Get Your Free Audiobook
-
Frog Music
- Narrated by: Khristine Hvam
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
Non-member price: $21.26
People who bought this also bought...
-
The Pull of the Stars
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with an unfamiliar flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.
-
-
A must read in the Ireland of today.
- By Amazon Customer on 20-01-2021
-
The Wonder
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Kate Lock
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An 11-year-old girl stops eating but remains miraculously alive and well. A nurse sent to investigate whether she is a fraud meets a journalist hungry for a story. Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, Emma Donoghue's The Wonder - inspired by numerous European and North American cases of 'fasting girls' between the 16th century and the 20th - is a psychological thriller about a child's murder threatening to happen in slow motion before our eyes.
-
-
not a psychological thriller
- By Joana on 28-09-2016
-
Akin
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Noah is only days away from his first trip back to Nice since he was a child when a social worker calls looking for a temporary home for Michael, his 11-year-old great-nephew. Though he has never met the boy, he gets talked into taking him along to France. This odd couple, suffering from jet lag and culture shock, argue about everything from steak haché to screen time, and the trip is looking like a disaster.
-
-
Hmm
- By Anonymous User on 07-10-2019
-
The Crooked Branch
- By: Jeanine Cummins
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon, Patricia Rodriguez
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the birth of her daughter, Emma, the usually resilient Majella finds herself feeling isolated and exhausted. Then, at her childhood home, Majella discovers the diary of her maternal ancestor Ginny and is shocked to read a story of murder in her family history. With the famine upon her, Ginny Doyle fled from Ireland to America, but not all of her family made it. What happened during those harrowing years, and why does Ginny call herself a killer? Is Majella genetically fated to be a bad mother, despite the fierce tenderness she feels for her baby?
-
-
Love this book, should come with trigger warning
- By Amanda on 24-10-2020
-
The Peppermint Tea Chronicles
- 44 Scotland Street, Book 13
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose; it is summer in Scotland Street (as it always is) and for the habitués of Edinburgh's favourite street some extraordinary adventures lie in waiting. For the impossibly vain Bruce Anderson - he of the clove-scented hair gel - it may finally be time to settle down, and surely it can only be a question of picking the lucky winner from the hordes of his admirers....
-
-
Thoroughly enjoyable !
- By Anonymous User on 20-09-2020
-
Pure
- By: Andrew Miller
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it. At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history, a fitting task for a modern man of reason. But before long, he begins to suspect that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own.
-
-
Fascinating story of a fascinating time in Paris
- By Sally Cousens on 03-05-2020
-
The Pull of the Stars
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, where expectant mothers who have come down with an unfamiliar flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.
-
-
A must read in the Ireland of today.
- By Amazon Customer on 20-01-2021
-
The Wonder
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Kate Lock
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An 11-year-old girl stops eating but remains miraculously alive and well. A nurse sent to investigate whether she is a fraud meets a journalist hungry for a story. Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, Emma Donoghue's The Wonder - inspired by numerous European and North American cases of 'fasting girls' between the 16th century and the 20th - is a psychological thriller about a child's murder threatening to happen in slow motion before our eyes.
-
-
not a psychological thriller
- By Joana on 28-09-2016
-
Akin
- By: Emma Donoghue
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Noah is only days away from his first trip back to Nice since he was a child when a social worker calls looking for a temporary home for Michael, his 11-year-old great-nephew. Though he has never met the boy, he gets talked into taking him along to France. This odd couple, suffering from jet lag and culture shock, argue about everything from steak haché to screen time, and the trip is looking like a disaster.
-
-
Hmm
- By Anonymous User on 07-10-2019
-
The Crooked Branch
- By: Jeanine Cummins
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon, Patricia Rodriguez
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the birth of her daughter, Emma, the usually resilient Majella finds herself feeling isolated and exhausted. Then, at her childhood home, Majella discovers the diary of her maternal ancestor Ginny and is shocked to read a story of murder in her family history. With the famine upon her, Ginny Doyle fled from Ireland to America, but not all of her family made it. What happened during those harrowing years, and why does Ginny call herself a killer? Is Majella genetically fated to be a bad mother, despite the fierce tenderness she feels for her baby?
-
-
Love this book, should come with trigger warning
- By Amanda on 24-10-2020
-
The Peppermint Tea Chronicles
- 44 Scotland Street, Book 13
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose; it is summer in Scotland Street (as it always is) and for the habitués of Edinburgh's favourite street some extraordinary adventures lie in waiting. For the impossibly vain Bruce Anderson - he of the clove-scented hair gel - it may finally be time to settle down, and surely it can only be a question of picking the lucky winner from the hordes of his admirers....
-
-
Thoroughly enjoyable !
- By Anonymous User on 20-09-2020
-
Pure
- By: Andrew Miller
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it. At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history, a fitting task for a modern man of reason. But before long, he begins to suspect that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own.
-
-
Fascinating story of a fascinating time in Paris
- By Sally Cousens on 03-05-2020
Publisher's Summary
Frog Music is a wonderfully evocative novel of intrigue and murder from Emma Donoghue, the author of the international bestseller Room, an emotive and powerful novel that was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker and Orange Prizes.
San Francisco, 1876: A stifling heat wave and smallpox epidemic have engulfed the City. Deep in the streets of Chinatown live three former stars of the Parisian circus: Blanche, now an exotic dancer at the House of Mirrors, her lover Arthur and his companion Ernest. When an eccentric outsider joins their little circle, secrets unravel, changing everything - and leaving one of them dead.
Frog Music, inspired by true events, is an evocative novel of intrigue and murder: Elegant, erotic and witty.
Critic Reviews
“Frog Music builds into a gripping tale of a woman’s struggle to survive in the anarchic world of a frontier city and shows what a wonderfully talented and versatile writer Emma Donoghue is.” (Scottish Daily Mail)
“This is another smart and finely wrought consideration of parenthood, further proof of Donoghue’s significant skill as an author.” (The Observer - The New Review)
More from the same
What listeners say about Frog Music
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amanda
- 30-06-2017
Heart breaking
Emma Donoghue does such a good job at developing the characters and I found myself caught up on their tragic and compelling lives. A great production with overall good performance.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Victoria
- 14-04-2014
To be fair I haven't listened all the way through
I was so excited to see a new novel by the author of Room, one of the most moving, thoughtful and insightful books I've read in years.
I downloaded it without hesitation and started listening...
First I fell asleep while listening (without the sleep timer on), so I decided to give it a fighting chance and start back at the beginning, convinced it was my fault for being too tired to listen properly... I stated again...
It was such a bitter disappointment to realise that this just isn't for me; I tried and tried but whether it's the characterisation (an astonishing strength of donoghue's last novel) which felt sketchy to the point of threadbare and borderline characatured, or whether it was the narration (more on that later) I don't know. Either way, after about 4 or 5 good attempts at getting past he initial "hump" to see if I could go the distance, I've reached my Waterloo I fear! This book is not for me.
A word on narration; you're selling an audiobook to the European market. The main character is a Frenchwoman, to be narrated with a French accent, and the book contains frequent use of French quotes and comments... PICK A FRENCH SPEAKING NARRATOR!!!
I'm sure many people will love this book but it's not for me :-(
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- alan
- 10-05-2014
I tried
What would have made Frog Music better?
more gripping first chapter.
Has Frog Music put you off other books in this genre?
yes
How did the narrator detract from the book?
narrator was good ...just distracting with different accents.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Frog Music?
all of the first chapter
Any additional comments?
boring, confusing , far too drawn out.. complete waste of time trying to get into this story. Dissappointing
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Sarah F
- 09-05-2014
An engaging, frank and thrilling story
Where does Frog Music rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
The first audiobook I've listened to in years and a great story. I may actually want to read it in print as well because I enjoyed it so much. It has provided me with great distraction during my half marathon preparations.
Narration must be a difficult thing, particularly where accents are concerned. I do think that perhaps just narrating without adding accents would probably still work!
Who was your favorite character and why?
Jenny, probably, although it's hard not to like Blanche.
Did Khristine Hvam do a good job differentiating each of the characters? How?
Some of the accents went awry, particularly the Irish accents and there wasn't a vast deal of difference between the French men and the Italian. The pseudo Chinese was edging pastiche. But the accent trouble was only mildly irritating - the book has such a strong story that it didn't detract too much.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Not without massive spoilers.
Any additional comments?
Loved the story. It was thrilling, engaging and evocative. Loved many of the characters. Didn't find it that easy to keep track of where I was in the narrative due to the structure of the book - that would be easier to do when reading the print copy. Wasn't overly enamoured of some of the attempts at accents.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- K. Bridges
- 05-08-2020
Lovely performance but a rather slow moving story
This is a 12 hour book that really felt like it took 12 hours to listen to - interesting (and apparently based on a true) story but inordinately slow moving. The narrator really tries and the reading and accents are excellent. It just needed to be no more than half its actual length.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- friedandy
- 06-04-2016
lost in the performance...
narrator's French accent was a little offputting as was her Calamity Jane but the story was strong enough to pull through. Not sure if it worked as an audio.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Jason
- 05-01-2015
skillful but no story
What about Khristine Hvam’s performance did you like?
Very well read, good songs and accents, and not over-performed.
Any additional comments?
It’s sad to criticise good writing. Emma Donoghue is very talented. The first few chapters are very enjoyable as a picture of a colourful place and period is expertly created for all the senses, and thoroughly researched. Unfortunately not much happens here – no more than what the blurb on the back of the book says. Every chapter is filled with lamentation – ‘If only she did this instead of this.. Oh, why did that have to happen?.. Why couldn't that have happened instead of that?’ You could easily miss out chunks of this book and it would still make sense. I put it aside for ages, then came back to it for an inevitable whimper of an ending. The two-dimensional, cartoonish characters might have functioned better in a shorter story. Could have been massively abridged. Sorry but felt like a waste of time.
16 Best Audiobooks by Aboriginal Authors
Across genres, there’s no shortage of brilliant titles from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers of Australia.



25 Best Celebrity Audiobooks
It’s always a pleasant surprise to pick up a familiar story and find an unexpected famous friend in the narrator’s booth.



Best Audiobooks of 2020
We've crunched the numbers, heard from our listeners and gotten expert opinions to round up the best listens of 2020.


