The 19th Wife Audiobook By David Ebershoff cover art

The 19th Wife

A Novel

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

The 19th Wife

By: David Ebershoff
Narrated by: Kimberly Farr, Rebecca Lowman, Arthur Morey
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $24.75

Buy for $24.75

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.

Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense.

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.

Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds - a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.

And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’ s search, listeners are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.

©2008 David Ebershoff (P)2008 Random House, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Literary Fiction Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Marriage Mormon Murder Crime Emotionally Gripping

Critic reviews

“This exquisite tour de force explores the dark roots of polygamy and its modern-day fruit in a renegade cult...Ebershoff brilliantly blends a haunting fictional narrative by Ann Eliza Young, the real-life 19th “rebel” wife of Mormon leader Brigham Young, with the equally compelling contemporary narrative of fictional Jordan Scott, a 20-year-old gay man...With the topic of plural marriage and its shattering impact on women and powerless children in today's headlines, this novel is essential reading for anyone seeking understanding of the subject.” (Publishers Weekly - starred review)

People who viewed this also viewed...

Wife Number Seven Audiobook By Melissa Brown cover art
Wife Number Seven By: Melissa Brown
Fascinating Historical Narrative • Interwoven Storylines • Educational Content • Engaging Mystery • Well-researched Details
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
When I think Mormon, I think many wives, Utah, and a pageant in Upstate NY, pretty much in that order. This book offered an insight into the Mormon religion and customs that I hadn't heard before and much, much more than my initial thoughts of Mormonism. The book is a little difficult to follow switching from reader to reader with the various research findings, but worth the effort.

More than multiple wives

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Would you consider the audio edition of The 19th Wife to be better than the print version?

I didn't read the print version

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Different voices for different perspectivs.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, although it wasn't possible.

Any additional comments?

This book gave fascinating insights into Mormonism and polygenous marriage in the context of absorbing fiction.

Fascinating insights into Mormonism

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
enjoyed jumping back and forth from historical to present day, fiction and non fiction all wrapped up in one.

Educational and a riveting story at the same time

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved this book. I learned a lot about Mormons and polygamy reading this. This book contains two parallel stories, one of modern day polygamy and one of the beginnings of polygamy in Utah and how it became illegal. I live in Utah, but am not a native, so I found this absolutely fascinating. I highly recommend it to anyone as it is a riveting story.

Amazing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I liked all of the voices and the stories woven together! I made the mistake of starting this during law school finals and would take little breaks to listen to bits of it but I almost couldn't stop to go back to work!

Almost couldn't stop when I needed to do things!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I enjoyed this audiobook a lot. I finished it in about three days because I had to keep picking it back up. This book tells a story about a woman accused of a crime. When her son finds out he wants to help her. They've been estranged, but he knows she couldn't have done this.
The book is based on polygamy churches and how this all came to light. Very well written and easy to follow along with.

Crazy story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Any additional comments?

I bought this book totally by chance some years back, while on vacation in Brussels (I had forgotten to bring a book, so I went into the first bookstore I could find). What originally called to me was the opportunity to get a closer look at a religion and a world, that I have only heard about on the news – and NEVER for the good reasons.

The book is divided into three narratives; a modern day murder-mystery, with a 19th wife at the centre, the true tale of Eliza Young – a 19th wife herself, and fictional scholars talking about Eliza Young and her book. When I read this book the first time I really fell in love with the first part, was intrigued by the second, and found the third a bit superfluous. But this time around I love all three parts, coming to the conclusion that you need them all, to really get at what celestial marriage is all about.

All in all this book is just an awesome read, and the story as well as the characters will stay with you long after you reached the (although 600+ pages long) all so soon end.

I will say,though that not all narrators are equally good...

I will never not recommend this book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved it so much! Now that the book is over, I miss the characters and narrators. Wow, highly recommend.

Five stars!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I hung in there and listened to the whole story. It was so confusing at first listening to the past and present 19th wives but I got it after a while. This si a completely new topic for me so I had the fascination of something new. It is a long story and I think I may have missed big chunks and didn't care enough to go back. The story was very interesting.

Interesting story, but long

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Here is the text I sent my mom after listening to this book...too lazy to write a separate review. (side note-I grew up in Utah, but am not Mormon so that gives me a unique perspective here):
"I just finished listening to the audiobook of The 19th Wife... I don't know if you would like it, but it was really interesting. It's a mix between a modern story of a polygamist wife in southern Utah who gets accused of murdering her husband and the true story of one of Brigham Young's wives who left him and went on a campaign across the country to successfully help outlaw polygamy. It has a lot of Mormon history but I liked it cuz there was stuff I didn't know even though I was around it for 30 years and also talked a lot about Salt Lake history so I have been most of the places they referenced and could imagine them."

I would recommend it to some people...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews