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Fencing with the King
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Rasha Zamamiri
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
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Publisher's summary
A mesmerizing breakthrough novel of family myths and inheritances by the award-winning author of Crescent.
Amani is hooked on a mystery - a poem on airmail paper that slips out of one of her father’s books. It seems to have been written by her grandmother, a refugee who arrived in Jordan during the First World War. Soon the perfect occasion to investigate arises: Her uncle Hafez, an advisor to the king of Jordan, invites her father to celebrate the king’s 60th birthday - and to fence with the king, as in their youth. Her father has avoided returning to his homeland for decades, but Amani persuades him to come with her. Uncle Hafez will make their time in Jordan complicated - and dangerous - after Amani discovers a missing relative and is launched into a journey of loss, history, and, eventually, a fight for her own life.
Fencing with the King masterfully draws on King Lear and Arthurian fable to explore the power of inheritance, the trauma of displacement, and whether we can release the past to build a future.
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Critic reviews
"Fencing with the King is a delicate arabesque of intertwining family relationships. Moving through the bouganvillia-splashed villas of upper-class Jordan, a poet raised in America struggles to decode her father’s world of allusion, indirection, and heartbreaking secrets. The novel probes the cost of exile and voluntary expatriation, asking: When is inheritance a blessing, and when is it merely a burden?" (Geraldine Brooks, author of The Secret Chord)
"I read Diana Abu-Jaber's Fencing with the King in one sitting - I couldn’t stop. Ambitious, vivid, compelling, and full of life, this rich family story tells so many truths and uses family myths and fables to explore complex history, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds of exile and displacement. An absolute must-read." (Etaf Rum, author of A Woman Is No Man)
"Diana Abu Jaber outdoes herself with this brilliantly paced and utterly absorbing novel. From start to finish, her dynamic prose and seemingly effortless storytelling create an original narrative of love, intrigue, and family/global dynamics. Fencing with the King is a flavorful page-turner that will both nourish and satiate. You are in for a treat." (Laila Halaby, author of Once in a Promised Land)
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Story
At the American Academy of Classical Art, popular opinion has it that the school's handsome and mysterious founder, Raphael Sinclair, is a vampire. It is a rumor Rafe does nothing to dispel. Scholarship student Tessa Moss has long dreamed of the chance to study at Rafe's Academy. But she is floundering amidst the ups and downs of a relationship with egotistical art star Lucian Swain. Then, one of Tessa's sketches catches Rafe's attention: a drawing of a young woman in 1930s clothing who is covering the eyes of a child.
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UGH... Will the Heroine Ever Grow Up?
- By Amazon Customer on 06-11-19
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Grand Central
- Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion
- By: Melanie Benjamin, Amanda Hodgkinson, Pam Jenoff, and others
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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On any particular day, thousands upon thousands of people pass through New York City's Grand Central Terminal, through the whispering gallery, beneath the ceiling of stars, and past the information booth and its beckoning four-faced clock, to whatever destination is calling them. It is a place where people come to say hello and good-bye. And each person has a story to tell.
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Grand Central: Memories
- By ZacharyKindle Customer on 05-03-17
By: Melanie Benjamin, and others
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Diamond Head
- A Novel
- By: Cecily Wong
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Samantha Chen, Angela Lin, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Told through the eyes of the Leongs' secret-keeping daughters and wives and spanning the Boxer Rebellion to Pearl Harbor to 1960s Hawaii, Diamond Head is a breathtakingly powerful tale of tragic love, shocking lies, poignant compromise, aching loss, heroic acts of sacrifice, and miraculous hope.
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.
- By Gina on 09-06-15
By: Cecily Wong
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The Vine of Desire
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Anju and Sudha formed an astounding, almost psychic connection during their childhood in India. When Anju invites Sudha, a single mother in Calcutta, to come live with her and her husband, Sunil, in California, Sudha foolishly accepts, knowing full well that Sunil has long desired her. As Sunil's attraction rises to the surface, the trio must struggle to make sense of the freedoms of America - and of the ties that bind them to India and to one another.
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Vine of desire
- By Mz Shantay on 03-27-21
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A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
- By: Brigid Pasulka
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The novel opens on the eve of World War II. In the mountain village of Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon, under the approving eyes of the entire village, courts the beautiful Anielica Hetmanska. But the war's arrival wreaks havoc in all their lives and delays their marriage for six long years.
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The Old & New Worlds Converge & Transcend Time
- By Sara on 11-22-16
By: Brigid Pasulka
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Fruit of the Drunken Tree
- A Novel
- By: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Narrated by: Marisol Ramirez, Almarie Guerra, Ingrid Rojas Contreras
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister, Cassandra, enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways.
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Maybe better to read this book than listen???
- By Amazon Customer on 12-12-18
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The Disappearances
- By: Emily Bain Murphy
- Narrated by: Devon Sorvari
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Aila Quinn's mother, Juliet, has always been a mystery. Vibrant yet guarded, she keeps her secrets beyond Aila's reach. When Juliet dies, Aila and her younger brother, Miles, are sent to live in Sterling, a rural town with mysteries of its own. In Sterling, the experiences that weave life together - scents of flowers and food, reflections from mirrors and lakes, even the ability to dream - vanish every seven years. No one knows what causes these Disappearances or what will slip away next.
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Always
- By Lisa Gay on 09-09-17
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The Splendour Falls
- By: Susanna Kearsley
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Emily Braden has stopped believing in fairy tales and happy endings. When her fascinating but unreliable cousin Harry invites her on a holiday to explore the legendary town of Chinon, and promptly disappears - well, that's Harry for you. As Emily makes the acquaintance of Chinon and its people, she begins to uncover dark secrets beneath the charm.
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Odd story with a worse narration
- By MV on 01-18-14
By: Susanna Kearsley
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Secrets of Nanreath Hall
- A Novel
- By: Alix Rickloff
- Narrated by: Lauren Irwin, Laura Waddell
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Cornwall, 1940. Back in England after the harrowing evacuation at Dunkirk, WWII Red Cross nurse Anna Trenowyth is shocked to learn her adoptive parents, Graham and Prue Handley, have been killed in an air raid. She desperately needs their advice, as she's been assigned to the military hospital that has set up camp inside her biological mother's childhood home - Nanreath Hall. Anna was just six years old when her mother, Lady Katherine Trenowyth, died. All she has left are vague memories that tease her with clues she can't unravel.
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Well done both narrators and Author !
- By Andover Meadow on 09-17-16
By: Alix Rickloff
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A Thousand Beginnings and Endings
- By: Ellen Oh, Elsie Chapman
- Narrated by: Kim Mai Guest, Vikas Adam
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Star-crossed lovers, meddling immortals, feigned identities, battles of wits, and dire warnings: these are the stuff of fairy tale, myth, and folklore that have drawn us in for centuries. Fifteen best-selling and acclaimed authors reimagine the folklore and mythology of East and South Asia in short stories that are by turns enchanting, heartbreaking, romantic, and passionate. From fantasy to science fiction to contemporary, from romance to tales of revenge, these stories will beguile listeners from start to finish.
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great stories, terrible narrators
- By Amazon Customer on 05-11-19
By: Ellen Oh, and others
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Secret Daughter
- By: Shilpi Somaya Gowda
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Debut novelist Shilpi Somaya Gowda pens this compelling tale about two families, worlds apart, linked by one Indian child. After giving birth to a girl for a second time, impoverished Kavita must give her up to an orphanage. The baby, named Asha, is adopted by an American doctor and raised in California. But once grown, Asha decides to return to India.
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A Must Read
- By Stephanie on 06-08-11
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Praise Song for the Butterflies
- A Novel
- By: Bernice L. McFadden
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Abeo Kata lives a comfortable, happy life in West Africa as the privileged nine-year-old daughter of a government employee and stay-at-home mother. But when the Katas' idyllic lifestyle takes a turn for the worse, Abeo's father, following his mother's advice, places the girl in a religious shrine, hoping that the sacrifice of his daughter will serve as atonement for the crimes of his ancestors. Unspeakable acts befall Abeo for the 15 years she is held in the shrine. When she is finally rescued, broken and battered, she must struggle to overcome her past.
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Searing!
- By Susie Bright on 09-05-18
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The House Girl
- A Novel
- By: Tara Conklin
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 2004: Lina Sparrow is an ambitious young lawyer working on a historic class-action lawsuit seeking reparations for the descendants of American slaves. The year is 1852: Josephine is a 17-year-old house slave who tends to the mistress of a Virginia tobacco farm - an aspiring artist named Lu Anne Bell. It is through her father, renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers a controversy rocking the art world: Art historians now suspect that the revered paintings of Lu Anne Bell, an antebellum artist known for her humanizing portraits of the slaves who worked her Virginia tobacco farm, were actually the work of her house slave, Josephine.
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Disappointing
- By Jeanette Finan on 02-21-13
By: Tara Conklin
What listeners say about Fencing with the King
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lauren
- 05-15-22
Perfect Marriage of Prose and Performance
A great story, and a chance to travel to Jordan with Amani to dig up some long buried family secrets. The prose is gorgeous and the performance— wow — perfect accent for the characters and language. Don’t skip this one.
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- J. J. Luke
- 07-15-22
A Fairytale For Adults
I have been a fan of her work for many years and this book did not disappoint. I thought it was lovely, mesmerizing and utterly engaging. The narrator was perfect and added so much more to the reading then I would have if I had read it by myself.
while Arab-Americans, Middle Easterners, and expatriates everywhere will love this book, I genuinely think everyone should read it.
The language is glorious and it draws you in and takes you around the world.
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- John Galvez
- 05-16-22
Great story and narration - loved it!
Really enjoyed this book - story was beautifully done and provided a lot of historical background and context as well.
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