The Mad Girls of New York
A Nellie Bly Novel, Book 1
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Eva Kaminsky
-
By:
-
Maya Rodale
About this listen
One of Amazon’s Best Books of 2022 So Far!
“Gloriously recommended.” —Historical Novel Society
A gripping and compelling novel based on the true story of fearless reporter Nellie Bly, who will stop at nothing to prove that a woman’s place is on the front page.
In 1887 New York City, Nellie Bly has ambitions beyond writing for the ladies pages, but all the editors on Newspaper Row think women are too emotional, respectable and delicate to do the job. But then the New York World challenges her to an assignment she'd be mad to accept and mad to refuse: go undercover as a patient at Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum for women.
For months, rumors have been swirling about deplorable conditions at Blackwell’s but no reporter can get in—that is, until Nellie feigns insanity, gets herself committed and attempts to survive ten days in the madhouse. Once inside, Nellie befriends her fellow patients who help her uncover shocking truths about the asylum. It’s a story that promises to be explosive—but will she get out before rival reporters get the scoop?
From USA Today bestselling author Maya Rodale comes a witty, energetic and uplifting novel about a woman who defied convention to become the most famous reporter in Gilded Age New York. Perfect for fans of hidden histories about women who triumph.
©2022 Maya Rodale (P)2022 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Lessons in Chemistry
- A Novel
- By: Bonnie Garmus
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
-
-
Making my 3 adult daughters read this
- By Teresa H. on 04-07-22
By: Bonnie Garmus
-
An American Beauty
- By: Shana Abe
- Narrated by: Gail Shalan
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Loved everything about it
- By Leigh H. on 07-10-23
By: Shana Abe
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
If only Andie wasn’t part of the story…
- By jullee on 05-31-22
By: Beatriz Williams, and others
-
Masked Ball at Broxley Manor
- A Royal Spyness Novella
- By: Rhys Bowen
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 1 hr and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of her first unsuccessful season out in society, Lady Georgiana has all but given up on attracting a suitable man - until she receives an invitation to a masked Halloween ball at Broxley Manor. Georgie is uncertain why she was invited, until she learns that the royal family intends to marry her off to a foreign prince, one reputed to be mad.
-
-
Fun, light prequel
- By CMMV on 01-01-15
By: Rhys Bowen
-
A Very English Murder
- A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery, Book 1
- By: Verity Bright
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1920. Eleanor Swift has spent the last few years travelling the world: taking tea in China, tasting alligators in Peru, escaping bandits in Persia and she has just arrived in England after a chaotic 45-day flight from South Africa. Chipstone is about the sleepiest town you could have the misfortune to meet. But then, from the edge of a quarry, through the driving rain, Eleanor is shocked to see a man shot and killed in the distance. Before she can climb down to the spot, the villain is gone and the body has vanished.
-
-
I wanted to like this so much.
- By BossyFatBabe on 06-23-20
By: Verity Bright
-
The Roaring Days of Zora Lily
- By: Noelle Salazar
- Narrated by: Natalie Duke, Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2023, The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History: A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer's label, leaving her to wonder—who is Zora Lily?
-
-
great listen
- By thejessa on 12-30-23
By: Noelle Salazar
-
Lessons in Chemistry
- A Novel
- By: Bonnie Garmus
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison, Bonnie Garmus, Pandora Sykes
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
-
-
Making my 3 adult daughters read this
- By Teresa H. on 04-07-22
By: Bonnie Garmus
-
An American Beauty
- By: Shana Abe
- Narrated by: Gail Shalan
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Loved everything about it
- By Leigh H. on 07-10-23
By: Shana Abe
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
If only Andie wasn’t part of the story…
- By jullee on 05-31-22
By: Beatriz Williams, and others
-
Masked Ball at Broxley Manor
- A Royal Spyness Novella
- By: Rhys Bowen
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 1 hr and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of her first unsuccessful season out in society, Lady Georgiana has all but given up on attracting a suitable man - until she receives an invitation to a masked Halloween ball at Broxley Manor. Georgie is uncertain why she was invited, until she learns that the royal family intends to marry her off to a foreign prince, one reputed to be mad.
-
-
Fun, light prequel
- By CMMV on 01-01-15
By: Rhys Bowen
-
A Very English Murder
- A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery, Book 1
- By: Verity Bright
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1920. Eleanor Swift has spent the last few years travelling the world: taking tea in China, tasting alligators in Peru, escaping bandits in Persia and she has just arrived in England after a chaotic 45-day flight from South Africa. Chipstone is about the sleepiest town you could have the misfortune to meet. But then, from the edge of a quarry, through the driving rain, Eleanor is shocked to see a man shot and killed in the distance. Before she can climb down to the spot, the villain is gone and the body has vanished.
-
-
I wanted to like this so much.
- By BossyFatBabe on 06-23-20
By: Verity Bright
-
The Roaring Days of Zora Lily
- By: Noelle Salazar
- Narrated by: Natalie Duke, Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2023, The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History: A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer's label, leaving her to wonder—who is Zora Lily?
-
-
great listen
- By thejessa on 12-30-23
By: Noelle Salazar
-
The Magnolia Palace
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, 21-year-old Lillian Carter's life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge
-
-
This isn't my favorite but entertaining
- By Linda on 02-01-22
By: Fiona Davis
-
Homecoming
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Claire Foy
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, a local deliveryman makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia. Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. Until a phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney.
-
-
Loved the compelling audiobook version!
- By Melissas Bookshelf on 04-07-23
By: Kate Morton
-
The Grand Design
- A Novel of Dorothy Draper
- By: Joy Callaway
- Narrated by: Gina Carlson
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothy Draper has one last chance to prove she chose the right course for her life. With the restoration of The Greenbrier resort at her fingertips, Dorothy aspires to give new life to a place that’s sentimental to her, and to bring a new spark to interior design.
-
-
The Greenbriar
- By Amazon Customer on 07-10-22
By: Joy Callaway
-
The Diamond Eye
- A Novel
- By: Kate Quinn
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the snowbound city of Kiev, wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son—but Hitler’s invasion of Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila must forge herself from studious girl to deadly sniper—a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. When news of her three hundredth kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself torn from the bloody battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America on a goodwill tour.
-
-
Excellent narration!
- By Denise Diener on 04-15-22
By: Kate Quinn
-
Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl
- By: Renée Rosen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Lots of fun
- By Robin on 05-01-23
By: Renée Rosen
-
The Book of Cold Cases
- By: Simone St. James
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Kirsten Potter, Robert Petkoff
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect - a rich, eccentric 23-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.
-
-
I don’t understand all the positive reviews
- By Bitten and Seven Forever on 03-18-22
By: Simone St. James
-
Ten Days in a Mad-House
- By: Nellie Bly
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1887, Nellie Bly had herself committed to the notorious Blackwell's Island insane asylum in New York City with the goal of discovering what life was like for its patients. While there, she experienced firsthand the shocking abuse and neglect of its inmates, from inedible food to horrifyingly unsanitary conditions. Ten Days in a Mad-House established Bly as a pioneering female journalist and remains a classic of investigative reporting.
-
-
Laurel Merlington was the perfect voice to narrate
- By Dana B. on 10-29-16
By: Nellie Bly
-
The Spectacular
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Rachel L. Jacobs, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion Brooks knows she should be happy. Her high school sweetheart is about to propose and sweep her off to the life everyone has always expected they’d have together: a quiet house in the suburbs, Marion staying home to raise their future children. But instead, Marion finds herself feeling trapped. So when she comes across an opportunity to audition for the famous Radio City Rockettes—the glamorous precision-dancing troupe—she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer.
-
-
Entertaining
- By Maryellen H on 06-15-23
By: Fiona Davis
-
Murder at the Dolphin Hotel: A Gripping Cozy Historical Mystery
- A Miss Underhay Mystery, Book 1
- By: Helena Dixon
- Narrated by: Alex Tregear
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
June 1933. Independent, young Kitty Underhay has been left in charge of her family’s hotel, The Dolphin, on the tranquil English coast. But when several rooms are broken into and searched, including Kitty’s own, she quickly realizes that something out of the ordinary is afoot at the hotel. Soon, rumors are flying in the cozy town that someone is on the hunt for a stolen ruby. A ruby that Kitty’s mother may well have possessed when she herself went missing during the Great War.
-
-
Very Good Start
- By Dylan on 04-06-20
By: Helena Dixon
-
A Beautiful Rival
- A Novel of Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden
- By: Gill Paul
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They could have been allies: two self-made millionaires who invented a global industry, in an era when wife and mother were supposed to be the highest goals for their sex. Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein each founded empires built on grit and determination…and yet they became locked in a feud spanning three continents, two world wars, and the Great Depression.
-
-
Not even if it were free
- By Amazon Customer on 07-06-24
By: Gill Paul
-
The Dollhouse
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Enter the lush world of 1950s New York City, where a generation of aspiring models, secretaries, and editors live side by side in the glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women while attempting to claw their way to fairy-tale success in this debut novel from the New York Times best-selling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue. When she arrives at the famed Barbizon Hotel in 1952, secretarial school enrollment in hand, Darby McLaughlin is everything her modeling agency hall mates aren't: Plain, self-conscious, homesick, and utterly convinced she doesn't belong.
-
-
Lifetime Movie in Book Form
- By chelsie on 08-30-16
By: Fiona Davis
-
The Address
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Brittany Pressley
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand New York apartment house the Dakota, leads to a job offer for Sara Smythe, her world is suddenly awash in possibility - no mean feat for a servant in 1884. The opportunity to move to America. The opportunity to be the female manager of the Dakota. And the opportunity to see more of Theo, who understands Sara like no one else...and is living in the Dakota with his wife and three young children.
-
-
Should be a movie!
- By Linda Slater on 10-19-17
By: Fiona Davis
Critic reviews
“Rodale crafts an adventure yarn worthy of a 19th-century bildungsroman, but there’s still heaps of her signature wit and banter.”—Entertainment Weekly
“The talented Rodale does full justice to intrepid girl reporter Nellie Bly and her trail-blazing exposé in this lively fictionalization. … Rodale’s Nellie is bold, inventive, and quick on her feet, remorseless in her ambition but tender in her empathy. Rodale breathes vivid life into Bly’s biography and incredible spirit as she battles her way into a publishing scene that barely offers a toehold for females. Combine crack writing and nail-biting suspense with humor, pathos, a dash of mystery, and a hint of romance, and you have an entertaining, intensely imagined glimpse into the making of Bly’s Ten Days in a Madhouse and the life of women in New York’s Gilded Age. Gloriously recommended.”—Historical Novels Review
“Rodale’s affinity for writing about powerful women is clear, and she aptly records the lengths they would go to in order to overcome their societal boundaries….An energetic and bold tale of one of history’s most enterprising journalists.”—Kirkus Reviews
Related to this topic
-
Murphy's Law
- By: Rhys Bowen
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Molly Murphy always knew she'd end up in trouble, just as her mother predicted. So, when she commits murder in self-defense, she flees her cherished Ireland, under cover of a false identity, for the anonymous shores of late 19th-century America. When she arrives in New York and sees the welcoming promise of freedom in the Statue of Liberty, Molly begins to breathe easier. But when a man is murdered on Ellis Island, a man Molly was seen arguing with, she becomes a prime suspect in the crime.
-
-
Cream Puff Read
- By Jan on 12-19-13
By: Rhys Bowen
-
The Mayfair Bookshop
- A Novel of Nancy Mitford and the Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Eliza Knight
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1938: She was one of the six sparkling Mitford sisters, known for her stinging quips, stylish dress, and bright green eyes. But Nancy Mitford’s seemingly dazzling life was really one of turmoil: with a perpetually unfaithful and broke husband, two Nazi sympathizer sisters, and her hopes of motherhood dashed forever. With war imminent, Nancy finds respite by taking a job at the Heywood Hill Bookshop in Mayfair, hoping to make ends meet, and discovers a new life.
-
-
Perfectly Voices, Upliftingly Fun
- By Syd Young on 04-15-22
By: Eliza Knight
-
The Nightingale Girls
- By: Donna Douglas
- Narrated by: Penelope Freeman
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three very different girls sign up as trainee nurses at a big London teaching hospital in 1934. Dora leaves her overcrowded, squalid working-class home for a better life. But has she got what it takes to keep up with other, better-educated girls? And will her hated stepfather ever let her go? Helen is born for the job; her brother is a doctor, her all-powerful mother a hospital trustee. But will Helen’s secret misery be her downfall? An aristocratic rebel, Millie’s carefree attitude will find her up in front of Matron again and again. Will she ever care enough to make a nurse? Or will she go back to the glamorous life she was born to?
-
-
For young girls
- By deborah jernigan on 12-31-16
By: Donna Douglas
-
Goodnight from London
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Robson
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1940, ambitious young American journalist Ruby Sutton gets her big break: the chance to report on the European war as a staff writer for Picture Weekly newsmagazine in London. She jumps at the chance, for it's an opportunity not only to prove herself, but also to start fresh in a city and country that know nothing of her humble origins. But life in besieged Britain tests Ruby in ways she never imagined.
-
-
Light story
- By Bev Holdgate on 08-10-17
By: Jennifer Robson
-
Shadow of a Century
- By: Jean Grainger
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Loved this book!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-20
By: Jean Grainger
-
The Ripper's Shadow
- A Victorian Mystery
- By: Laura Joh Rowland
- Narrated by: Alex Tregear
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jack the Ripper begins his reign of terror. Miss Sarah Bain, a photographer, supplements her meager income by taking illicit boudoir photographs of the town's local ladies of the night. But when two of her models are found gruesomely murdered within weeks of one another, Sarah begins to suspect it's more than mere coincidence.
-
-
Really not a good book.
- By Robin Thompson on 08-25-17
-
Murphy's Law
- By: Rhys Bowen
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Molly Murphy always knew she'd end up in trouble, just as her mother predicted. So, when she commits murder in self-defense, she flees her cherished Ireland, under cover of a false identity, for the anonymous shores of late 19th-century America. When she arrives in New York and sees the welcoming promise of freedom in the Statue of Liberty, Molly begins to breathe easier. But when a man is murdered on Ellis Island, a man Molly was seen arguing with, she becomes a prime suspect in the crime.
-
-
Cream Puff Read
- By Jan on 12-19-13
By: Rhys Bowen
-
The Mayfair Bookshop
- A Novel of Nancy Mitford and the Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Eliza Knight
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1938: She was one of the six sparkling Mitford sisters, known for her stinging quips, stylish dress, and bright green eyes. But Nancy Mitford’s seemingly dazzling life was really one of turmoil: with a perpetually unfaithful and broke husband, two Nazi sympathizer sisters, and her hopes of motherhood dashed forever. With war imminent, Nancy finds respite by taking a job at the Heywood Hill Bookshop in Mayfair, hoping to make ends meet, and discovers a new life.
-
-
Perfectly Voices, Upliftingly Fun
- By Syd Young on 04-15-22
By: Eliza Knight
-
The Nightingale Girls
- By: Donna Douglas
- Narrated by: Penelope Freeman
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three very different girls sign up as trainee nurses at a big London teaching hospital in 1934. Dora leaves her overcrowded, squalid working-class home for a better life. But has she got what it takes to keep up with other, better-educated girls? And will her hated stepfather ever let her go? Helen is born for the job; her brother is a doctor, her all-powerful mother a hospital trustee. But will Helen’s secret misery be her downfall? An aristocratic rebel, Millie’s carefree attitude will find her up in front of Matron again and again. Will she ever care enough to make a nurse? Or will she go back to the glamorous life she was born to?
-
-
For young girls
- By deborah jernigan on 12-31-16
By: Donna Douglas
-
Goodnight from London
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Robson
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1940, ambitious young American journalist Ruby Sutton gets her big break: the chance to report on the European war as a staff writer for Picture Weekly newsmagazine in London. She jumps at the chance, for it's an opportunity not only to prove herself, but also to start fresh in a city and country that know nothing of her humble origins. But life in besieged Britain tests Ruby in ways she never imagined.
-
-
Light story
- By Bev Holdgate on 08-10-17
By: Jennifer Robson
-
Shadow of a Century
- By: Jean Grainger
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Loved this book!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-20
By: Jean Grainger
-
The Ripper's Shadow
- A Victorian Mystery
- By: Laura Joh Rowland
- Narrated by: Alex Tregear
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jack the Ripper begins his reign of terror. Miss Sarah Bain, a photographer, supplements her meager income by taking illicit boudoir photographs of the town's local ladies of the night. But when two of her models are found gruesomely murdered within weeks of one another, Sarah begins to suspect it's more than mere coincidence.
-
-
Really not a good book.
- By Robin Thompson on 08-25-17
-
Ask Me No Questions
- A Lady Dunbridge Mystery
- By: Shelley Noble
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A modern woman in 1907, Lady Dunbridge is not about to let a little thing like the death of her husband ruin her social life. She's ready to take the dazzling world of Gilded Age Manhattan by storm. From the decadence of high society balls to the underbelly of Belmont horse racing, romance, murder, and scandals abound. Someone simply must do something. And Lady Dunbridge is happy to oblige.
-
-
A Creative Mystery
- By Victoria J. Mejia-Gewe on 02-28-19
By: Shelley Noble
-
Modern Girls
- By: Jennifer S. Brown
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1935, Dottie Krasinsky is the epitome of the modern girl. A bookkeeper in midtown Manhattan, Dottie steals kisses from her steady beau, meets her girlfriends for drinks, and eyes the latest fashions. Yet at heart, she is a dutiful daughter, living with her Yiddish-speaking parents on the Lower East Side. So when, after a single careless night, she finds herself in a family way by a charismatic but unsuitable man, she is desperate: unwed, unsure, and running out of options.
-
-
Super annoying voiceover
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-17
-
A Fall of Marigolds
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries...and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she's made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her?
-
-
Beautiful!
- By R. Burnham on 03-29-15
By: Susan Meissner
-
The Magnolia Palace
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, 21-year-old Lillian Carter's life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge
-
-
This isn't my favorite but entertaining
- By Linda on 02-01-22
By: Fiona Davis
-
Beguiling the Beauty
- By: Sherry Thomas
- Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Duke of Lexington meets the mysterious Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg on a transatlantic liner, he is fascinated. She’s exactly what he’s been searching for - a beautiful woman who interests and entices him. He falls hard and fast - and soon proposes marriage. And then she disappears without a trace.… For in reality, the "baroness" is Venetia Easterbrook - a proper young widow who had her own vengeful reasons for instigating an affair with the duke. But the plan has backfired. Venetia has fallen in love with the man she despised - and there’s no telling what might happen when she is finally unmasked….
-
-
Worth multiple listens
- By anonymous on 09-10-19
By: Sherry Thomas
-
The Agency 1: A Spy in the House
- By: Y. S. Lee
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Victorian England, orphan Mary Quinn lives on the edge. Sentenced as a thief at the age of 12, she’s rescued from the gallows by a woman posing as a prison warden. In her new home, Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, Mary acquires a singular education, fine manners, and a surprising opportunity. The school is a cover for the Agency — an elite, top secret corps of female investigators with a reputation for results — and at 17, Mary’s about to join their ranks.
-
-
yes, it's YA-but credible for genre for any age
- By connie on 02-25-11
By: Y. S. Lee
-
The Bastard
- The Kent Family Chronicles, Book 1
- By: John Jakes
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the colorful tumult of events that gave rise to our fledgling nation, this novel of romance and adventure introduces Phillipe Charboneau. The illegitimate son of an English nobleman, Phillipe flees Europe and, as Philip Kent, joins the men who set our course for freedom. The Bastard is the first volume in the Kent Family Chronicles, a series of novels that details one family's journey in the early years of the American nation.
-
-
An Amazing Tale
- By will on 11-06-13
By: John Jakes
-
An Orphan’s War
- By: Molly Green
- Narrated by: Julie Masey
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Liverpool, 1940. When her childhood sweetheart, Johnny, is killed in action, Maxine Grey loses more than her husband - she loses her best friend. Desperate to make a difference in this awful war, Maxine takes a nursing job at London’s St Thomas’ hospital. She takes comfort in the attentions of a handsome surgeon, but Edwin Blake isn’t all he seems. And as the Blitz descends on the capital, Maxine faces more heartache. When she returns to Liverpool, she harbours a secret.
-
-
An Orphan's War by Molly Green
- By customers coins on 05-04-19
By: Molly Green
-
We Set the Dark on Fire
- By: Tehlor Kay Mejia
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the Medio School for Girls, distinguished young women are trained for one of two roles in their polarized society. Depending on her specialization, a graduate will one day run a husband’s household or raise his children. Both paths promise a life of comfort and luxury, far from the frequent political uprisings of the lower class. Daniela Vargas is the school’s top student, but her pedigree is a lie. She must keep the truth hidden or be sent back to the fringes of society. And school couldn’t prepare her for the difficult choices she must make after graduation.
-
-
Undeveloped story and characters and setting
- By Hsin Yao Chou on 11-08-20
By: Tehlor Kay Mejia
-
Revealed
- By: Kate Noble
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Phillippa Benning is the unrivaled beauty of the Season. But when another lady challenges her for a marquis's attentions, Phillippa entices him to a secret rendezvous only to stumble upon The Blue Raven, England's most famous spy, lurking at the site of her planned tryst. The Blue Raven has uncovered an enemy plot directed at upcoming society functions, but he's unable to infiltrate London society.
-
-
Really enjoyed this one — terrific listen — ignore the negative reviews
- By Pamela on 08-31-20
By: Kate Noble
-
The Ambassador's Daughter
- By: Pam Jenoff
- Narrated by: Joanna Daniel
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brought to the peace conference by her father, a German diplomat, Margot Rosenthal initially resents being trapped in the congested French capital, where she is still looked upon as the enemy. But as she contemplates returning to Berlin and a life with Stefan, the wounded fiancé she hardly knows anymore, she decides that being in Paris is not so bad after all. Bored and torn between duty and the desire to be free, Margot strikes up unlikely alliances: with Krysia, an accomplished musician with radical acquaintances and a secret to protect; and with Georg, the handsome, damaged naval officer who gives Margot a job.
-
-
Book 0 in the series
- By Stevon on 12-12-17
By: Pam Jenoff
-
Jane Bites Back
- By: Michael Thomas Ford
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen is still surrounded by the literature she loves, but now it's because she's the owner of Flyleaf Books in a sleepy college town in Upstate New York. Every day she watches her novels fly off the shelves along with dozens of unauthorized sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations. Jane may be undead, but her books have taken on a life of their own.
-
-
Utterly Rediculous
- By Tenaya on 05-29-10
What listeners say about The Mad Girls of New York
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- L in the Lou
- 05-25-22
an intriguing listen for sure
this book is mostly true as we come to find out at the very end in the author's note. It seemed a little slow in getting to the what I call big moments but once you got there it was even more fascinating to listen to. definitely recommend the listen!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- beth h
- 11-25-24
Great Historical Fiction
Very interesting story about Nellie Bly & her stay in a mental hospital for a story.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Miss Julie
- 11-15-23
Interesting partly true story
Quite a few liberties taken with this story but it was very readable and kept my interest. Did not enjoy the narrator and at some stage in the future I think I may read the story for myself. Loved the main characters amongst the ‘mad girls’ especially prayer girl.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- amaysf
- 05-20-22
Wonderful page turner
I could not put it down. I had heard of Nellie Bly but had no idea of the many difficulties women faced during the "Gilded Age" and her contributions to reform.
Maya Rodale has written some captivating, memorable and yes, naughty books about women breaking (or circumventing) societal rules and finding romance in the process.
The Mad Girls of New York is somewhat of a departure from past novels and as a result is both different yet comfortingly familiar. Nellie Bly was a force of nature and she comes alive in Rodale's story. She is unstoppable. And she did it on her own, helping other women along the way. That is pure Rodale.
Although this is not a romance novel, Nellie is enough to carry the whole story and there is a hint of romance to come...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Candy Latino
- 05-27-24
This is based on a true events
I am in a book club reading books that take place on NY and I had no idea what this book was about. I was so surprised it is a true story and I am now interested in finding out more about these women who were discarded to this dark place and left to be forgotten. Definitely worth the read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nancey
- 12-28-22
Story OK, narrator not
The story is OK. It kept me mildly interested. I liked the twist toward the end. I found the narrator annoying, with her sing song inflection and tone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!