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Maddalena and the Dark
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
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Publisher's summary
For fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and Mexican Gothic, a novel set in 18th-century Venice at a prestigious music school, about two girls drawn together by a dangerous wager
“A sumptuous feast of a novel, rich and strange and heady. Julia Fine is an extraordinary writer.” —Kelly Link, bestselling author of Get In Trouble
"Julia Fine's lyrical prose borders on the poetic, while Roberts invests each girl with complicated emotions, allowing their confused feelings to permeate this sinister tale of love and magic."- AudioFile
Venice, 1717. Fifteen-year-old Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. As a student at the Ospedale della Pietà, she hopes to join the highest ranks of its illustrious girls’ orchestra and become a protégé of the great Antonio Vivaldi. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena.
After a scandal threatens her noble family’s reputation, Maddalena is sent to the Pietà to preserve her marriage prospects. When she meets Luisa, Maddalena feels the stirrings of a friendship unlike anything she has known. But Maddalena has a secret: she has hatched a dangerous plot to rescue her future her own way. When she invites Luisa into her plans, promising to make her dreams come true, Luisa doesn’t hesitate. But every wager has its price, and as the girls are drawn into the decadent world outside the Pietà’s walls, they must decide what it is they truly want—and what they will do to pay for it.
Lush and heady, swirling with music and magic, Maddalena and the Dark is a Venetian fairytale about the friendship between two girls and the boundless desire that will set them free, if it doesn’t consume them first.
A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.
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Critic reviews
“Fine beguiles with this decadent tale of desire set in 18th-century Venice…A masterly exploration of the shifting power dynamics of the protagonists’ relationship, particularly as Maddalena’s devotion to Luisa curdles into obsession. With the alluring Venice backdrop, this will frighten and captivate in equal measure.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“From its first sentence, this novel curled its crooked little witch's finger around my heart and still hasn't let go. I can't decide what I loved most—the Faustian bargain set against an irresistibly lush and mercurial 18th-century Venice, or the shrewd and playful insight into artistic ambition and the high price women are forced to pay for it. Maddalena and the Dark completely seduced me with its menace, and it is undoubtedly Fine’s best yet.”—Amy Jo Burns, author of Shiner
“Maddalena and the Dark is chocolate laced with poison. To read it is to fall under an enchantment: 18th-century Venice, desire and obsession, music and ambition, lagoons and monsters. Julia Fine is a writer of ferocious talent and originality, and with her third novel she has crafted a sweeping, dark fairy tale about the violent hearts of teenage girls. I loved it from the first sentence to the astonishing final lines.”—Katie Gutierrez, national bestselling author of More Than You’ll Ever Know
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- A Novel
- By: Carolina De Robertis
- Narrated by: Carolina De Robertis
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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February 1913: seventeen-year-old Leda, carrying only a small trunk and her father's cherished violin, leaves her Italian village for a new home, and a new husband, in Argentina. Arriving in Buenos Aires, she discovers that he has been killed, but she remains: living in a tenement, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. Still, she is seduced by the music that underscores life in the city: tango, born from lower-class immigrant voices, now the illicit, scandalous dance of brothels and cabarets.
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A rousing tale
- By Jean on 07-24-15
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The Luxe
- By: Anna Godbersen
- Narrated by: Nina Siemaszko
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Beautiful sisters Elizabeth and Diana Holland rule Manhattan's social scene. Or so it appears. When the girls discover their status among New York City's elite is far from secure, suddenly everyone from the backstabbing socialite Penelope Hayes, to the debonair bachelor Henry Schoonmaker, to the spiteful maid Lina Broud threatens Elizabeth's and Diana's golden future. With the fate of the Hollands resting on her shoulders, Elizabeth must choose between family duty and true love.
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Good story, but. . .
- By Shellra on 05-17-09
By: Anna Godbersen
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
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Echo in Onyx
- Uncommon Echoes, Book 1
- By: Sharon Shinn
- Narrated by: Emily Bauer
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Brianna loves her new job as maid to Lady Marguerite. Like many high nobles, Marguerite is attended by echoes, silent creatures who look exactly like her and move in perfect synchronicity. News soon comes that Marguerite has been invited to the royal city as a potential bride for the crown prince. Brianna is delighted to accompany Marguerite to the city - and perhaps get a chance to continue her own flirtation with Nico, one of the king’s inquisitors. Then, disaster strikes on the road when they come under attack.
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Skipped ahead
- By Scarlettleigh on 03-24-19
By: Sharon Shinn
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Beguiling the Beauty
- By: Sherry Thomas
- Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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When the Duke of Lexington meets the mysterious Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg on a transatlantic liner, he is fascinated. She’s exactly what he’s been searching for - a beautiful woman who interests and entices him. He falls hard and fast - and soon proposes marriage. And then she disappears without a trace.… For in reality, the "baroness" is Venetia Easterbrook - a proper young widow who had her own vengeful reasons for instigating an affair with the duke. But the plan has backfired. Venetia has fallen in love with the man she despised - and there’s no telling what might happen when she is finally unmasked….
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Worth multiple listens
- By anonymous on 09-10-19
By: Sherry Thomas
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The Essex Serpent
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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When Cora Seaborne's brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at 19, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive 11-year old son, Francis, and the boy's nanny, Martha.
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Unbearable Narrator
- By ACB on 06-08-17
By: Sarah Perry
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The Passion of Artemisia
- By: Susan Vreeland
- Narrated by: Gigi Bermingham
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Set against the glorious backdrops of Rome, Florence, and Genoa, and Naples, peopled with historical characters and filled with the details of the life of a 17th-century painter, The Passion of Artemisia is the story of Gentileschi's struggle to find love, forgiveness, and wholeness through her art.
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Disappointing
- By Kay on 05-21-03
By: Susan Vreeland
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Lord of the White Hell: Book One
- The Cadeleonian Series, Book 1
- By: Ginn Hale
- Narrated by: Jakobi Diem
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Kiram Kir-Zaki may be considered a mechanist prodigy among his own people, but when he becomes the first Haldiim ever admitted to the prestigious Sagrada Academy, he is thrown into a world where power, superstition and swordplay outweigh even the most scholarly of achievements. But when the intimidation from his Cadeleonian classmates turns bloody, Kiram unexpectedly finds himself befriended by Javier Tornesal, the leader of a group of cardsharps, duelists and lotharios who call themselves Hellions.
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#NarratorMotivated
- By Rhonda Richardson on 04-04-21
By: Ginn Hale
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Delicious
- By: Sherry Thomas
- Narrated by: Virginia Leishman
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Delicious presents Verity Durant, an irresistible woman of a more elegant age. Verity is renowned from London to Paris for her succulent cuisine - and for her rapacious carnal appetite. And she's determined to tempt prim and proper politician Stuart Somerset with forbidden fruits he's never tasted.
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Sherry Thomas, Wonderful as Always!
- By Shoppermom on 06-04-18
By: Sherry Thomas
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The Orphan of Cemetery Hill
- By: Hester Fox
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Tabby has a peculiar gift: She can communicate with the recently departed. It makes her special, but it also makes her dangerous. As an orphaned child, she fled with her sister, Alice, from their charlatan aunt Bellefonte, who wanted only to exploit Tabby's gift so she could profit from the recent craze for seances. Now a young woman and tragically separated from Alice, Tabby works with her adopted father, Eli, the kind caretaker of a large Boston cemetery.
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It was a good story
- By LYSO129 on 12-13-23
By: Hester Fox
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The Secret History
- A Novel of Empress Theodora
- By: Stephanie Marie Thornton
- Narrated by: Patricia Santomasso
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In sixth-century Constantinople, one woman, Theodora, defied every convention and all the odds and rose from common theater tart to empress of a great kingdom - the most powerful woman the Roman Empire would ever know. The woman whose image was later immortalized in glittering mosaic was a scrappy, clever, conniving, flesh-and-blood woman full of sensuality and spirit whose real story is as surprising as any ever told....
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How very hard to sympathize with a narcissist
- By DrBon on 03-15-22
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Song of the Forever Rains
- The Mousai, Book 1
- By: E.J. Mellow
- Narrated by: Madeline Lake, Nelson Hobbs
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Thief Kingdom is a place hidden within the world of Aadilor. Many whisper of its existence, but few have found this place, where magic and pleasure abound. There, the mysterious Thief King reigns supreme with the help of the Mousai, a trio of revered and feared sorceresses. Larkyra Bassette may be the youngest of the Mousai, but when she sings her voice has the power to slay monsters. When it’s discovered the Duke of Lachlan is siphoning a poisonous drug from the Thief Kingdom and using it to abuse his tenants, Larkyra is offered her first solo mission to stop the duke.
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couldn't finish
- By Mae Fishel on 08-25-21
By: E.J. Mellow
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One Unashamed Night
- By: Sophia James
- Narrated by: Simone Phillips
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Multiple award-winning author Sophia James pens scorching hot romances her eager fans devour. In One Unashamed Night, reclusive Lord Taris Wellingham shuns the possibility of intimate relationships. His traveling companion, 28-year-old Beatrice Maude Bassingstoke, on the other hand, doesn’t expect to attract a man as handsome as Taris. But when they are forced to spend the night together during a snowstorm, passion erupts between them as they lay in each other’s arms. And when the night ends, a new day of love dawns before them.
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Wonderful!!! A++
- By Leyla on 01-10-12
By: Sophia James
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The Leopard
- A Novel
- By: Giuseppe di Lampedusa, Archibald Colquhuon - translator
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the 1860s, The Leopard tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. The dramatic sweep and richness of observation, the seamless intertwining of public and private worlds, and the grasp of human frailty imbue The Leopard with its particular melancholy beauty and power, and place it among the greatest historical novels of our time.
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Timeless
- By Robert Massarella on 12-05-23
By: Giuseppe di Lampedusa, and others
What listeners say about Maddalena and the Dark
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Raul A
- 08-07-23
meh.
I struggled with this listen. it took awhile for me to be invested in it, and I use the term invested loosely, then even when the plot started picking up a bit, it never was something I was eager to get back to. I was mostly eager to listen so that I would be finished with it sooner. My three stars may be a bit generous for my experience with it.
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- RC
- 06-27-23
Feminine Powers Prevail
In addition to the music in plot and characters, the writing is exquisite and gorgeously narrated. It's obvious how dearly Julia Fine holds her female characters and how cleverly she's conceived their powers and limitations. Terrific summet read.
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- Monica M.
- 07-19-23
Delicious
This story is a feast. Exquisite writing and mood. Beautiful trip through mystical Venice of 18th century - I will now research history of Venice so I can truly appreciate its customs and traditions. If you enjoy historical fiction, take a chance on this jewel.
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