Sweet Caress
The Many Lives of Amory Clay
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Narrated by:
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Susan Lyons
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By:
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William Boyd
About this listen
Born into Edwardian England, Amory's first memory is of her father standing on his head. She has memories of him returning on leave during the First World War. But his absences, both actual and emotional, are what she chiefly remembers. It is her photographer uncle Greville who supplies the emotional bond she needs, who, when he gives her a camera and some rudimentary lessons in photography, unleashes a passion that will irrevocably shape her future.
A spell at boarding school ends abruptly, and Amory begins an apprenticeship with Greville in London, photographing socialites for the magazine Beau Monde. But Amory is hungry for more, and her search for life, love, and artistic expression will take her to the demimonde of Berlin of the late '20s, to New York of the '30s, to the blackshirt riots in London, and to France in the Second World War, where she becomes one of the first women war photographers. Her desire for experience will lead Amory to further wars, to lovers, husbands, and children as she continues to pursue her dreams and battle her demons.
In this enthralling story of a life fully lived, William Boyd has created a sweeping panorama of some of the most defining moments of modern history, told through the camera lens of one unforgettable woman, Amory Clay. It is his greatest achievement to date.
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Daughters of Eden focuses on the lives and fortunes of four very different young women at the outbreak of the Second World War. Marjorie, left at a boarding school by her emigrating mother; plain Poppy, pushed into marriage with a mean-spirited aristocrat; Kate, despised by her father, but determined to prove herself; and man-mad Lily, who turns out to be the bravest of them all. That all of them are chosen to work undercover for the espionage unit at Eden Park is a surprise, not least to them.
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An amazing book everyone should read.
- By XX on 09-11-05
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Single & Single
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
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A lawyer from the London finance house of Single & Single is shot dead on a Turkish hillside by people with whom he thought he was in business. A children's magician is asked by his bank to explain the unsolicited arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust. A freighter bound for Liverpool is boarded by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea. The celebrated London merchant venturer "Tiger" Single disappears into thin air.
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The spy who came back to the bank
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Gold Dust
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- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
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Three women linked by their blood, their dreams...and their sins. From Leningrad in the '70s to America and London in the present day, Kimberley Freeman's new novel follows the lives of two sisters, Lena and Natalia, and their cousin, Sofi, as they move away from Russia and all they have known. Despite promising to always take care of each other, a pact to meet every winter is shattered as their lives change and long-held resentments begin to surface. Can that resentment turn to hatred? To murder?
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It's just not the same without Caroline Lee
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A Fatal Inversion
- By: Barbara Vine
- Narrated by: William Gaminara
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In the long, hot summer of 1976, a group of young people is camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered in the Hall’s animal cemetery. Which woman? And whose child?
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Oh my!
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By: Barbara Vine
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Goodnight from London
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- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1940, ambitious young American journalist Ruby Sutton gets her big break: the chance to report on the European war as a staff writer for Picture Weekly newsmagazine in London. She jumps at the chance, for it's an opportunity not only to prove herself, but also to start fresh in a city and country that know nothing of her humble origins. But life in besieged Britain tests Ruby in ways she never imagined.
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Light story
- By Bev Holdgate on 08-10-17
By: Jennifer Robson
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A Pleasure and a Calling
- A Novel
- By: Phil Hogan
- Narrated by: Michael Page
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You won't remember Mr. Heming. He was the estate agent who showed you around your comfortable home, suggested a financial package, negotiated a price with the owner, and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key. That's absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine? The answer is; he has the keys to them all. William Heming's most at home in a stranger's private things.
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The Invisible Man
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High Dive
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- Narrated by: Doyle Gerard
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Taking us inside one of the 20th century's most ambitious assassination attempts - "making history personal", as one character puts it - High Dive moves between the luxurious hospitality of a British tourist town and the troubled city of Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the height of the armed struggle between the Irish Republican Army and those loyal to the UK government.
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Humor? Not Funny.
- By W Perry Hall on 04-10-16
By: Jonathan Lee
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The Bone Clocks
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Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
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Not Short Listed, This Time
- By Mel on 09-23-14
By: David Mitchell
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Putney
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In the spirit of Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal and Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a man 20 years her senior. Masterfully told from three diverse viewpoints - victim, perpetrator, and witness - Putney is a subtle and enormously powerful novel about consent, agency, and what we tell ourselves to justify what we do, and what others do to us.
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One of the greatest stories of all time!
- By Valarie on 06-17-20
By: Sofka Zinovieff
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Written in Dead Wax
- The Vinyl Detective, Book 1
- By: Andrew Cartmel
- Narrated by: Ben Allen
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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He is a record collector and a connoisseur of vinyl, hunting out rare and elusive LPs. His business card describes him as the Vinyl Detective, and some people take this more literally than others. For example, the beautiful, mysterious woman who wants to pay him a large sum of money to find a priceless lost recording on behalf of an extremely wealthy yet shadowy client. And so begins a painful and dangerous odyssey in search of the rarest jazz record of them all....
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Outstanding narration!
- By John S. on 01-31-17
By: Andrew Cartmel
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The Brimstone Wedding
- By: Barbara Vine
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Unlike the other residents of Middleton Hall, Stella is elegant, smart and in control. Only Jenny, her care assistant, knows that she harbours a painful secret, and only she can prevent Stella from carrying it to the grave. As the women talk, Jenny pieces together the answers to many questions that arise: Why has she kept possession of a house that her family don’t know about? What happened there that holds the key to a distant tragedy?
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Amazing reader elevates book to a higher level
- By Doggy Bird on 10-04-14
By: Barbara Vine
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The Poison Tree
- By: Erin Kelly
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ikeda
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Successful journalist Erin Kelly has electrified readers and critics alike with her debut novel The Poison Tree. In this scintillating work, Karen and her daughter Alice have established a safe, happy life free from the madness of Karen’s past. But when Karen’s former lover Rex is released from prison, her old associations intrude upon the present - and threaten everything she holds dear.
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I couldn't stop listening the book.
- By Gladys on 07-29-15
By: Erin Kelly
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London Fields
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 21 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing who is intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. As Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London--and, indeed, the whole world--seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.
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Big chewy novel, excellent narration
- By Sand on 08-21-14
By: Martin Amis
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What listeners say about Sweet Caress
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Nancy Hutson
- 12-26-23
The reader herself.
I completely loved the whole story of Emery's wonderful and complex life. She was amazing.
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- nursebettyknitting
- 10-03-15
failed to engage my heart
Superb writing, superb narration, yet something elusive is missing. I loved "Any Human Heart" by William Boyd. This novel is written in a similar way, but somehow I really did not care much about Amory Clay. Something, somehow, is missing.
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6 people found this helpful
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- J. Roose
- 11-06-23
Not William Boyd best
I was hoping for a book as good as Any Human Heart or Love is blind. Although similar, it just wasn’t as god.
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- Lynn Labe
- 10-06-16
Doesn't capture the heart
Interesting but not gripping at all; the characters we're not developed enough for the reader to care enough.
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- Lee
- 06-20-16
Beautiful , evocative, heartbreaking
I love what the author did to make this book. He assembled anonymous, forgotten photos into a beautiful narrative that reads like an historical bio. It kept me riveted and the narrator was spot-on
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- antoine
- 02-13-16
This is not William Boyd at his best
This is not the first fictional autobiography of W Boyd (Any Human Heart remains one of my favorite books). At the core of these books there the idea is that if a life has been interesting, a series of remembered scenes from that life will tell a compelling story and will allow the readers to navigate as privileged witnesses through key moments of history.
However, Sweet Caress is not up to Boyd’s usual high standards. The characters are weaker than in other books, the psychological problems are very superficially addressed and the historic background comes across as a bit sketchy. Toward the end of the book I grew bored with the main character (Amory Clay) and sort of lost empathy with some of her choices and interest in the story.
Do not get me wrong: not all is bad. The book moves swiftly along with quite a few of bright passages and the light touch and elegant style of Boyd are present. but the higher are your expectations the greater will be your disappointment….
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3 people found this helpful
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- Margaret M. Bell
- 01-07-16
A good book killed by the narrator
What did you like best about Sweet Caress? What did you like least?
I am a huge fan of William Boyd and have enjoyed everything of his that I've previously read or listened to. I really tried to get through this, but the narration was so awful, it was all I could focus on. I have since purchased the book and will read it rather than listen to it.
What other book might you compare Sweet Caress to and why?
I guess you could compare this to Boyd's Any Human Heart.
What didn’t you like about Susan Lyons’s performance?
Everything. The accent throughout sounded put on, certain consonant pronunciations were just bizarre - "wheel" for instance sounded like ooo-eel, it was relentlessly infuriating and distracted from the book itself. To me, it sounded like an elderly woman, slightly drunk, slightly cranky, trying to sound super posh whilst adjusting to a new and probably ill-fitting set of dentures.
Did Sweet Caress inspire you to do anything?
Give up on audiobooks and go back to reading.
Any additional comments?
I like audiobooks because they allow me to do other things whilst listening. Some books are elevated enormously by a great narrator and conversely, great books can be ruined by poor narrators. I always listen to the audio sample before purchasing, and in this case, the sample sounded fine through my PC speakers. But in the more intimate atmosphere of headphones, the narration really was, for me, too much.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Ellen O'Brien
- 03-14-16
Loved everything about this experience!
As a woman and a lover of photography, I was drawn to subject matter.
Narration is always key for me, and Susan Lyons was a delight in delivery and voice quality, and I plan to search her out for future listens.
WW2 is of interest to me, and as a backdrop, along with decades immediately following, this story really resonated with me. At one point protagonist was same age I am now, when she chose to embark on a massive endeavor involving travel & photography, so I felt personally along for the ride - inspiring!
The life and times of Amory Clay will stay with me for a very long time.
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3 people found this helpful
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- chelseagirl
- 05-29-16
Spellbinding and utterly absorbing.
Was devastated to reach the end!! The voice of the narrator was perfect. It was a fabulous 'read ,' a true 'faction'!! Loved all the detail of place and event.
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- Anonymous User
- 05-04-24
Fantastic read
My favorite modern author. I love how he makes common people so extraordinary and interesting. His command of language and writing style is unparalleled. The reader was fantastic as well. Looking forward to the next one. Job well done!
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