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The Chaperone

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The Chaperone

By: Laura Moriarty
Narrated by: Elizabeth McGovern
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About this listen

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone, read by the actress Elizabeth McGovern, best-known for her role as Cora, Countess of Grantham, in the hit TV series Downton Abbey.

On a summer's day in 1922, Cora Carlisle boards a train from Wichita, Kansas, to New York City, leaving behind a marriage that's not as perfect as it seems and a past that she buried long ago.

She is charged with the care of a stunning young girl with a jet-black fringe and eyes wild and wise beyond her 15 years. This girl is hungry for stardom, and Cora is hungry for something she doesn't yet know.

Cora will be many things in her lifetime - an orphan, a mother, a wife, a mistress - but in New York she is a chaperone and her life is about to change. It is here, under the bright lights of Broadway, in a time when prohibition reigns and speakeasies with their forbidden whispers behind closed doors thrive, that Cora finds what she has been searching for. It is here, in a time when illicit thrills and daring glamour sizzle beneath the laws of propriety that her life truly begins. It is here that Cora and her charge, Louise Brooks, take their first steps towards their dreams.

©2012 Laura Moriarty (P)2012 Penguin Audio Romance Marriage New York
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This is a wonderful story of Cora, from a young orphaned girl in New York sent out on a train to the mid west to be adopted to the great grandmother, she became,who had lived a normal yet fascinating life. The pivotal period of her life revolves around the month she acted as a chaperone to a young, fiesty, beautiful 15 yr old Louise Brooks in the city of New York.
Make no mistake this is Cora's story and Louise Brooks is really a peripheral character in a book full of truly lovely,ordinary people. The length of Cora's life enable us to see the changing times and attitudes and to understand how difficult some of the moral restrictions were on people.
A truly wonderful book, narrated beautifully. Highly recommended - and keep the tissues handy.

Absolutely Fantastic!

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Loved a good period piece. Great Narration by Elizabeth McGovern. I could visualise her as Cora even though I haven't seen the movie.

Adictively engaging

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I was sorry to finish this book. It challenged our misguided concepts of morality over the years. A thoughtful book.

Enjoyed immensely

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