The Cartographers Audiobook By Peng Shepherd cover art

The Cartographers

A Novel

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The Cartographers

By: Peng Shepherd
Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller, Nancy Wu, Karen Chilton, Ron Butler, Neil Hellegers, Jason Culp, Brittany Pressley
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About this listen

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret—one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history.

What is the purpose of a map?

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field, and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn't seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable, and also exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence… because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret, and discover the true power that lies in maps...

Perfect for fans of Joe Hill and V.E. Schwab, The Cartographers is an ode to art and science, history and magic—a spectacularly imaginative, modern story about an ancient craft and places still undiscovered.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Peng Shepherd (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers
Fantasy Fiction Literary Fiction Magical Realism Suspense Mystery

What listeners say about The Cartographers

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    4 out of 5 stars

Audible Needs Better Review Control

This was a fun, quick, touching, and interesting story. Entertaining, and fast moving, I found myself listening to this book as often as possible.

I have seen the page for this book with a LOT of bad reviews. Don’t listen to them. This is a mystery with elements of magical realism. The top review for this book currently has seven up ratings, and it is terrible criticism, as if the person only read the first few hours of the book.

Don’t listen to the negative reviews, read it for yourself and make the decision. This isn’t grand literature, but it is a good mystery/ summer read/ entertaining novel that I could definitely see optioned as a movie.

I really think Audible needs to improve their review algorithm and system, you find terrible reviews like this all over their website from people that haven’t even finished the books, and aren’t contributing meaningful discussion.

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Cartographers?

Cartographers are people who draw maps. This is about a group that get to be friends while getting degrees during college. One summer they decided to rent a house in upper New York to write a book. All goes well until they fed over a secret town.

This changes the whole summer and the future. I won’t tell anymore because I feel they are spoilers. But I will tell you there are many unexpected turns and exciting experiences for everyone.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

ok, but not great.

Interesting story idea but quite disjointed delivery, needed some editing Narration over dramatized at times detracting from the story. i completed the book, my husband wasn't able to because of these two issues.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

okay

the story line is a great premise, however it reads very YA. so, not what I was expecting. caught myself a few times saying out loud, are you serious?, come on!
if you're expecting greatness...move along.

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A Fun Mystery

If you want a good mystery with just a touch of fantasy mixed in, this is the book for you. It hits a lot of mystery tropes but in a good way. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

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A book about the mystic of maps is a good concept

Loved the concept but too many mystery story tropes got in the way of my enjoyment. Sorry Penguin. I expected more of this book.

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Awesome read

Great what if this was possible. Suspenseful from beginning to end. So we’ll written that the read becomes attached to the characters.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Loved it until the end

I felt so caught off guard by the end of the book! Parts were great but it was a slow start and a disappointing conclusion. Not as riveting or satisfying as the book of m.

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Disappointed

The final explanation for the central mystery was simplistic and unbelievable. Many characters are sympathetic, but I rarely understood their motivations. The author should have provided at least a bit of real history of cartography or some example of what map scholars care about.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Big disappointment

This is a story about a woman in her 30s whose brilliant mother died when she was a toddler. Upon the death of her father, she struggles to learn about the history of her parents, the reasons behind their deaths, and why her father kept an ordinary map secretly locked away. It's possible her father's death was a murder. Then another person is murdered. She is both helped and hindered by five friends of her parents who she meets along the way. Her parents and their friends all got their PhDs in cartography or geography or related fields together at the same university. They were an inseparable group until some bad things happened.

This got really good reviews and it sounded fascinating. Sadly, it wasn't. Although there are at least nine characters in the novel with PhDs in cartography/geography, nobody really has anything of interest to say about maps. No one mentions borders or boundaries, perspective, distortion, scale, longitude, latitude, nothing like that. Not a word about political maps, topographical maps, conflicts or controversies in the field, etc. We are told repeatedly how brilliant the characters are but it's not very convincing. It is a work of fiction but calling it The Cartgraphers made me think it would have more intellectual heft to it.

The most important map in the book is magical. There are also some magical floor plans. Despite the magical elements, it still wasn't hard to see lots of things coming ahead of time. Not the ending, which was unexpected and unusual, but a lot of other details. Sometimes I felt like I was reading a novel for young adults.

There are many narrators and they're all fine. Unfortunately, the person who voices the main character isn't as good as the rest.

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