
Simon the Fiddler
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Grover Gardner
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By:
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Paulette Jiles
About this listen
The critically acclaimed, best-selling author of News of the World and Enemy Women returns to Texas in this atmospheric story, set at the end of the Civil War, about an itinerant fiddle player, a ragtag band of musicians with whom he travels trying to make a living, and the charming young Irish lass who steals his heart.
In March 1865, the long and bitter War between the States is winding down. Till now, 23-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty thanks to his slight stature, youthful appearance, and utter lack of compunction about bending the truth. But following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted, however belatedly, into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band.
Weeks later, on the eve of the Confederate surrender, Simon and his bandmates are called to play for officers and their families from both sides of the conflict. There the quick-thinking, audacious fiddler can’t help but notice the lovely Doris Mary Aherne, an indentured girl from Ireland, who is governess to a Union colonel’s daughter.
After the surrender, Simon and Doris go their separate ways. He will travel around Texas seeking fame and fortune as a musician. She must accompany the colonel’s family to finish her three years of service. But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again.
Incandescent in its beauty, told in Paulette Jiles’ trademark spare yet lilting style, Simon the Fiddler is a captivating, bittersweet tale of the chances a devoted man will take, and the lengths he will go to fulfill his heart’s yearning.
©2020 Paulette Jiles (P)2020 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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News of the World
- By R. Storey on 09-07-20
By: Paulette Jiles
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The London House
- By: Katherine Reay
- Narrated by: Madeleine Maby
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Caroline Payne thinks it’s just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat Hammond, an old college friend and historian. But pleasantries are cut short. Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II, Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German lover. Determined to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her family’s ancestral home in London.
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The bones of the story were great
- By Carmen Gibson on 01-26-22
By: Katherine Reay
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The Porcelain Moon
- A Novel of France, the Great War, and Forbidden Love
- By: Janie Chang
- Narrated by: Katharine Chin, Saskia Maarleveld, James Chen
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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France, 1918. In the final days of the First World War, a young Chinese woman, Pauline Deng, runs away from her uncle’s home in Paris to evade a marriage being arranged for her in Shanghai. To prevent the union, she needs the help of her cousin Theo, who is working as a translator for the Chinese Labour Corps in the French countryside
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Very enthralling story
- By Kevin Wickline on 07-04-23
By: Janie Chang
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The Moonflowers
- A Novel
- By: Abigail Rose-Marie
- Narrated by: Abigail Reno
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Tig Costello has arrived in Darren, Kentucky, commissioned to paint a portrait honoring her grandfather Benjamin. His contributions to the rural Appalachian town and his unimpeachable war service have made him a local hero. But to Tig, he’s a relative stranger. To find out more about him, Tig wants to talk to the person who knew her grandfather best: Eloise Price, the woman who murdered him fifty years ago.
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Excellent
- By Jen Novak on 12-28-24
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While Paris Slept
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Druart
- Narrated by: Luke Thompson, Frazer Hadfield, Jane Collingwood, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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One woman must make the hardest decision of her life in this unforgettably moving story of resistance and faith during one of the darkest times in history. Told from alternating perspectives, While Paris Slept reflects on the power of love, resilience, and courage when all seems lost.
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Wow! Loved it!
- By Bob L. on 08-13-21
By: Ruth Druart
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The Secrets of the Little Greek Taverna
- By: Erin Palmisano
- Narrated by: Gail Shalan
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In a village on Naxos lies a gorgeous guest house and taverna that never opened. Cressida’s husband died suddenly three years ago—the taverna was their dream—but she’s been too lost in grief to keep that dream alive. Marjory "Jory" St. James, a young traveler who always feels more at home on the move, arrives on Naxos in the middle of the night as if summoned by the island. She quite unexpectedly becomes Cressida’s very first guest. Jory quickly discovers that this island vacation is more than just a sightseeing adventure as all of the women in town are more than what they seem.
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A wonderful story!
- By Raeann Koerner on 03-20-25
By: Erin Palmisano
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Whisper Beach
- A Novel
- By: Shelley Noble
- Narrated by: Marni Penning
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifteen years ago, seventeen-year-old Vanessa Moran fell in love and lost her virginity, but not to the same boy. Pregnant, desperate, and humiliated, she fled friends and family and Whisper Beach, New Jersey, never breathing a word about her secret to anyone. Now a professional Manhattan organizer, she returns to the funeral of her best friend's husband. She intends on just paying her respects and leaving—though she can't deny she also wants the town to see how far she's come as a successful business woman. But her plans to make this a short visit fall by the wayside.
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ZERO stars
- By Leslie S. on 03-10-21
By: Shelley Noble
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The Friendship List
- By: Susan Mallery
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Single mom Ellen Fox couldn’t be more content - until she overhears her son saying he can’t go to his dream college because she needs him too much. If she wants him to live his best life, she has to convince him she’s living hers. So Unity Leandre, her best friend since forever, creates a list of challenges to push Ellen out of her comfort zone. Unity will complete the list, too, but not because she needs to change. What’s wrong with a 30-something widow still sleeping in her late husband’s childhood bed?
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Just okay
- By Macy on 08-09-20
By: Susan Mallery
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True North
- A Novel
- By: Andrew J. Graff
- Narrated by: Lincoln Hoppe
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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As the summer of 1993 begins, Sam and Swami Brecht roll into town with a twenty-six-foot Winnebago camper van, their three young kids, and the deed to Woodchuck Rafting Company. Sam and Swami met as young adventurous river guides but, a decade later, find themselves weighed down by money worries and the demands of adulthood. The town of Thunderwater, in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, could be the fresh start their marriage needs. But Woodchuck, once the property of Sam’s eccentric uncle, has seen better days and will need a serious overhaul if it is going to stand a chance at survival.
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Fantastic
- By arf on 01-30-24
By: Andrew J. Graff
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Never Far Away
- By: Michael Koryta
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Once a wife, mother, and witness to a gruesome crime, Leah Trenton was extended a miraculous olive branch in the form of the state's protected witness program. But for this second chance at life, Leah would have to leave behind her Midwestern roots to the northernmost tip of Maine. Alone and isolated along the banks of the Allagash River, she is determined to focus on the present, on her reclaimed future, but the demons of her past, are relentlessly chipping away at Leah's protected hideaway.
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Unfinished business
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 03-10-21
By: Michael Koryta
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Enemy Women
- By: Paulette Jiles
- Narrated by: Reba Buhr
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The Colley family is made of modest farmers in the Missouri Ozarks. Although Southerners, the Colleys try to remain neutral, a fact ignored by the Union militia who confiscate their livestock, burn their farm, and arrest their daughter, Adair, on charges of “enemy collaboration”. Yet as this innocent young woman soon discovers, fate can have a double edge. While imprisoned, she falls in love with her interrogator, a Union major who helps her escape.
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Might be better to read this one
- By sssnoo on 10-31-20
By: Paulette Jiles
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They Went Left
- By: Monica Hesse
- Narrated by: Caitlin Davies
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp said the war was over, but nothing feels over to 18-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal; her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else—her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja—they went left.
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Heartbreakingly Beautiful
- By Willow Star Serenity on 04-10-20
By: Monica Hesse
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Fast Girls
- A Novel of the 1936 Women’s Olympic Team.
- By: Elise Hooper
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker, Kristyl Dawn Tift, Reba Buhr, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real-life history of female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany. In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America’s golden girl until a nearly fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything.
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Don't skip epilog
- By Zona Trahan on 03-23-21
By: Elise Hooper
Another treasure
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The story is mostly about Simon, who hopes to establish himself as a serious musician and landowner who can court Doris by the time he can catch up to her in San Antonio, where the callous military officer who holds her rights is stationed. That story is mostly a character study of Simon, his band mates, the people he meets along the way, and the locale, post-war Texas as a full blown character in its own right.
But nothing much really happens other than Simon and his friends trying to survive and move along from one place to another. Then Simon reaches San Antonio and meets back up with Doris -- though a small part of the book toward the end, the plot then kicks into overdrive, replete with courtroom drama, which then wraps up as abruptly as it started, hence my deduction of one star from Story for an otherwise wonderful novel.
The best thing about Simon the Fiddler is the music, which becomes more than a metaphor, and like Texas itself becomes a full blown character. For people like me who are musicians well versed in old time Americana, this is pure gold. Jiles doesn't just throw out song titles willy nilly -- she knows her stuff, going into detail about lyrics, arrangements, alternate titles, even some music theory and musicology. There's a playlist on YouTube of all the titles mentioned in the book which you can listen to as you read along.
The best example, especially as it's a song most people would be familiar with even now, 150 years later, is Red River Valley, the song Doris asks Simon to play when they first meet -- Simon buys land near the Red River in Texas as part of his plan to woo Doris. Never mind that the song could not have been that well known at that time (if it was even known at all), nor could some of other songs like Whiskey Before Breakfast that became popular years later -- the musical references are still tons of fun.
Especially Good for Lovers of Old-Timey Music
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Masterful research
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Simons thoughts and ingenuity as the fiddler were interesting.
Simon the fiddler
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Wonderful story
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Simple expressions can both terrify you while you simultaneously fall in love.
God bless you Paulette...
and Grover... I’m still in love with you.
She Swirls phrases like milk in coffee
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authenticity about texas too.
wonderful book & reader
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Lovely sweet story
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Good Story
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I’m always sorry when they end.
Excellent Listen!
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