Maddalena and the Dark
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Narrated by:
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Sophie Roberts
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By:
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Julia Fine
About this listen
A gothic, Venetian fairytale about the fierce bond between two teenage girls at an 18th century music school, and the fateful bargains they make with a dark magic in the waters of Venice.
A darkness takes shape beneath the waters of Venice...
and somewhere in the Ospedale della Pietà,
there are two girls breathing beside each other,
legs entwined.
Maddalena and the Dark is an opulent and sensuous Venetian fairytale, full of music, magic, passion, and betrayal. Perfect for fans of The Binding and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
Venice, 1717. Before Maddalena arrived at the Ospedale della Pietà, Venice's most illustrious music school, fifteen-year-old orphan Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena.
Sent to the Pietà until her noble family can find her a husband, Maddalena is cunning, passionate, and unlike anyone Luisa has ever met. Maddalena can promise the world to Luisa, and when she does, their fates intertwine.
But Maddalena has made a dangerous wager and, for both girls, there will be an unimaginable price to pay.
©2023 Julia Fine (P)2023 Headline Publishing Group LtdListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
'Fine beguiles with this decadent tale of desire... With the alluring Venice backdrop, this will frighten and captivate in equal measure' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review
'Maddalena and the Dark is a tense, slow-burning portrait of how desire too easily tangles with envy and the price we pay when we get what we want.' ISLE MCELROY
'An ecstatic, immersive, layered and astonishingly rendered depiction of girlhood, ambition, violence, art, and desire.' LYNN STEGER STRONG
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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
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A Beastly Kind of Earl
- Longhope Abbey, Book .5
- By: Mia Vincy
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Thea Knight loves a spot of mischief. She especially loves her current mischief: masquerading as her sister, while finalizing her scheme to expose the dastardly knaves whose lies ruined her life. Then big, bad-tempered Lord Luxborough upends her game by maneuvering her into marriage. But it's her sister’s name on the license, so the marriage won’t be valid. Thea’s idea? Keep pretending to be her sister until she can run away.
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A slow burn romance
- By Kika on 06-11-20
By: Mia Vincy