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The Child's Child
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Sarah Coomes
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
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Publisher's summary
When their grandmother dies, Grace and Andrew Easton inherit her sprawling, book-filled London home, Dinmont House. Rather than sell it, the adult siblings move in together, splitting the numerous bedrooms and studies. The arrangement is unusual, but ideal for the affectionate pair - until the day Andrew brings home a new boyfriend. A devilishly handsome novelist, James Derain resembles Cary Grant, but his strident comments about Grace’s doctoral thesis soon puncture the house’s idyllic atmosphere.
When he and Andrew witness their friend’s murder outside a London nightclub, James begins to unravel, and what happens next will change the lives of everyone in the house.
Just as turmoil sets in at Dinmont House, Grace escapes into reading a manuscript - a long-lost novel from 1951 called The Child’s Child - never published because of its frank depictions of an unwed mother and a homosexual relationship. The book is the story of two siblings born a few years after World War One. This brother and sister, John and Maud, mirror the present-day Andrew and Grace: a homosexual brother and a sister carrying an illegitimate child. Acts of violence and sex will reverberate through their stories.
The Child’s Child is an enormously clever, brilliantly constructed novel-within-a-novel about family, betrayal, and disgrace. A master of psychological suspense, Ruth Rendell, in her newest work under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, takes us where violence and social taboos collide. She shows how society’s treatment of those it once considered undesirable has changed - and how sometimes it hasn’t.
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- Unabridged
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Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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The Book of Ebenezer le Page
- By: G. B. Edwards
- Narrated by: Roy Dotrice
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Ebenezer Le Page, cantankerous, opinionated and charming, is one of the most compelling literary creations of the late 20th century. Eighty years old, Ebenezer has lived his whole life on the Channel Island of Guernsey, a stony speck of a place caught between England and France yet a world away from either. Ebenezer himself is fiercely independent, but as he reaches the end of his life he is determined to tell his own story and the story of those he has known.
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I miss Ebenezer
- By Mel on 01-15-18
By: G. B. Edwards
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Staying On
- By: Paul Scott
- Narrated by: Paul Shelley
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return ‘home’ when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pankot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their imposing landlady threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days.
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A Pleasant Meander
- By Ian C Robertson on 09-22-14
By: Paul Scott
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Shadow of a Century
- By: Jean Grainger
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Mary Doyle arrives in Dublin in 1913, doomed, she fears, to a life of domestic service. Instead, however, she finds herself deeply affected by the social and political turmoil of a fledgling nation struggling for independence. Suddenly, all that was once inevitable is no longer a certainty as she is embroiled in the very heart of the Easter Rising.
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Loved this book!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-20
By: Jean Grainger
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The Postcard
- By: Leah Fleming
- Narrated by: Elaine Claxton
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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2002, Australia. When Melissa discovers a postcard addressed to 'Desmond' among her recently deceased father's effects, she is determined to discover this person's identity and his relationship to her father. She soon embarks on a journey that will take her across oceans and into the past...
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Meh
- By Summer Layne on 03-06-15
By: Leah Fleming
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After the War Is Over
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Robson
- Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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After four years as a military nurse, Charlotte Brown is ready to leave behind the devastation of the Great War. The daughter of a vicar, she has always been determined to dedicate her life to helping others. Moving to busy Liverpool, she throws herself into her work with those most in need, only tearing herself away for the lively dinners she enjoys with the women at her boardinghouse.
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More romance than history
- By RueRue on 08-17-16
By: Jennifer Robson
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Under Heaven's Shining Stars
- By: Jean Grainger
- Narrated by: Alan Smyth
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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For three young boys, Liam, Patrick, and Hugo, life in Ireland of the 1960s proves to be both idyllic and flawed. Living in close proximity but leading vastly different lives, the bonds of friendship bind these young men as they grow, dream, and navigate the storms of youth.
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A Modern Irish Catholic Tale
- By Jane Meddaugh on 12-19-20
By: Jean Grainger
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Clara Callan
- By: Richard B. Wright
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey, Joanna P. Adler
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Abridged
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Two sisters, small-town Ontario, 1934. Canadian author Richard Wright tells their story, from the ordinary to the extraoridinary with an eye for the commonplace and poignant sense of the larger undercurrents that change people's lives.
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charming intimate refreshing
- By L on 09-10-04
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My Real Children
- By: Jo Walton
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. "Confused today," read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know - what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don't seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead.
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A strange take on an otherwise simple story.
- By Lauren on 01-08-15
By: Jo Walton
What listeners say about The Child's Child
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Proud Kentuckian
- 02-13-13
Loved it until the ending....
What made the experience of listening to The Child's Child the most enjoyable?
Wonderful voices by Coomes.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Child's Child?
Switching to past story
Which scene was your favorite?
Maude's daughter's announcement.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Not really.
Any additional comments?
Wish the ending had been a bit less ambiguous; wanted to really know what happened to the main character.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tinny
- 10-30-18
Not the best Barbara Vine story but I enjoyed it
I am new to audible books. Usually they put me off because I don't like most narrators. I loved this narrator and I loved the first part of the story. The story told within the story was a bit dull and ending was very rushed. Barbara Vine endings are usually awesome. They untangle with a bang but this one just fizzled out and did not excite me. However, I enjoyed listening to the book a great deal and this is what Barbara Vine does best, entices you with complex characters and their lives.
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- Yennta
- 06-15-13
Wha?
I've read and loved everything by Ruth Rendell AND by her as Barbara Vine. Especially loved her as Barbara Vine. But this book is just a mess. Two stories are told, one with barely any plot at all, the other (within the first story but at length) with a sort of a plot and three of the most unpleasant, uninteresting characters in all of fiction. There's no rhyme or reason here. At all. When the music came up at the "end" my mouth dropped open and I said, aloud, "You've gotta be kidding." I don't know what's happened, here, but it's depressing and really annoying. I did listen all the way through, tho. I mean, it is Ruth Rendell (or it's supposed to be) and I kept hoping that at some point it would all make sense. It didn't. It doesn't.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Robin Charleston
- 01-07-13
Perfect pairing of narrator with story!
What did you love best about The Child's Child?
Fascinating intertwined plots -- a novel within a novel -- and the narrator's accent and delivery fit the moods of both perfectly.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Child's Child?
The end of the main (contemporary) story -- jeopardy and resolution.
What about Sarah Coomes’s performance did you like?
Accents, changes of pace to evoke characters and plot tempo.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes.
Any additional comments?
I will say that the end left me puzzled. I had expected the two plots to be pulled together more in some common resolution than was the case here.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ingie P.
- 01-06-13
Not Entwined by This Vine
What disappointed you about The Child's Child?
Grace and James' argument, "Who historically has had it worse: Gay men or unwed mothers?" was the book's theme in an inelegant nutshell. You know who really had it worse? We did, for having to spend ten hours of our lives with these characters!The pregnant female protagonists of both storylines are unsympathetic and uninteresting, both in their personae and their actions. Andrew and James (the homosexual couple in the present-day story) aren't engaging or endearing, either. The murder they witness seems as contrived as its impact on them. In fact, this murder figures hardly at all, until a brief, unconvincing flurry of melodrama at the end.
What could Barbara Vine have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Frankly, I would have been just fine with a tale solely about John and Bertie, completely eliminating the present day storyline, and the loathsome women in this novel. These characters were the most developed, and it seemed that Ms. Vine liked writing about them more, as well.
How could the performance have been better?
There was something about the way Ms.Coomes says the word "baby" that set my teeth on edge. Seeing as this is (rather more than less) a novel about pregnancy, I may need (rather sooner than later) to make a dentist appointment. She was also a bit too actor-y for my taste, but I became rather inured to that affectation after the first couple of hours.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
I was appalled by the female characters. They both were by turns self-involved, foolish, and vapid. I never really cared about them or their respective plights. The present-day gay couple, Andrew and James, was never developed enough to care much about. I kept waiting for the emotional bang which I've come to associate with Barbara Vine novels, but all I got was a whimper. Neither tale was satisfactorily drawn to conclusion. Instead, both storylines just sort of petered out. (An authorial attempt was made to slap a bow on the contemporary tale's denouement, but it did not make a presentable package.)
Any additional comments?
I'm pretty stingy with my credits, and I try to choose wisely, but this time I let my love of Vine/Rendell novels skew my judgement. I ignored the other two two-star reviews and clicked away! In retrospect, I do think I could have spent my credit better elsewhere. I did not think that it would ever be possible for me to say that about a Barbara Vine novel, but, alas, there it is.
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3 people found this helpful
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- NancyZewiey
- 09-22-13
Narrator inept.
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
Love Ruth Rendell as Barbara Vine.
Would you be willing to try another one of Sarah Coomes’s performances?
Never
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
Book fine. Bad narrator very mannered speaking voice.
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