Incredible

Loved this as much as the first book. A compelling story with many twists and turns. Beautifully narrated.

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Wonderful Story!!

So much story, so well narrated, loved it! Very much looking forward to the 3rd book. Thank you Philippa thank you Kate!

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Two tones: plaintive or contemptuous

I like the story well enough, but the narrator for this book was really hard to listen to after a few hours. She has two inflections- the plaintive "woe is me" and contemptous "masculine hautiness," both of which get tiresome EXTREMELY quickly. This rendition is best suited in small doses, or frankly, just read the book yourself.

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Not the usual quality you’d expect from Philippa Gregory

Really annoying characters, that didn’t have any backbone or bravery. A poor and insipid storyline and a predictable and rather morbid outcome

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Makes Wuthering Heights look like a rom-com

Why did Philippa Gregory write something so intolerable?
If you like your novels to come with an absolute truckload of intensely heart-wrenching and frustrating tragedy and wrong-doing, then you might enjoy this utterly depressing audiobook. This listener did not. The novel reminds me somewhat of Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles', in that the novel's heroine is so sweet, innocent and desirous to please that, when her nature is combined with some erroneous old-school social conditioning about a woman's compliant place, she becomes easily gaslit, bullied, manipulated and abused by the villian of the novel, an utterly despicable covert psychopathic narcissist, whom she initially loves and for some god-forsaken reason continues to care for and even shield to an exasperating and infuriating extent. I'm trying not to give too much away here, so I'll just say that I found it beyond frustrating that despite how obviously evil the story's villian is (100% evil, just so, so evil), those in the story that should see this and put a stop to it, instead continually fail to speak out against or stand up to him, allowing a crazy amount of further tragedy and evil deeds to pile up. I found such actions so astoundingly unbelievable at times that it ruined the novel for me many times over; I prefer stories to be seasoned with a tiny modicum of good sense and decision-making by the main characters, so that I can at least go to bed each night secure in the belief that pretty shortly, someone good and brave is going to stand up against the wrong that's being done, preferably before it's too late.
I would guess that it might have been Gregory's intent to have readers feel such anger at the evil deeds, that we vow to never let such behaviour go unnoticed or unpunished in the real world around us, and to remind us that such evil does exist in reality; in which case she does so successfully, although I needed no reminding. This listener believes in grace and forgiveness and yet I would have happily run the villian of this story through repeatedly in order to stop his villiany.
Gregory has written the story in first person past tense, and has done this well insofar as her skill for stringing together descriptive sentences, although the story goes on for too long. The narrator reads the story well and has a pleasant voice to listen to, in my opinion, however listen to the sample to decide for yourself.
If you can handle the overwhelming and overflowing amount of poorly made decisions, then you might find this audiobook worth listening to. If you aren't in a headspace where you can handle intense and completely avoidable tragedy, perhaps give this a miss. I kinda wish I had, I need a hopeful book to pull me out of the Slough of Despond that this book sunk me into. I won't be reading the other books in the series.

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Nasty story

I really couldn’t finish listening to this story. With 5 hours to go, of roughly 23 hours for the book. I abandoned it and won’t bother with the sequel.
The nastiness and cruelty in this story outweighed my curiosity to see if there was some hope at the end. I much prefer Diana Gabaldon’s writing of historical fiction ( which also includes advertises without such constant unpleasantness).

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What is with all the incest in this series?!

The first book was difficult to get through as it just dragged out the one theme for far longer than necessary with the brother and sister screwing each other constantly, and now in this one the brother and sister are determined to marry each other and the girl is at least screwing her father in her dreams. The idea of incest could probably be used effectively if used sparingly in one book to reinforce the desperation of the main character, but this is just revolting at this stage, and silly. Thankfully I didn't pay for this ridiculous nonsense. I can't say I'll be reading/listening to any more of the author's work to know, but hopefully she gets over her incest fetish.

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you will get so angry you will want to scream

I had to stop with 6 hours to go. I became so angry at the stupid heroine. I love period drama, but this is just painful and distressing. Do not start listening to this book.

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horribly dissapointing

what a waste of time this one turned out to be. if you enjoy stabbing yourself over and over again and like the pain read this book....otherwise don't bother.

the first one was amazing, this one is pathetic, well written but the most dissapointing, weak, deranged, pathetic lead character will make you want to weep for your wasted time. the only reason I finished it was to see if any good came of it and it didn't or rather came too late. Like a train wreck you can't walk away from....best to avoid it. the first book was brilliant and so original though, I still can't believe how terrible this one is.

argh!

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