that has grown between them. Told by all three of the characters involved and set against the backdrop of Lake Superior, Finding Grace is a piercing chronicle and a poignant comic-of-age journey for a daughter and her parents.
-
A Letter in the Wall
- A Novel
- By: Eileen Brill
- Narrated by: Tanya Saari
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1971, and Joan Dumann fears her former business partner wants her dead—but her anxiety is less about dying than it is about feeling disrespected and invalidated. As she constructs a letter about her predicament, she revisits her past. Born into a prominent Philadelphia Quaker family in 1915 and raised with privilege and opportunity, Joan wrestles with her turbulent thoughts and unfulfilled desires—an internal battle that often results in self-destructive tendencies.
-
Owl Song at Dawn
- By: Emma Claire Sweeney
- Narrated by: Helen Lloyd
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maeve Maloney may be nearing 80, but she keeps Sea View Lodge as shipshape as her parents did during Morecambe's heyday. But now only her employees recognise the heartbreak hidden beneath her spikiness. Until, that is, Vincent shows up. He is the only man alive to have known her twin sister, Edie. If only Maeve could confront the secret past she shares with Vincent, she might finally see what it means to love and be loved - a lesson that her twin may have been trying to teach her all along.
-
The Weather Woman
- By: Sally Gardner
- Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neva Friezland is born into a world of trickery and illusion, where fortunes can be won and lost on the turn of a card. She is also born with an extraordinary gift. She can predict the weather. In Regency England, where the proper goal for a gentlewoman is marriage and only God knows the weather this is dangerous. It is also potentially very lucrative.
-
Shadow of the Taj
- By: Lara Bernhardt
- Narrated by: Heidi Bindhammer
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How much would you risk to save one child? Leslie Matthews travels to India with her husband on a business trip, never expecting it will turn her life upside-down. During a trip to the zoo, she meets Raveena, an orphan desperate for someone to save her from a harrowing fate. Leslie tries to rescue Raveena from a sordid, exploitative underworld, but powerful and brutal men hold the girl and don’t intend to let anyone take her. Leslie tumbles into a terrifying underworld of systemic abuse she knows nothing about. But she won't stop until Raveena is safe, regardless of the cost.
-
The Ragged Orphan
- By: Lindsey Hutchinson
- Narrated by: Annie Aldington
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When 12 year-old Jared Johnson’s little sister dies, just hours after his mother breathes her last after wasting away so her children could eat, he knows he is on own. Desperate to avoid the workhouse, he does everything he can to survive the inhospitable streets of Birmingham. Jared is blessed with the gift of the gab and soon attracts the attention of the King of the Tatters, Toby McGuire. Recognising a kindred spirit, Toby soon has Jared out on a cart hustling for rags.
-
The Giant: A Novel of Michelangelo's David
- By: Laura Morelli
- Narrated by: Edoardo Camponeschi
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florence, 1500. Fresco painter Jacopo Torni longs to make his mark in the world. But while his peers enjoy prestigious commissions, his meager painting jobs are all earmarked to pay down gambling debts. When Jacopo hears of a competition to create Florence's greatest sculpture, he pins all his hopes on a collaboration with his boyhood companion, Michelangelo Buonarroti. But will the frustrated artist ever emerge from the shadow of his singularly gifted friend?
-
Dalva
- A Novel
- By: Jim Harrison
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey, Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From her home on the California coast, Dalva hears the broad silence of the Nebraska prairie where she was born, and longs for the son she gave up for adoption years before. Beautiful, fearless, tormented, at 45 she has lived a life of lovers and adventures. Now, Dalva begins a journey that will take her back to the bosom of her family, to the half-Sioux lover of her youth, and to a pioneering great-grandfather whose journals recount the bloody annihilation of the Plains Indians.
-
The Forgotten Witch
- By: Jessica Dodge
- Narrated by: Francesca Harrall
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Helen Kent never dares to step outside her comfort zone. She lives a lonely, mundane life in the city, grinding through her uninspiring marketing job. That is, until a spontaneous online purchase brings her to the little bay town of Oban, Scotland, where a 500-year-old cottage full of secrets and stories awaits her. After Helen unearths the local legend of a 16th-century witch, she discovers a set of mysterious journals in the cottage’s library. Thrust into a world of magic she doesn’t understand, she soon realizes there are both light and dark forces at work beyond her control.
-
White like Her
- By: Gail Lukasik PhD, Kenyatta D. Berry - foreword
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her mother's decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness. Haunted by her mother's fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother's racial lineage, tracing her family back to 18th-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage.
-
Those People Behind Us
- By: Mary Camarillo
- Narrated by: Timothy G. Little
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s the summer of 2017 in Wellington Beach, California, a suburban coastal town increasingly divided by politics, protests, and escalating housing prices—divisions that change the lives of five neighbors as they search for home and community in a neighborhood where no one can agree who belongs.
-
The Last Party at Silverton Hall
- By: Rachel Burton
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1952: Vivien and Max collide in the thick London smog. Within a few years, their whirlwind romance sees them living a quiet life on the Norfolk coast, blissfully happy with their beautiful daughter—at least, that's how it appears... 2019: Isobel is hoping for a fresh start when she inherits her beloved grandmother Vivien's house in Silverton Bay. But when she discovers an old photograph of Vivien at one of the infamous parties held at Silverton Hall in the 1950s, Isobel is forced to question how well she really knew her grandmother.
Publisher's Summary
Young Peony is sold into a rich Chinese household as a bondmaid - an awkward role in which she is more a servant, but less a daughter. As she grows into a lovely, provocative young woman, Peony falls in love with the family's only son. However, tradition forbids them to wed. How she resolves her love for him and her devotion to her adoptive family unfolds in this profound tale, based on true events in China over a century ago.
More from the same
What listeners say about Peony
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- alison
- 04-06-2015
Well written, beautiful tale
I really enoyed this book. The srory line was good, with interesting characters. I first thought the book was just a romantic tale between the upper and poorer classes of Imperial China, but it was more complex that that. I hadn't realised that there had been such a strong Jewish comunity in China at that time, so it was historically very interesting too.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 10-01-2022
Peony
What an excellent book,throughly enjoyable. All the wonderful details & descriptions of China at the term of the Century. Linked with historic accuracy of the Chinese Jew’s life Highly recommended. 👍👍👍👍👍
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!