First Comes Summer
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Elizabeth Evans
About this listen
The spellbinding story of a young woman’s dangerous passion as it plays out over the course of an eerie summer
In their remote Viking settlement, Folkví and her brother, Áslakr, have always been close—unnaturally close. They’ve grown more intimate still as Folkví learns her shaman mother’s craft, as men regard her with newly devouring eyes. Then illness carries off their parents, and the nest of home is shattered. Áslakr sets off on his first expedition, abandoning Folkví to the dark of an endless winter. When he returns, he’s done the unthinkable: He’s found someone else to love.
Sick with grief, Folkví rages to the gods where they sit at the foot of an ancient tree, contemplating the twisted passions of humans that play out in the face of an ever-approaching end of days. Will none of them save her now? Very well, Folkví will save herself. The wedding date is set. But first comes a fateful summer. . .
Deeply unsettling and brilliantly imagined, First Comes Summer captures the terror of losing the world you’ve always known—and the uncanny extremes to which you might go to hold on to it.
©2023 Maria Hesselager (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“[A] sparse and spellbinding novel. . . . Hesselager’s deft writing throughout this mysterious story continuously unsettles in the best way possible, prompting readers to lean in even as things spiral out of control.” —Chicago Review of Books
“Poetic, enigmatic. . . . [and] remarkable. . . . It is mysterious and utterly compelling.” —Center for Fiction
“A magical book about love and death and the slender, enduring line that connects the two.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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For her 16th birthday, Vaela Sun receives the most coveted gift in all the Spire - a trip to the Continent. It seems an unlikely destination for a holiday: a cold, desolate land where two nations remain perpetually locked in combat. Most citizens lucky enough to tour the Continent do so to observe the spectacle and violence of battle, a thing long vanished in the peaceful realm of the Spire.
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amazing!!
- By Newtothis on 05-29-18
By: Keira Drake
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Mark of the Raven
- The Ravenwood Saga, Book 1
- By: Morgan L. Busse
- Narrated by: Jaimee Draper
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Lady Selene is the heir to the Great House of Ravenwood and the secret family gift of dreamwalking. As a dreamwalker, she can enter a person's dreams and manipulate their greatest fears or desires. For the last hundred years, the Ravenwood women have used their gift of dreaming for hire to gather information or to assassinate. As she discovers her family's dark secret, Selene is torn between upholding her family's legacy - a legacy that supports her people - or seeking the true reason behind her family's gift.
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So glad this is on audiobook!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-09-18
By: Morgan L. Busse
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The Invasion of Heaven
- Part One of the Newirth Mythology
- By: Michael B. Koep
- Narrated by: Gabrielle de Cuir, John Rubinstein, Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Psychologist Loche Newirth becomes hunted when he sees a painting that opens a window onto the afterlife. An ancient order of men seeking to control the art pursue him across the world, through centuries, into madness, and beyond. The first part of Michael B. Koep's the Newirth Mythology The Invasion of Heaven is mystery, adventure, myth, betrayal, murder, and madness. Loche Newirth wonders if it was his fall: The 50-foot drop from the rocky cliff to the icy water below. Is this why he has been hallucinating?
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Good story - well written
- By Amy Q on 05-17-20
By: Michael B. Koep
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Ransom
- By: David Malouf
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This is the story of the relationship between two grieving men at war: fierce Achilles, who has lost his beloved Patroclus in the siege of Troy; and woeful Priam, whose son Hector killed Patroclus and was in turn savaged by Achilles. A moving tale of suffering, sorrow, and redemption, Ransom is incandescent in its delicate and powerful lyricism and its unstated imperative that we imagine our lives in the glow of fellow feeling.
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Ponderous narration, tortured prose
- By Gail N. on 01-26-20
By: David Malouf
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The Door on Half-Bald Hill
- By: Helena Sorensen
- Narrated by: Robert Hook, Janet Devlin, Nigel Patterson
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When the Bloodmoon rose, death came rushing into the world. Now the water is bitter, blight consumes everything, and the Crone haunts the hills. While the Druid of Blackthorn searches desperately for hope, the Ovate returns from the underworld bringing omens of despair. But Idris, the young bard, Keeper of the Sacred Word, will walk through fire and iron to uncover a question no one has ever dared to ask - a question that carries a world of answers on its back, a question that can change everything.
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Interesting concept, but it felt incomplete.
- By W. Scott on 10-07-20
By: Helena Sorensen
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Daughter of the Forest
- Sevenwaters, Book 1
- By: Juliet Marillier
- Narrated by: Terry Donnelly
- Length: 26 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Lovely Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Lord Colum of Sevenwaters. Bereft of a mother, she is comforted by her six brothers who love and protect her. Sorcha is the light in their lives and they are determined that she know only contentment. But Sorcha's joy is shattered when her father is bewitched by his new wife, an evil enchantress who binds her brothers with a terrible spell, a spell which only Sorcha can lift - by staying silent.
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Compelling story--but only at 1.5x
- By barefoot rabbit on 09-09-13
By: Juliet Marillier
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The Hero and the Crown
- By: Robin McKinley
- Narrated by: Roslyn Alexander
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Uncertain of the past, Aerin-sol, daughter of King Arlbeth, decides to forge her own future by challenging the lashing tongues of the dragon’s fire. Aerin’s proficiency as "the Dragon-slayer" sets her on a quest for the stolen Crown of Damar, believed to be in the hands of rebellious northerners who threaten to destroy the Damarian people and their home forever.
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Second only to Blue Sword
- By mkc on 01-18-13
By: Robin McKinley
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The Beast That Never Was
- By: Caren J. Werlinger
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Lise’s father is dead, and the life of plenty and freedom that she has known as the daughter of the King’s Huntsman is gone. She must now live a life of duty to her mother and sisters, helping them to cope in their altered circumstances. But where her mother would have her wed a childhood friend to secure their future, Lise knows that is not what she longs for.
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Classic fairytale remade into a lesbian romanc
- By Army Vet on 01-28-22
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The Blue Guitar
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, a new novel - at once trenchant, witty, and shattering - about the intricacies of artistic creation and theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme, is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who does not steal for profit and has never before been caught.
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Masterful
- By Amazon customer on 11-25-15
By: John Banville
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The Autumn Castle
- By: Kim Wilkins
- Narrated by: Richard Aspel
- Length: 19 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Berlin in autumn: Christine Starlight lives in an artists' colony with her lover Jude, whose patience and beauty have eased her battle with chronic pain. But Christine begins to be haunted by childhood recollections of a little girl's disappearance and the flapping of a blackbird's wings. Then her world is rocked by the return of a childhood friend... Mayfridh rules over a land where a wolf is the queen's counsellor, fate turns on the fall of an autumn leaf and mortals feel no pain.
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Great Story, Horrible Narration
- By KathyDB on 03-24-15
By: Kim Wilkins
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Chalice
- By: Robin McKinley
- Narrated by: Rachael Beresford
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The earthlines speak to Mirasol, but her family has lived in the demesne for centuries, and many of the old families can hear the land. She knows that the violent deaths of the last Master and Chalice have thrown Willowlands into turmoil; but she is only a beekeeper, and the problems of the Circle that govern Willowlands have nothing to do with her - although she wonders what will become of her demesne, because the Master and Chalice left no heirs to carry on their crucial duties.
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A favorite McKinley
- By Shannon GC on 03-29-20
By: Robin McKinley
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Flight to Eden
- Cradleland Chronicles #1
- By: Douglas Hirt
- Narrated by: Michael Taylor
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A dark power is at work, intent on gaining complete control of the CradleLand, the birthplace of the still-young world. All that stands in the Power's way is one troublesome line of humans: descendants of Seth. They are of the only remaining clan clinging to an all-but-dead faith. And yet it's from that faith that a prophecy threatens all plans of world dominion.
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Great story, buy the book instead.
- By Joshua on 07-23-11
By: Douglas Hirt
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Death and the Maiden
- Mistress of the Art of Death
- By: Samantha Norman, Ariana Franklin
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
England. 1191. After the death of her friend and patron, King Henry II, Adelia Aguilar, England's vaunted Mistress of the Art of Death, is living comfortably in retirement and training her daughter, Allie, to carry on her craft—sharing the practical knowledge of anatomy, forensics, and sleuthing that catches murderers. Allie is already a skilled healer, with a particular gift for treating animals. But the young woman is nearly twenty, and her father, Rowley, Bishop of Saint Albans, and his patron, the Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, have plans to marry Allie to an influential husband.
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Wanted to love it
- By Jeffrey J. on 02-15-21
By: Samantha Norman, and others
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What listeners say about First Comes Summer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Alexa Graves
- 08-16-23
Eh
It was okay, not much happened, at least what did happen didn’t really shock or fill me with any feeling other than “okay”…
I actually feel like the book is probably good in it’s native language, but it seems to lose pretty much all feeling in English translation.
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