The Orchid Hour
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Narrated by:
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Quinn Kitmitto
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By:
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Nancy Bilyeau
About this listen
Featured in Town and Country's "Must-Read Books of Summer 2023".
There is a certain hour, in the dead of night, when the orchid’s scent can put you under a spell....
"Historical mystery fans will find this irresistible." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
"From the family shops of Little Italy to the bright lights of Dreamland, Nancy Bilyeau takes you on a glittering tour of a bygone New York...." (Mariah Fredericks, author of The Lindbergh Nanny)
Nancy Bilyeau, author of The Blue, returns with a tantalizing novel about one woman caught up in a secret nightclub that one can only reach through a certain florist on a cobblestone street.
New York City, 1923. Zia De Luca’s life is about to be shattered.
Having lost her husband to the Great War, she lives with her in-laws in Little Italy and works at the public library.
But when a quiet poetry-lover is murdered outside the library, the police investigation focuses on Zia.
After a second tragedy strikes even closer to home, Zia learns that both crimes are connected to a new speakeasy in Greenwich Village called The Orchid Hour.
When the police investigation stalls, Zia decides to find her own answers. A cousin with whom she has a special bond serves as a guide to the shadow realm of The Orchid Hour, a world filled with enticements Zia has shunned up to now.
She must contend with a group of players determined to find wealth and power in New York on their own terms. In this heady atmosphere, Zia begins to wonder if she too could rewrite her life’s rules.
As she’s pulled in deeper and deeper, will Zia be able to bring the killers to justice before they learn her secret?
©2023 Nancy Bilyeau (P)2023 Lume BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Recently retired due to a freak accident, NYPD officer Moe Prager is lost. In pain and without the job he loves, Moe relunctantly settles on the notion of going into the wine business with his brother. But when a suburban college student vanishes off the streets of Manhattan, Prager's universe is turned upside down and his life changed forever. Hired by the student's desperate family, Moe plunges deep into the world of New York's punk underground, sex clubs, and biker bars.
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Clever, Interesting, Satisfying
- By Ted on 06-12-12
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The Royal Correspondent
- A Novel
- By: Alexandra Joel
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of The Paris Model captures the glamour, style, excitement, and romance of a bygone era in this sumptuous novel - set in the Sydney and London of the 1960s - about an up-and-coming young Australian reporter with a deadly secret.
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Story engaging. Narrator not so much.
- By Anne M. Kelley on 09-15-22
By: Alexandra Joel
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A Man with One of Those Faces
- By: Caimh McDonnell
- Narrated by: Morgan C. Jones
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The first time somebody tried to kill him was an accident. The second time was deliberate. Now Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history. Or else they’ll be history.
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Not easily pleased
- By Anna on 08-30-18
By: Caimh McDonnell
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Belle Cora
- A Novel
- By: Phillip Margulies
- Narrated by: Graham Rowat, Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 25 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the home where Arabella Godwin was raised it is forbidden to speak her name, and her picture is turned to the wall. But in the turbulent America of the 1850s, everyone knows her as "Belle Cora", madam of San Francisco's finest bordello. Judges and senators do her bidding; a vicious newspaper editor plots her downfall; a preacher looks at her from across his pulpit and tries to forget that once she was his wife. Merchant's daughter, farm girl, prostitute, mother - the only thing that never changes is her tireless pursuit of the one man who can see her for who she really is.
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excellent
- By Patricia on 05-15-20
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Fellowship of Fear
- Gideon Oliver Mysteries Series, Book 1
- By: Aaron Elkins
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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When anthropology professor Gideon Oliver is offered a teaching fellowship at US military bases in Germany, Sicily, Spain, and Holland, he wastes no time accepting. On his first night, he is forced to fend off two desperate, black-clad men who have invaded his Heidelberg hotel room with intent to kill. And then there are a few trivial details that the recruiting agency forgot to mention - such as the fact that the two previous holders of the fellowship both met with mysterious ends.
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Painful
- By Christine M. on 07-14-19
By: Aaron Elkins
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The Rib King
- A Novel
- By: Ladee Hubbard
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson, Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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For 15 years August Sitwell has worked for the Barclays, a well-to-do White family who plucked him from an orphan asylum and gave him a job. The groundskeeper is part of the household’s all-Black staff, along with “Miss Mamie”, the talented cook, pretty new maid Jennie Williams, and three young kitchen apprentices - the latest orphan boys Mr. Barclay has taken in to "civilize" boys like August.
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Makes me wonder about a bunch of products
- By LATOYA LEWIS on 09-07-21
By: Ladee Hubbard
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Darktown
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Mullen
- Narrated by: Andre Holland
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Responding to pressure from on high, the Atlanta Police Department is forced to hire its first black officers. It's a victory of sorts, though the newly minted policemen are met with deep hostility by their white peers, and their authority is limited: They can't arrest a suspect unless a white officer is present; they can't drive squad cars; they can't even enter the station through the front door.
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EXCELLENT Historical Police Procedural
- By shelley on 12-13-17
By: Thomas Mullen
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To Kill a Mocking Girl
- A Bookbinding Mystery
- By: Harper Kincaid
- Narrated by: Renee Dorian
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Quinn Victoria Caine is back in her quirky town of Vienna, Virginia, starting her new life as a bookbinder in her family-owned bookshop. With her trusty German Shephard RBG - Ruff Barker Ginsburg - by her side, what can go wrong? Okay, sure, bumping into her ex Scott or her former high-school nemesis Tricia is a drag. It certainly doesn't help that they’ve acquired the new hobby of shoving their recent engagement in her face every chance they get. But that doesn't mean Quinn wanted to find Tricia dead in the road. So why does half the town think she may have done it?
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AMAZING NEW COZY SERIES
- By Debbie Lacey on 04-16-20
By: Harper Kincaid
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The Vanishing Season
- By: Joanna Schaffhausen
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, Massachusetts, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number 17 in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived. When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday - the day she was kidnapped so long ago - Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous.
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Engaging mystery debut!
- By robbie mcgraw on 06-15-18
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Red's Hot Honky-Tonk Bar
- By: Pamela Morsi
- Narrated by: Savannah Richards
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Unruly Red knows she’s no one’s idea of a sweet old granny. But with one long-distance phone call, the fortysomething bar owner with the tattoos and tight jeans is suddenly responsible for two young grandchildren she hardly knows.
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What a surprise
- By Donna on 02-07-18
By: Pamela Morsi
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Nobody's Sweetheart Now
- By: Maggie Robinson
- Narrated by: Gemma Dawson
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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England, 1924. Lady Adelaide Compton has recently (and satisfactorily) interred her husband, Major Rupert Charles Cressleigh Compton, hero of the Somme, in the family vault in the village churchyard. Rupert died by smashing his Hispano-Suiza on a Cotswold country road while carrying a French mademoiselle in the passenger seat. With the house now Addie's, needed improvements in hand, and a weekend house party underway, how inconvenient of Rupert to turn up - not in the flesh, but as a spirit! Rupert has to perform a few good deeds before becoming welcomed to heaven.
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Fresh New Voice For Me..Very Good
- By John on 08-06-20
By: Maggie Robinson
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If Walls Could Talk
- Haunted Home Renovation, Book 1
- By: Juliet Blackwell
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Melanie Turner has made quite a name for herself remodeling historic houses in the San Francisco Bay Area. But now her reputation may be on the line. At her newest project, a run-down Pacific Heights mansion, Mel is visited by the ghost of a colleague who recently met a bad end with power tools. Mel hopes that by nailing the killer, she can rid herself of the ghostly presence of the murdered man - and not end up a construction casualty herself....
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A Nice Change
- By Carole T. on 06-15-15
By: Juliet Blackwell
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Elementary, She Read
- By: Vicki Delany
- Narrated by: Kelly Clare
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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When Gemma finds a rare and potentially valuable magazine hidden in the bookshop, she and her friend Jayne set off to find the owner, only to stumble upon a dead body. The highly perceptive Gemma is the police's first suspect, so she puts her consummate powers of deduction to work to clear her name, investigating a handsome rare books expert, the dead woman's suspiciously unmoved son, and a whole family of greedy characters desperate to cash in on their inheritance.
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A great read, but only for some
- By TK on 12-05-19
By: Vicki Delany
What listeners say about The Orchid Hour
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sheila Bridges
- 08-21-23
A really good book!
I love historical fiction and gravitate towards The Tudors et al., But I also love learning about old New York. The author describes the many dynamics of Little Italy, Italian and other immigrants, and the cultural aspects after WWI. The characters are interesting, and I learned a lot about that era.
I enjoyed this very much.
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- T. E.J.
- 01-13-24
Transcendent Historical Fiction
This has so many threads woven together! The neighborhoods of New York in 1923 come alive. I adored all the historical details, with real people interacting with the fictional characters. What an amazing story.
Extra kudos to the narrator for doing so many distinct voices with Sicilian accents! Bravo!
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