The Paragon Hotel
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Narrated by:
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January LaVoy
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By:
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Lyndsay Faye
About this listen
A gun moll with a knack for disappearing flees from Prohibition-era Harlem to Portland's Paragon Hotel.
The year is 1921, and "Nobody" Alice James has just arrived in Oregon with a bullet wound, a lifetime's experience battling the New York Mafia, and 50,000 dollars in illicit cash. She befriends Max, a Black Pullman porter who reminds her achingly of home and who saves Alice by leading her to the Paragon Hotel.
But her unlikely sanctuary turns out to be an all-Black hotel in a Jim Crow city, and its lodgers seem unduly terrified of a White woman on the premises. As she meets the churlish Dr. Pendleton, the stately Mavereen, and the club chanteuse Blossom Fontaine, she understands their dread. The Ku Klux Klan has arrived in Portland in fearful numbers - burning crosses, electing officials, infiltrating newspapers, and brutalizing Blacks. And only Alice and her new Paragon "family" are searching for a missing mulatto child who has mysteriously vanished into the woods. To untangle the web of lies and misdeeds around her, Alice will have to answer for her own past, too.
A richly imagined novel starring two indomitable heroines, The Paragon Hotel at once plumbs the darkest parts of America's past and the most redemptive facets of humanity. From international best-selling, multi-award-nominated writer Lyndsay Faye, it's a masterwork of historical suspense.
©2019 Lyndsay Faye (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Utterly winning...Faye writes a good puzzle...[and she’s] a person meant to write, who thinks and jokes and understands by writing. It’s a rare gift..” (New York Times Book Review)
“The Paragon Hotel is set a century ago, but its themes of social and cultural upheaval feel sufficiently fresh that you might think twice about calling Lyndsay Faye’s sixth novel historical fiction. But calling it terrific - not for a minute should you hesitate to do that.... The great strength of 'The Paragon Hotel' is Ms. Faye’s voice - a blend of film noir and screwball comedy.... The jauntiness of the prose doesn’t hide the fact that Ms. Faye has serious business on her mind. At bottom, The Paragon Hotel is about identity and about family - those we’re born into and those we create.” (The Wall Street Journal)
"With complex, believable characters and an intricate plot, this is a sprightly, enjoyable read." (People)
“Faye once again vividly illuminates history with her fiction....remarkably fluid fiction, framed as a love letter and based in fact.” (Booklist, starred review)
“This historical novel, which carries strong reverberations of present-day social and cultural upheavals, contains a message from a century ago that's useful to our own time: ‘We need to do better at solving things.’ A riveting multilevel thriller of race, sex, and mob violence that throbs with menace as it hums with wit.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
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The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even among Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather's savanna manor house until gossip subsides. Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.
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Disappointed
- By Vinity on 07-13-13
By: Deanna Raybourn
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The Sky Is Yours
- A Novel
- By: Chandler Klang Smith
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In the burned-out, futuristic city of Empire Island, three young people navigate a crumbling metropolis constantly under threat from a pair of dragons that circle the skies. When violence strikes, reality star Duncan Humphrey Ripple V, the spoiled scion of the metropolis' last dynasty; Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg, his tempestuous, death-obsessed betrothed; and Abby, a feral beauty he discovered tossed out with the trash; are forced to flee everything they've ever known.
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a hot mess
- By Alison on 04-09-19
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Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
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Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
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Madam
- A Novel of New Orleans
- By: Cari Lynn, Kellie Martin
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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New Orleans, 1900: Mary Deubler makes a meager living as an "alley whore". That all changes when bible-thumping Alderman Sidney Story forces the creation of a red-light district that’s mockingly dubbed "Storyville". Mary believes there’s no place for a lowly girl like her in the high-class bordellos of Storyville’s Basin Street, where Champagne flows and beautiful girls turn tricks in luxurious bedrooms. But with gumption, twists of fate, even a touch of Voodoo, Mary rises above her hopeless lot to become the notorious Madame Josie Arlington.
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Oh no no no no no
- By Robin on 08-11-18
By: Cari Lynn, and others
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A Study in Silks
- By: Emma Jane Holloway
- Narrated by: Angele Masters
- Length: 21 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In a Victorian era ruled by a council of ruthless steam barons, mechanical power is the real monarch and sorcery the demon enemy of the Empire. Nevertheless, the most coveted weapon is magic that can run machines - something Evelina has secretly mastered. But rather than making her fortune, her special talents could mean death or an eternity as a guest of Her Majesty's secret laboratories. What's a polite young lady to do but mind her manners and pray she's never found out?
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Too much of a bad thing
- By Bomberwizz on 11-30-14
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The Dressmaker's Dowry
- A Novel
- By: Meredith Jaeger
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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For listeners of Lucinda Riley, Sarah Jio, or Susan Meissner, this gripping historical debut novel tells the story of two women: one an immigrant seamstress who disappears from San Francisco's gritty streets in 1876 and the other a young woman in the present day who must delve into the secrets of her husband's wealthy family only to discover that she and the missing dressmaker might be connected in unexpected ways.
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Even two good narrators can't redeem this
- By RueRue on 03-27-17
By: Meredith Jaeger
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Secrets of Nanreath Hall
- A Novel
- By: Alix Rickloff
- Narrated by: Lauren Irwin, Laura Waddell
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Cornwall, 1940. Back in England after the harrowing evacuation at Dunkirk, WWII Red Cross nurse Anna Trenowyth is shocked to learn her adoptive parents, Graham and Prue Handley, have been killed in an air raid. She desperately needs their advice, as she's been assigned to the military hospital that has set up camp inside her biological mother's childhood home - Nanreath Hall. Anna was just six years old when her mother, Lady Katherine Trenowyth, died. All she has left are vague memories that tease her with clues she can't unravel.
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Well done both narrators and Author !
- By Andover Meadow on 09-17-16
By: Alix Rickloff
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Blackmail, My Love
- A Murder Mystery
- By: Katie Gilmartin
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Josie O'Conner travels to San Francisco in 1951 to locate her gay brother, a private dick investigating a blackmail ring targeting lesbians and gay men. Jimmy's friends claim that just before he disappeared he became a rat, informing the cops on the bar community. Josie adopts Jimmy's trousers and wingtips, battling to clear his name, halt the blackmailers, and exact justice for the many queer corpses.
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Fine Writing, Beautifully Read
- By CJ on 06-14-15
By: Katie Gilmartin
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The Unseen
- A Novel
- By: Katherine Webb
- Narrated by: Clare Wille
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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A vicar with a passion for nature, the Reverend Albert Canning leads a happy existence with his naive wife, Hester, in their sleepy Berkshire village in the year 1911. But as the English summer dawns, the Cannings' lives are forever changed by two new arrivals: Cat, their new maid, a disaffected, free-spirited young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the law; and Robin Durrant, a leading expert in the occult, enticed by tales of elemental beings in the water meadows nearby.
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Great book!
- By Dana on 09-03-12
By: Katherine Webb
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Josephine Baker's Last Dance
- By: Sherry Jones
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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In this illuminating biographical novel, Sherry Jones spans Josephine Baker's early years in servitude and poverty in America to her rise to fame as a showgirl in her famous banana skirt to her activism against discrimination, and her many loves and losses. From 1920s Paris to 1960s Washington to her final, triumphant performance, one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th century comes to stunning life on the page. With intimate prose and comprehensive research, Sherry Jones brings Josephine Baker into focus for the first time in a joyous celebration of a life lived in technicolor.
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Josephine Bakers Last Dance
- By Robin on 09-02-20
By: Sherry Jones
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Witchmark
- By: C. L. Polk
- Narrated by: Samuel Roukin
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Magic marked Miles Singer for suffering the day he was born, doomed either to be a slave to his family's interest or to be committed to a witches' asylum. He went to war to escape his destiny and came home a different man, but he couldn't leave his past behind. The war between Aeland and Laneer leaves men changed, strangers to their friends and family. Even after faking his own death and reinventing himself as a doctor at a cash-strapped veteran's hospital, Miles can't hide what he truly is.
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hell of a ride
- By Dianthaa on 01-05-20
By: C. L. Polk
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Glorious
- By: Bernice L. McFadden
- Narrated by: Alfre Woodard
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Glorious is set against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights era. Blending the truth of American history with the fruits of Bernice L. McFadden's rich imagination, this is the story of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer whose tumultuous path to success, ruin, and revival offers a candid portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.
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Gruesome violence
- By Marilyn on 11-22-11
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Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
- By: Allan Gurganus
- Narrated by: Barbara McCulloh
- Length: 49 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and fans alike fell in love with the voice of 99-year-old Confederate widow Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature. Lucy married at the turn of the 20th century, when she was 15 and her husband was 50. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood.
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Dated.
- By edie butler on 04-06-21
By: Allan Gurganus
What listeners say about The Paragon Hotel
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 02-22-19
Strong Women
Nobody Alice James is a very strong Italian/Welsh woman from Harlem. Set in the 1920 this book follows Nobody from Harlem to Portland.
When arriving in Portland Nobody is taken to the Paragon Hotel by Pullman porter Max due to an injury she revived in Harlem.
While there she meets Blossom Fountaine who is a beautiful African Americans singer. Who is also a strong female character.
I enjoy the story of these two main characters and the supporting characters are well writing too!!
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5 people found this helpful
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- ajcb
- 08-23-20
Out of the pot, and into the frying pan
Last night I was listening to two experienced twitch RP'ers giving thier lengthy backstories to each other, and it was about as interesting as this book. This book is really two stories linked together in a tale about one victim's migration from East Coast organized crime to organized stupidity of racism on the West Coast. The mafia part of the story was excellent. The African American part was ok, but weaker, since the central character was a snoopy white woman who stretched the limits of reality, and who used the term "admire-to" a bit too much, in the way 60s Dr. Who or Benny Hill might bastardize the conversational language of the Old American West. Narration was flawless. The author has done better.
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- Milk Money LLC
- 07-12-19
Audio makes this story come alive
I started reading the paper book first and had a hard time getting into it, so I went for the audio to listen to while I painted my kitchen. The story was much more engaging hearing the voice inflections and character shifts. I learned a lot about history and appreciate the author’s ability to address a sad reality for people of color STILL happening today. Thank you for this story!
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3 people found this helpful
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- S. Travis
- 07-25-19
Excellent Writing, Well Read, but..
January LaVoy did an awesome job reading the various voices of the characters. Lyndsay Faye is a talented writer and the story is hard to stop listening to. Loved the historical information she conveys through the setting, time period and characters. I just didn’t like the occasional extra-strong language, nor did I like the feminist slant to the story or the inclusion of the transsexual thread. The LGBTQ theme that seems to be included in every single thing these days is just not welcome. Disappointed that Faye follows this broken record in her otherwise fascinating stories.
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2 people found this helpful
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- jax's
- 10-20-19
The paragon Hotel!
Absolutely wonderful, a must read or hear! I just couldn’t stop listening! The writer had my full attention!
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- Scout16
- 08-28-19
Ms. Faye is incapable of disappointing
Lyndsay Faye impressed me with her first novel, Dust and Shadow, and cemented her place as one of my favorite authors with her Gods of Gotham trilogy. Her later book, a quirky, dark funny shout out to Jane Eyre, and her additional Sherlock stories delighted me as well.
The Paragon Hotel has kept with the trend. Wonderfully complicated characters, and a perfect blend of humor, tragedy, suspense, and on-point (read:infuriating) social commentary all blend to make a read I couldn’t put down. I highly recommend diving into her books, and I eagerly await what she comes up with next.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-24-19
Started slowly but draws you in !
Loved learning the history of that time and the challenges that people faced. This book was brilliantly narrated and once you got used to the rather quaint phrases used you start relating to the characters.
It was slow to get going but once underway held my attention
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- Denver Mike
- 03-12-19
Best book I’ve listened to this year
Great story about Portland Oregon and racism in the 1920’s. But that’s just the backdrop to a great, very engrossing fiction narrative.
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- Aunt Kippy
- 08-19-19
I loved from beginning to end!
I loved every part of this book. I loved the suspense of the story, I loved the racial history of Oregon, I loved the unexpected twists and turns of the plot. a great, informative read.
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- John E
- 08-01-20
A Top 5 book this 55 yr old ever read!
This is not a thriller but at times it feels like it as I put off dinner or bedtime because I HAD TO find out what was going to happen. Nor is it a mystery though as layer after layer of characters are revealed, I found myself literally stunned at how little I know and how much I assume— everywhere all the time.
Unfortunately, the book remains timeless— police racism, white minimalization of the Black experience and white privilege has barely budged. The long racist history of Portland was new to me and deeply disturbing, though not surprising since it is the USA.
The power of this book for me is the relationships and complicated personalities and contexts of all the characters. I got to appreciate characters who were Black not as objects— not “victims of white racism” only— they were complex human being who happened to live in the context of brutal and unforgiving racism...
I also appreciated the insight into early 20th century Italian immigrant life and the mob’s complex web in some NY communities...
What a sweet read~ I miss the Paragon family but my life is richer for knowing them....
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