
The American Heiress
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Katherine Kellgren
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By:
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Daisy Goodwin
About this listen
"Anyone suffering Downton Abbey withdrawal symptoms (who isn't?) will find an instant tonic in Daisy Goodwin's The American Heiress. The story of Cora Cash, an American heiress in the 1890s who bags an English duke, this is a deliciously evocative first novel that lingers in the mind." (Allison Pearson, New York Times best-selling author of I Don't Know How She Does It and I Think I Love You)
This program includes a bonus chapter of Victoria, the latest novel from author Daisy Goodwin, the creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama of the same name.
Be careful what you wish for.
Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the 20th century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage.
Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora's story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James.
"For daughters of the new American billionaires of the 19th century, it was the ultimate deal: marriage to a cash-strapped British Aristocrat in return for a title and social status. But money didn't always buy them happiness." (Daisy Goodwin in The Daily Mail)
One of Library Journal's Best Historical Fiction Books of 2011
Please note: An alternate (British) title for this novel is My Last Duchess.
©2010 Daisy Goodwin Productions (P)2011 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
Life can go in many different directions based on a few simple events. When Cora Cash, a rich American girl seeking a title at the turn of the Century, fell off her horse in a wooded area of the English countryside, fate would have it that an unmarried handsome duke should find her in her hour of distress. The American Heiress, a debut novel from Daisy Goodwin, tells Cora's story of marrying into British royalty and all the politics, scandals, and societal expectations that follow. Katherine Kellgren narrates, giving voice to Cora and a myriad of supporting characters from varying backgrounds, from Americans to Europeans and aristocrats to servants.
As if acclimating herself to a foreign country wasn't difficult enough, upon marrying Ivo, the Duke of Wareham, Cora quickly learns that becoming a duchess has come with a whole new set of stringent rules and expectations from her peers. Kellgren embodies Cora's naiveté and headstrong personality in her narration, expressing frustration in her voice in a gradual crescendo as Cora struggles to find her place among the oppressive British aristocracy. It seems that everyone from the duke's mother, a woman with a sharp tongue and a proclivity for traditions (many that Cora is not familiar with), to the Lord and Lady Beauchamp, the richest and most fashionable couple in the county, has an opinion on how Cora should behave in the upper class, noble arena. Cora dances around these societal expectations with uneasy footing, which only becomes more complicated as she begins to uncover certain nefarious details of her new husband's past.
Goodwin decorates The American Heiress with ornate period details that transport the listener to the English countryside at the turn of the century. Kellgren embraces the significance of time and place in this story, flourishing in the intricate descriptions of Cora's lavish surroundings. There's so much to enjoy about a story that allows you to lose yourself in a foreign setting, to travel with a character to the unknown. Following Cora to England is an alluring introduction to the intriguing world of classic British royalty. Suzanne Day
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Surprisingly interesting life
- By labradoodler on 07-24-19
By: Karen Harper
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The Social Graces
- By: Renée Rosen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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1876. In the glittering world of Manhattan's upper crust, women are valued by their pedigree, dowry, and, most importantly, connections. They have few rights and even less independence - what they do have is society. The more celebrated the hostess, the more powerful the woman. And none is more powerful than Caroline Astor - the Mrs. Astor.
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Disappointing Effort
- By HistoryNerd on 05-11-21
By: Renée Rosen
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Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl
- By: Renée Rosen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s 1938, and a young woman selling face cream out of a New York City beauty parlor is determined to prove she can have it all. Her name is Estée Lauder, and she’s about to take the world by storm, in this dazzling new novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Social Graces and Park Avenue Summer.
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Lots of fun
- By Robin on 05-01-23
By: Renée Rosen
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An American Beauty
- By: Shana Abe
- Narrated by: Gail Shalan
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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1867, Richmond, Virginia: Though she wears the same low-cut purple gown that is the uniform of all the girls who work at Worsham's gambling parlor, Arabella stands apart. It's not merely her statuesque beauty and practiced charm. Even at seventeen, Arabella possesses an unyielding grit, and a resolve to escape her background of struggle and poverty. Collis Huntington, railroad baron and self-made multimillionaire, is drawn to Arabella from their first meeting. Collis is married and 30 years her senior, yet they are well-matched in temperament, and flirtation rapidly escalates into an affair.
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Loved everything about it
- By Leigh H. on 07-10-23
By: Shana Abe
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A Well-Behaved Woman
- A Novel of the Vanderbilts
- By: Therese Anne Fowler
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Alva Smith, her Southern family destitute after the Civil War, married into one of America’s great Gilded Age dynasties: the newly wealthy but socially shunned Vanderbilts. Alva defied convention for women of her time, asserting power within her marriage and becoming a leader in the women's suffrage movement. In A Well-Behaved Woman, Therese Anne Fowler paints a glittering world of enormous wealth contrasted against desperate poverty, of social ambition and social scorn, of friendship and betrayal, and an unforgettable story of a remarkable woman.
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Don’t get me wrong...
- By carmen on 03-09-19
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The Lost Summers of Newport
- A Novel
- By: Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Brittany Pressley, Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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2019: Andie Figuero has just landed her dream job as a producer of Mansion Makeover, a popular reality show about restoring America’s most lavish historic houses. Andie has high hopes for her latest project: the once glorious but gently crumbling Sprague Hall in Newport, Rhode Island, summer resort of America’s gilded class—famous for the lavish “summer cottages” of Vanderbilts and Belmonts. But Andie runs into trouble: the reclusive heiress who still lives in the mansion, Lucia “Lucky” Sprague, will only allow the show to go forward on two conditions.
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If only Andie wasn’t part of the story…
- By jullee on 05-31-22
By: Beatriz Williams, and others
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A Hundred Summers
- By: Beatriz Williams
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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As the 1938 hurricane approaches Rhode Island, another storm brews in this New York Times best-selling beach listen from the author of Her Last Flight and The Golden Hour. Lily Dane has returned to Seaview, Rhode Island, where her family has summered for generations. It’s an escape not only from New York’s social scene but from a heartbreak that still haunts her. Here, among the seaside community that has embraced her since childhood, she finds comfort in the familiar rituals of summer.
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Here We Go - the '13 Best Summer/Beach Reads...
- By Mel on 06-11-13
By: Beatriz Williams
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The Golden Hour
- A Novel
- By: Beatriz Williams
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The Bahamas, 1941. Newly widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the duke and duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines.
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Stick with it!
- By Colleen on 07-17-19
By: Beatriz Williams
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Past Imperfect
- By: Julian Fellowes
- Narrated by: Richard Morant
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Damian Baxter is hugely wealthy and dying. He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, England, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern--his fortune in excess of 500 million and who should inherit it on his death.
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Read Snobs instead
- By cristina on 02-14-13
By: Julian Fellowes
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Julian Fellowes's Belgravia (Omnibus Season 2)
- By: Julian Fellowes
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Julian Fellowes's Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London's grandest postcode. Set in the 1840s, when the upper echelons of society began to rub shoulders with the emerging industrial nouveau riche, Belgravia is peopled by a rich cast of characters. But the story begins on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. At the Duchess of Richmond's new legendary ball, one family's life will change forever.
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Fellowes is a Brand but the Narrator is a Marvel!
- By M. T. Mirabile on 08-14-16
By: Julian Fellowes
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The Pearl Thief
- By: Elizabeth Wein
- Narrated by: Maggie Service
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From the internationally acclaimed best-selling author of Code Name Verity comes a stunning new story of pearls, love and murder. Sixteen-year-old Julie Beaufort-Stuart is returning to her family's ancestral home in Perthshire for one last summer. It is not an idyllic return to childhood. Her grandfather's death has forced the sale of the house and estate, and this will be a summer of good-byes. Not least to the McEwen family - Highland travellers who have been part of the landscape for as long as anyone can remember.
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Freshwater Pearls and Scottish Plaid
- By Cynthia on 08-14-17
By: Elizabeth Wein
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Jackie and Maria
- A Novel of Jackie Kennedy & Maria Callas
- By: Gill Paul
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Jackie Kennedy is beautiful, sophisticated, and contemplating leaving her ambitious young senator husband. When she's offered a holiday on the luxurious yacht owned by billionaire Ari Onassis, she says yes...to a meeting that will ultimately change her life. Maria Callas is at the height of her operatic career and widely considered to be the finest soprano in the world. And then she's introduced to Aristotle Onassis, the world's richest man and her fellow Greek. Little by little, Maria's and Jackie's lives began to overlap, until everything they know about the world changes on a dime.
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Appendix not recorded 😔
- By tahoe23 on 08-21-20
By: Gill Paul
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Carnegie's Maid
- A Novel
- By: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home.
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Shallow
- By Mary Smiroldo on 06-26-18
By: Marie Benedict
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My Dear Hamilton
- A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton
- By: Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 23 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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From the New York Times best-selling authors of America's First Daughter comes the epic story of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton - a revolutionary woman who, like her new nation, struggled to define herself in the wake of war, betrayal, and tragedy. In this haunting, moving, and beautifully written book, Dray and Kamoie used thousands of letters and original sources to tell Eliza's story as it's never been told before - not just as the wronged wife at the center of a political sex scandal but also as a founding mother who shaped an American legacy in her own right.
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Fantastic!
- By Ally-O on 07-10-18
By: Stephanie Dray, and others
Interesting period piece
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Fluff
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Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Yes, I would recommend the book, but I would not recommend the audio book. It was an interesting story set in England in the late 1800's. The light romance was refreshing. The reader's voice, however, was a cheese grater. Sorry, Katherine...What did you like best about this story?
The characters were good and the description of the scenery was well illustrated in words.Which character – as performed by Katherine Kellgren – was your favorite?
The most entertaining character was Cora , of course. Her growing maturity was believable.Could you see The American Heiress being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
That is so funny that you would ask this question. I thought about that almost the entire time I was listening. Heres what I came up with:Cora - Emma WatsonMrs. Cash - Celia ImrieIvo - Hugh JackmanTeddy Van Der Leyden - Ron LivingstonBertha - Lupita Nyong’oCharlotte Beauchamp - Rachel WeiszOtto - Alan CummingAny additional comments?
If you create another performance reading I would use more than one reader. The American dialects were jumbled with the British accents and some of the well-to-do English voices came out sounding cockney most likely due to the tremendous requirement of changing characters so often.Entertaining Story - Difficult to Listen to
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I miss Katherine Kellgren, she was a stellar narrator. RIP.
Fun!
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Ooooh Cora. She was a spoiled brat, to begin with because she is the richest girl in Newport. She soon learns that money doesn't mean lick sometimes especially in a tradition-obsessed society. I did like her a lot though. She was young and naive. She has a good heart but she is indeed a rich kid and likes her stuff.
Ivo saves her after an accident and brings her to his Duke home. Things happen and with a little nudging from Cora's dear mama, Ivo proposes and they get married (no spoiler there). However, things are not as they seem and Cora soon realizes that things are a lot more complex and the man she marries has some secrets that everyone seems to know but her.
I liked Teddy, but he was an idiot. I really did have my hopes for him even though I liked Ivo too. Ivo is a complicated man and has secrets. How do you possibly choose?? I think I would end up picking Ivo...he is a Duke ;). Even as the reader you kinda know what it is while poor Cora does not. We learn the secret, but there is more to the tale and I was utterly shocked! It makes sense now that I know.
This was a fun read. I enjoyed all the characters even the "baddies". Oooo those English society folk. They are so cruel sometimes. It was interesting to see a foreigner to enter into the society and stumble her way through it. I do have to tsk Ivo because I feel he should've prepared her more.
I think what made me really enjoy this was the narration. The narrator certainly had a beautiful voice and I was enthralled by it. She brought the story to life and you could barely tell it was her when she would switch voices to different characters. A+ there!
I had two issues with the book was the over-explanation of clothing and hair. Ugh. It drove me a little batty. It did calm down a little bit as the drama kicked up near the end, but I don't need to know THAT much detail about a necklace and a dress. My other issue was the ending. It was left open-ended in a way. What happens to certain characters? Do Cora and her beau get her happily ever after? I think I would've liked a little epilogue.
In the end, I really did enjoy this story. I want to read more by the author and I want to listen to more by the narrator. A couple of issues, but they were easy to look over because I adored the characters and story. I'll give this a 4.
REVIEW BY CAROLE RAE
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Americans are now rescuing the English .
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Great listen
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Scandalously Good
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As far as the performance, I wanted to tear my eyeballs out listening to Kellegren doing the upper class British accents. The Americans were okay, but her English aristocrat was annoying as nails scraping a chalkboard.
Sorry I wasted a credit
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Entertaining!
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