
The Gameshouse
The Serpent, The Thief and The Master
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Narrated by:
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Peter Kenny
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By:
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Claire North
About this listen
From the author of the word-of-mouth phenomenon The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August comes a mesmerising tale of a mystical gambling house whose deadly games of chance and skill control the fate of empires. Everyone has heard of the Gameshouse. But few know all its secrets.
It is the place where fortunes can be made and lost though chess, backgammon - every game under the sun.
But those whom fortune favours may be invited to compete in the higher league...where the games played are of politics and nations, of economics and kings. It is a contest where Capture the Castle involves real castles and where hide and seek takes place on the scale of a continent.
Among those worthy of competing in the higher league, three unusually talented contestants play for the highest stakes of all....
From Claire North, author of word-of-mouth best-seller The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and one of the most original new voices in modern fiction, comes the mesmerising tale of the Gameshouse, where games of chance and skill control the fate of empires.
Originally published as three digital-only instalments: The Serpent, The Thief and The Master.
©2015 Claire North (P)2015 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Utterly readable, utterly believable and compelling...one of the fiction highlights of the decade." (Judy Finnigan on The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August)
"Beautiful and gripping." (Guardian on The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August)
"North's talent shines out." (Sunday Times)
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Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
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Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
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Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
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Seriously, that was the ending?
- By alicia in athens on 02-13-25
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He Who Fights with Monsters 2
- A LitRPG Adventure (He Who Fights with Monsters, Book 2)
- By: Shirtaloon, Travis Deverell
- Narrated by: Heath Miller
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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But Jason Asano is settling into his new life. Now, a contest draws young elites to the city of Greenstone to compete for a grand prize. Jason must gather a band of companions if he is to stand a chance against the best the world has to offer. While the young adventurers are caught up in competition, the city leaders deal with revelations of betrayal as a vast and terrible enemy is revealed. Although Jason seems uninvolved, he has unknowingly crossed the enemy’s path before.
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Contrary to common reviews
- By Karen on 05-21-21
By: Shirtaloon, and others
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Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
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Wish I Hadn't Cliff Noted This in High School
- By Joel on 03-27-17
By: Ray Bradbury
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Brain Damage
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Megan Tusing
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.
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Who Else Laughed, Cried, and Shuddered?
- By Jennifer Chichester on 09-16-22
By: Freida McFadden
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The House on the Water
- A Novella
- By: Margot Hunt
- Narrated by: Taylor Schilling
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
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Every year, Caroline Reed takes a trip with her best friend, Esme Lamont. They’re usually accompanied by their spouses - but this year, everything’s changed. Esme has just gone through a bitter divorce, and Caroline's wondering if her own marriage is reaching its breaking point as she and her husband, John, cope with the discovery that their son has been abusing drugs. Still, the inseparable duo books a weeklong stay at a beach-front home in Shoreham, Florida, inviting Esme’s brother, Nick, and his new husband. After a blissful first night in the vacation home, tragedy strikes.
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Wonderful Story
- By David M. Wilcox on 12-04-20
By: Margot Hunt
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Starship Troopers
- By: Robert A. Heinlein
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.
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The definitive version!
- By Kristopher G. Hesson on 10-03-24
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Slayers: A Buffyverse Story
- By: Christopher Golden, Amber Benson
- Narrated by: Amber Benson, Charisma Carpenter, James Charles Leary, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
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Original cast members from the beloved TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, reunite for an all-new adventure about connections that never die—even if you bury them. A decade has passed since the epic final battle that concluded Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV). The game-changing spell that gave power to all potential Slayers persists. With new Slayers constantly emerging, things are looking grim for the bad guys.
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A dream come true
- By Anonymous User on 10-12-23
By: Christopher Golden, and others
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Thought-provoking, heartbreaking, memorable
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What listeners say about The Gameshouse
Highly rated for:
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- Abdel_hakim
- 02-06-24
Slow at the beginning, almost annoying but then
it's really worth listening or reading, the final part is so rewarding. Very unique narrative. And the reader is great, specially for accents !
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- James M. Orlando
- 09-25-24
A serialized trilogy released simultaneously
I became a fan of Claire North after reading The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August. The Gameshouse is my second experience with her writing. I enjoyed the story, while I feel like I would have had a better time with it if didn't go all-in with the three books contained in this trilogy in one go. I was drawn into The Serpent and when it ended, my motivation to learn about a new protagonist in a different setting was flagging. After a short delay, I got back on board and enjoyed the second book as much as the first.
Peter Kenny carries every character with respect and, in giving each a unique voice, presents an experience akin to a full-cast dramatization. I found no slips or anything worth complaining about in his performance. It was exceptional.
The Gameshouse itself is the big mystery. As we gain more knowledge of the rules and systems that define it, more questions roll in. There aren't any threads left untied by the end of the third book. The wrap-up and the ending were fitting while not wholly predictable, even with a hefty amount of foreshadowing and tells dropped from the very start.
Time for the complaint section: As I mentioned previously, swapping protagonists and settings was a kind of a bust, but worth pushing past to encounter a second story as good as the first. At times during the story, our omniscient narrator directly tells the reader how to feel or think about a character or action. I was jolted out of my immersion when I vehemently disagreed with one of those directives. By the time I reached book three, The Master, I would probably have enjoyed a few more stand-alone stories about individual players. Perhaps one of the late additions to the story that is rather pivotal while having a very limited amount of time on the page would have provided more thrill to the series as a whole if they'd had a more developed hand in play.
I'll rate this one, "A mystery about the ultimate game of chance with solid development and great characters."
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- Petter
- 11-23-17
Wonderful
I found this book completely mesmerizing. Wonderfully performed and so well written. Clair North is a writer I will continue to follow, I have enjoyed all her books so far
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5 people found this helpful
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- Caveat Emptor
- 10-04-20
Uninspired
This should be a compelling story. Maybe it doesn’t work as an audiobook. Maybe it is too many insufficiently developed, too similar characters. But I just couldn’t get through it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- T. Sparkle
- 05-21-24
conspiracy theory anyone?
this is a very long chase scene, already perfect for a Hollywood adaptation. it is the mother of all conspiracy theories. the audio is superb but far outclasses the story.
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- Renee Phoenix
- 10-09-18
Excellent! North and Kenny are perfect.
My favorite author after Iain Banks and Paolo Bacigalupi. Engaging story, excellent narration, just a wonderful book to listen to. Now I'm out of Claire North novels... frustrating!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Huzaifah
- 12-03-18
Sterling narration
Even reading the book would not be as enjoyable since Peter Kenny’s narration is so outstanding. Absolute class and really adds to what is a very well crafted tale.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Carolina
- 05-17-23
Best Book Ever
Takes you on 3 amazing journeys! I think this book is highly underrated! Just read it!
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- Moriarty
- 06-01-20
Simple Premise, Brilliant Execution
I could not have enjoyed this more :) listened to it in it's entirety on a single car trip, which turned the experience from a chore to a delight. The entire book is modeled around the players of the game of kings and empires. It has all the fun of the political machinations of the great fantasy series, with some absolutely stunning prose to boot. This narrator and writer both have quickly become some of my absolute favorites.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Josh
- 06-27-19
what a great story
this book had me hooked the entire time. i would recomend this to anyone. read this
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