Wisteria Cottage
Valancourt 20th Century Classics
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 $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Tim Sailer
-
By:
-
Robert M. Coates
About this listen
To Florence Hackett and her daughters Elinor and Louisa, Richard Baurie, a handsome young bookstore clerk and aspiring poet, seems a little odd but harmless enough. With his amusing conversation and his eager-to-please attitude, Richard works his way into the Hacketts' confidence until he is almost one of the family. When he suggests they rent Wisteria Cottage, a charming seaside residence, it seems to promise a summer of pleasant companionship and fun.
What the Hacketts don't know is that Richard is a deeply troubled individual, recently released from a mental institution, and that their relaxing summer holiday will soon turn into a terrifying nightmare....
A brilliant psychological examination of criminal insanity, Robert M. Coates's Wisteria Cottage (1948) earned rave reviews on its initial publication and was adapted for the 1958 film noir Edge of Fury.
"A brilliant tour de force." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Top peaks of terror...a grade-A psycho-thriller!" (Saturday Review)
"As direct and frightening as the uncoiling of a serpent." (Commonwealth)
©1948 Robert M. Coates (P)2020 Valancourt Books LLCListeners also enjoyed...
-
Ghost Story
- By: Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Buck Schirner
- Length: 22 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past - and get away with murder. Peter Straub's classic best seller is a work of "superb horror" ( Washington Post Book World) that, like any good ghost story, stands the test of time - and conjures our darkest fears and nightmares.
-
-
Great Story! The Best of Peter Straub
- By Jaimie on 07-17-12
By: Peter Straub
-
Doctors Wear Scarlet
- By: Simon Raven
- Narrated by: Hannibal Hills
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Fountain, a promising young Cambridge scholar, went to the island of Crete to study ancient rites and pagan rituals before, suddenly and inexplicably, breaking off all contact with the outside world. Disturbing rumors have filtered their way back to England, whispering of blasphemous rituals and obscene orgies, hints of terrible crimes and wanton murder.
-
-
An excellent period piece
- By RECDR on 03-14-20
By: Simon Raven
-
Cold Moon over Babylon
- Valancourt 20th Century Classics
- By: Michael McDowell
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to Babylon, a typical sleepy Alabama small town, where years earlier the Larkin family suffered a terrible tragedy. Now they are about to endure another: 14-year-old Margaret Larkin will be robbed of her innocence and her life by a killer who is beyond the reach of the law. But something strange is happening in Babylon: traffic lights flash an eerie blue, a ghostly hand slithers from the drain of a kitchen sink, graves erupt from the local cemetery in an implacable march of terror.
-
-
Best audible listen to date...
- By Breezybealle on 06-27-16
By: Michael McDowell
-
The Hunger and Other Stories
- By: Charles Beaumont
- Narrated by: J. Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A collection of horror stories by the iconic Charles Beaumont. When The Hunger and Other Stories first appeared in 1957, it heralded the arrival of Charles Beaumont as an important and highly original new voice in American fiction. Although he is best known today for his scripts for television and film, including several classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, Beaumont is being rediscovered as a master of weird tales, and this, his first published collection, contains some of his best.
By: Charles Beaumont
-
The Bedeviled
- Valancourt 20th Century Classics
- By: Thomas Cullinan
- Narrated by: Linda Jones
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maggie Caine and her family leave New York to visit the Caine family home, an old farmhouse in Ohio, which her husband has just inherited from a distant aunt. The house, 10 miles away from the nearest neighbor, was once owned by a Civil War general reputed to have been a Satanist. But when strange and terrible things begin to happen, it soon becomes clear that satanic worship is still alive and well in the community, and so might be the general, who Maggie suspects is taking possession of her teenage son.
By: Thomas Cullinan
-
The Cormorant
- By: Stephen Gregory
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young family receives a welcome surprise when old Uncle Ian dies and leaves them a cottage in north Wales. For Ian's nephew and his wife, Ann, it seems a stroke of incredible good fortune, enabling them to leave their unfulfilling lives in the city for a newfound freedom in the remote seaside cottage. There's just one catch. Uncle Ian's will has a strange condition: The couple must care for his pet cormorant or forfeit the bequest.
-
-
Cormorants are horrible pets...duh.
- By Bill on 12-21-19
By: Stephen Gregory
-
Ghost Story
- By: Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Buck Schirner
- Length: 22 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past - and get away with murder. Peter Straub's classic best seller is a work of "superb horror" ( Washington Post Book World) that, like any good ghost story, stands the test of time - and conjures our darkest fears and nightmares.
-
-
Great Story! The Best of Peter Straub
- By Jaimie on 07-17-12
By: Peter Straub
-
Doctors Wear Scarlet
- By: Simon Raven
- Narrated by: Hannibal Hills
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Fountain, a promising young Cambridge scholar, went to the island of Crete to study ancient rites and pagan rituals before, suddenly and inexplicably, breaking off all contact with the outside world. Disturbing rumors have filtered their way back to England, whispering of blasphemous rituals and obscene orgies, hints of terrible crimes and wanton murder.
-
-
An excellent period piece
- By RECDR on 03-14-20
By: Simon Raven
-
Cold Moon over Babylon
- Valancourt 20th Century Classics
- By: Michael McDowell
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to Babylon, a typical sleepy Alabama small town, where years earlier the Larkin family suffered a terrible tragedy. Now they are about to endure another: 14-year-old Margaret Larkin will be robbed of her innocence and her life by a killer who is beyond the reach of the law. But something strange is happening in Babylon: traffic lights flash an eerie blue, a ghostly hand slithers from the drain of a kitchen sink, graves erupt from the local cemetery in an implacable march of terror.
-
-
Best audible listen to date...
- By Breezybealle on 06-27-16
By: Michael McDowell
-
The Hunger and Other Stories
- By: Charles Beaumont
- Narrated by: J. Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A collection of horror stories by the iconic Charles Beaumont. When The Hunger and Other Stories first appeared in 1957, it heralded the arrival of Charles Beaumont as an important and highly original new voice in American fiction. Although he is best known today for his scripts for television and film, including several classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, Beaumont is being rediscovered as a master of weird tales, and this, his first published collection, contains some of his best.
By: Charles Beaumont
-
The Bedeviled
- Valancourt 20th Century Classics
- By: Thomas Cullinan
- Narrated by: Linda Jones
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maggie Caine and her family leave New York to visit the Caine family home, an old farmhouse in Ohio, which her husband has just inherited from a distant aunt. The house, 10 miles away from the nearest neighbor, was once owned by a Civil War general reputed to have been a Satanist. But when strange and terrible things begin to happen, it soon becomes clear that satanic worship is still alive and well in the community, and so might be the general, who Maggie suspects is taking possession of her teenage son.
By: Thomas Cullinan
-
The Cormorant
- By: Stephen Gregory
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young family receives a welcome surprise when old Uncle Ian dies and leaves them a cottage in north Wales. For Ian's nephew and his wife, Ann, it seems a stroke of incredible good fortune, enabling them to leave their unfulfilling lives in the city for a newfound freedom in the remote seaside cottage. There's just one catch. Uncle Ian's will has a strange condition: The couple must care for his pet cormorant or forfeit the bequest.
-
-
Cormorants are horrible pets...duh.
- By Bill on 12-21-19
By: Stephen Gregory
-
Great Circle
- A Novel
- By: Maggie Shipstead
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There—after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes—Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe.
-
-
So glad I was drawn to this book.
- By timbo on 05-23-21
By: Maggie Shipstead
-
Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
-
-
Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
-
The Guest Book
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Blake
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No. It is a simple word, uttered on a summer porch in 1936. And it will haunt Kitty Milton for the rest of her life. Kitty and her husband, Ogden, are both from families considered the backbone of the country. But this refusal will come to be Kitty’s defining moment, and its consequences will ripple through the Milton family for generations. For while they summer on their island in Maine, anchored as they are to the way things have always been, the winds of change are beginning to stir.
-
-
Reader mispronounced too many words
- By Catherine Newton on 05-19-19
By: Sarah Blake
-
The Shadowy Horses
- By: Susanna Kearsley
- Narrated by: Sally Armstrong
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Archaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea. Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he's finally found it - not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has "seen" a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades.
-
-
Slow Build Atmospheric Story of Light Rom Susp
- By Sophia Rose on 12-15-16
By: Susanna Kearsley
-
Spring Magic
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Frances Field arrives in a scenic coastal village in Scotland, having escaped her dreary life as an orphan, treated as little more than a servant by an uncle and aunt. Once there, she encounters an array of eccentric locals, the occasional roar of enemy planes overhead and three army wives - Elise, Tommy and Tillie - who become fast friends. Elise warns Frances of the discomforts of military life, but she’s inclined to disregard the advice when she meets the dashing and charming Captain Guy Tarlatan.
-
-
WWII Home Front
- By Jerri C on 06-05-19
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Tanner Buchanan
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as one of the Great American Novels, The Great Gatsby delves into the dark corners of the Jazz Age to tell a tragic tale of obsession, love, and the gritty underbelly of the American dream. Through the eyes of unassuming narrator Nick Carraway, the story follows the enigmatic Jay Gatsby as he chases the object of his hopeless desire, the beautiful Daisy Buchanan.
-
-
The great American novel!
- By Karen Creeden on 11-12-22
-
The Sweet Taste of Muscadines
- A Novel
- By: Pamela Terry
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lila Bruce Breedlove never quite felt at home in Wesleyan, Georgia, especially after her father’s untimely demise when she was a child. Both Lila and her brother, Henry, fled north after high school, establishing fulfilling lives of their own. In contrast, their younger sister, Abigail, opted to remain behind to dote on their domineering, larger-than-life mother, Geneva. When their elderly mother dies suddenly and suspiciously in the muscadine arbor behind the family estate, Lila and Henry return to the town that essentially raised them.
-
-
Absolutely LOVED it!
- By Kenny Cook on 07-07-21
By: Pamela Terry
-
The Tremor of Forgery
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Tunisia in the mid-1960s, this is the story of Howard Ingham, an American writer who has gone abroad to gather material for a movie too sordid to be set in America. Ingham is cool toward the girlfriend he left behind in New York - but his feelings start to change when she doesn't answer his increasingly aggravated letters and the filmmaker who hired Ingham fails to show in Tunisia.
-
-
Engrossing
- By M. Steinberg on 03-11-24
-
The Foreign Student
- A Novel
- By: Susan Choi
- Narrated by: Daniel K. Isaac
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Highly acclaimed by critics, The Foreign Student is the story of a young Korean man, scarred by war, and the deeply troubled daughter of a wealthy Southern American family. In 1955, a new student arrives at a small college in the Tennessee mountains. Chuck is shy, speaks English haltingly, and on the subject of his earlier life in Korea he will not speak at all. Then he meets Katherine, a beautiful and solitary young woman who, like Chuck, is haunted by some dark episode in her past. Without quite knowing why, these two outsiders are drawn together....
-
-
A beautiful story
- By Doglver on 10-30-20
By: Susan Choi
-
Cantoras
- A Novel
- By: Carolina De Robertis
- Narrated by: Carolina De Robertis
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A genre-defining novel and De Robertis's masterpiece, Cantoras is a breathtaking portrait of queer love, community, forgotten history, and the strength of the human spirit. At once timeless and groundbreaking, Cantoras is a tale about the fire in all our souls and those who make it burn.
-
-
Excruciating to get through
- By Xochitl Casillas on 11-30-20
-
Suffer the Children
- By: John Saul
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One hundred years ago in Port Arbello a pretty little girl began to scream. And struggle. And die. No one heard. No one saw. Just one man whose guilty heart burst in pain as he dashed himself to death in the sea. Now something peculiar is happening in Port Arbello. The children are disappearing, one by one. An evil history is repeating itself. And one strange, terrified child has ended her silence with a scream that began 100 years ago.
-
-
Sexual situations
- By Glenn on 07-11-21
By: John Saul
-
Hangsaman
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite longs to escape home for college. Her father is a domineering and egotistical writer who keeps a tight rein on Natalie and her long-suffering mother. When Natalie finally does get away, however, college life doesn’t bring the happiness she expected. Little by little, Natalie is no longer certain of anything - even where reality ends and her dark imaginings begin. Chilling and suspenseful, Hangsaman is loosely based on the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore in 1946.
-
-
Julia Whelan’s narration in sweet perfection …
- By Karenique on 12-29-21
By: Shirley Jackson
Related to this topic
-
The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Tanner Buchanan
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as one of the Great American Novels, The Great Gatsby delves into the dark corners of the Jazz Age to tell a tragic tale of obsession, love, and the gritty underbelly of the American dream. Through the eyes of unassuming narrator Nick Carraway, the story follows the enigmatic Jay Gatsby as he chases the object of his hopeless desire, the beautiful Daisy Buchanan.
-
-
The great American novel!
- By Karen Creeden on 11-12-22
-
Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
-
-
Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
-
The Voice of the Night with Short Story, "Silence"
- By: Dean Koontz
- Narrated by: Pavi Proczko, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No one could understand why Colin and Roy were best friends. Colin was so shy; Roy was so popular. Colin was fascinated by Roy - and Roy was fascinated by death. Then one day, Roy asked his timid friend: “You ever killed anything?” From that moment on, the two were bound together in a game too terrifying to imagine - and too irresistible to stop.
-
-
can not believe dean koontz wrote this book
- By Anonymous User on 10-05-21
By: Dean Koontz
-
Beautiful Animals
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a hike during a white-hot summer break on the Greek island of Hydra, Naomi and Samantha make a startling discovery: a man named Faoud, sleeping heavily, exposed to the elements, but still alive. As the two women learn more about the man, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging across the Aegean Sea, their own burgeoning friendship intensifies. But when their seemingly simple plan to help Faoud unravels, all must face the horrific consequences they have set in motion.
-
-
please offer more of this author's books
- By S. Liskey on 07-20-17
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Spring Magic
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Frances Field arrives in a scenic coastal village in Scotland, having escaped her dreary life as an orphan, treated as little more than a servant by an uncle and aunt. Once there, she encounters an array of eccentric locals, the occasional roar of enemy planes overhead and three army wives - Elise, Tommy and Tillie - who become fast friends. Elise warns Frances of the discomforts of military life, but she’s inclined to disregard the advice when she meets the dashing and charming Captain Guy Tarlatan.
-
-
WWII Home Front
- By Jerri C on 06-05-19
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
The Shadowy Horses
- By: Susanna Kearsley
- Narrated by: Sally Armstrong
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Archaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea. Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he's finally found it - not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has "seen" a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades.
-
-
Slow Build Atmospheric Story of Light Rom Susp
- By Sophia Rose on 12-15-16
By: Susanna Kearsley
-
The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Tanner Buchanan
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as one of the Great American Novels, The Great Gatsby delves into the dark corners of the Jazz Age to tell a tragic tale of obsession, love, and the gritty underbelly of the American dream. Through the eyes of unassuming narrator Nick Carraway, the story follows the enigmatic Jay Gatsby as he chases the object of his hopeless desire, the beautiful Daisy Buchanan.
-
-
The great American novel!
- By Karen Creeden on 11-12-22
-
Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
-
-
Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
-
The Voice of the Night with Short Story, "Silence"
- By: Dean Koontz
- Narrated by: Pavi Proczko, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No one could understand why Colin and Roy were best friends. Colin was so shy; Roy was so popular. Colin was fascinated by Roy - and Roy was fascinated by death. Then one day, Roy asked his timid friend: “You ever killed anything?” From that moment on, the two were bound together in a game too terrifying to imagine - and too irresistible to stop.
-
-
can not believe dean koontz wrote this book
- By Anonymous User on 10-05-21
By: Dean Koontz
-
Beautiful Animals
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a hike during a white-hot summer break on the Greek island of Hydra, Naomi and Samantha make a startling discovery: a man named Faoud, sleeping heavily, exposed to the elements, but still alive. As the two women learn more about the man, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging across the Aegean Sea, their own burgeoning friendship intensifies. But when their seemingly simple plan to help Faoud unravels, all must face the horrific consequences they have set in motion.
-
-
please offer more of this author's books
- By S. Liskey on 07-20-17
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Spring Magic
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Frances Field arrives in a scenic coastal village in Scotland, having escaped her dreary life as an orphan, treated as little more than a servant by an uncle and aunt. Once there, she encounters an array of eccentric locals, the occasional roar of enemy planes overhead and three army wives - Elise, Tommy and Tillie - who become fast friends. Elise warns Frances of the discomforts of military life, but she’s inclined to disregard the advice when she meets the dashing and charming Captain Guy Tarlatan.
-
-
WWII Home Front
- By Jerri C on 06-05-19
By: D. E. Stevenson
-
The Shadowy Horses
- By: Susanna Kearsley
- Narrated by: Sally Armstrong
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Archaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea. Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he's finally found it - not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has "seen" a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades.
-
-
Slow Build Atmospheric Story of Light Rom Susp
- By Sophia Rose on 12-15-16
By: Susanna Kearsley
-
The Fortnight in September
- By: R.C. Sherriff
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet the Stevens family as they prepare to embark on their yearly holiday to the coast of England. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens first made the trip to Bognor Regis on their honeymoon, and the tradition has continued ever since. They stay in the same guesthouse and follow the same carefully honed schedule - now accompanied by their three children, 20-year-old Mary, 17-year-old Dick, and little brother Ernie.
-
-
life-affirming and magical
- By Victoria on 11-23-21
By: R.C. Sherriff
-
The Lost One
- By: Mary Stewart
- Narrated by: Antonia Whillans
- Length: 1 hr and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The recently rediscovered short story 'The Lost One', perfect for fans of Daphne du Maurier, Santa Montefiore and Anya Seton. First published in Woman's Journal in 1960, and set against the backdrop of unfenced country and dark winding valleys at night, the aptly named 'The Lost One' features The Wind off the Small Isles heroine Perdita West, who brings her characteristic pluck and courage to this classic Mary Stewart tale of suspense and intrigue....
-
-
Short, but nice. Narration was good.
- By K's Ma on 10-10-19
By: Mary Stewart
-
A Beach Wish
- A Novel
- By: Shelley Noble
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johannsson
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Zoe Bascombe has never said no to her family. When she blew her Julliard audition, she caved to their wishes and went to business school. But when her mother dies and leaves instructions for Zoe to spread her ashes at a place called Wind Chime Beach, she defies her brothers and starts out for a New England town none of them has ever heard of and discovers a side of her garden club mother that her wildest dreams hadn’t imagined. Zoe has another family.
-
-
Profanity.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-30-22
By: Shelley Noble
-
Dark Shadows
- By: Marilyn Ross
- Narrated by: Kathryn Leigh Scott
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Despite warnings from the townspeople, Victoria Winters accepts the offer to come to the strange Collinwood as Governess. For some curious reason, she feels the secret of her past may be uncovered in the bleak manor high on Widow’s Hill. From the Moment she arrives, Victoria becomes the target of someone in the house determined to destroy her. As the wind moans and the rain lashes around the isolated Collinwood, Victoria, without friends in the manor, feels death close in on her - a choking, frightening death.
-
-
Fun alternate history
- By JDH on 07-29-19
By: Marilyn Ross
-
Lucy Gayheart
- By: Willa Cather
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of eighteen, Lucy Gayheart heads for Chicago to study music. She is beautiful and impressionable and ardent, and these qualities attract the attention of Clement Sebastian, an aging but charismatic singer who exercises all the tragic, sinister fascination of a man who has renounced life only to turn back to seize it one last time. Out of their doomed love affair—and Lucy's fatal estrangement from her origins—Willa Cather creates a novel that is as achingly lovely as a Schubert sonata.
-
-
Beautifully written and narrated!
- By melany levenson on 05-27-24
By: Willa Cather
-
The Keeper of the Bees
- By: Gene Stratton-Porter
- Narrated by: Anne Hancock
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jamie MacFarlane has returned a hero from the Great War but with a stubborn chest wound. The government has sent him to their new thermal springs hospital in California "where it was hoped that the brilliant sunshine, the fruits, and the clean air, the eternal summer of a beneficent land" would heal him. But nothing has worked, and with his parents now deceased and no one to care for him, it seems the next step is a camp rife with tuberculosis. Realizing this, Jamie begins his great adventure on foot toward the ocean.
-
-
Bleah
- By Stephen on 01-23-24
-
Brodmaw Bay
- By: F.G. Cottam
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brodmaw Bay seems to be the perfect refuge for James Greer and his family. When his son is the victim of a brutal mugging, Greer wants to leave London - the sooner the better - for the charming old-fashioned fishing port he has just discovered. But was finding Brodmaw Bay more than a happy accident? What is the connection between the village and his beautiful wife? When his friendly new neighbours say they'd welcome some new blood - in a village where the same families seem to have lived for generations - are they telling the whole truth?
-
-
Not Quite The Equal Of Its Promise
- By Flavius Krakdaddius on 08-23-12
By: F.G. Cottam
-
The Lindbergh Nanny
- By: Mariah Fredericks
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the most famous toddler in America, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., is kidnapped from his family home in 1932, the case makes international headlines. Already celebrated for his flight across the Atlantic, his father, Charles, Sr., is the country’s golden boy, with his wealthy, lovely wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, by his side. But there’s someone else in their household—Betty Gow, a formerly obscure young woman, now known around the world by another name: the Lindbergh Nanny. Betty must find the truth in order to clear her own name—and to find justice for the child she loves.
-
-
Excellent book and narration
- By Nancy on 01-16-23
-
The Promise
- By: Damon Galgut
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Haunted by an unmet promise, the Swart family loses touch after the death of their matriarch. Adrift, the lives of the three siblings move separately through the uncharted waters of South Africa; Anton, the golden boy who bitterly resents his life’s unfulfilled potential; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by a nebulous feeling of guilt.
-
-
Excellent novel
- By ALG on 11-09-21
By: Damon Galgut
-
Twist of Fate
- By: Jayne Ann Krentz
- Narrated by: Nellie Chalfant
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cloistered as a faculty member at a small college, beautiful Hannah Jessett can almost forget her family heritage. Few know she's the niece of Elizabeth Nord, the legendary anthropologist who stunned the world with her revolutionary work, until her aunt dies, leaving Hannah in sole possession of her priceless unpublished journals.
-
-
Okay
- By LeftyMom on 05-03-07
By: Jayne Ann Krentz
-
Nine Princes in Amber
- The Chronicles of Amber, Book 1
- By: Roger Zelazny
- Narrated by: Alessandro Juliani
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amber is the one real world, of which all others including our own Earth are but Shadows. Amber burns in Corwin's blood. Exiled on Shadow Earth for centuries, the prince is about to return to Amber to make a mad and desperate rush upon the throne.
-
-
Great book, lame deal!
- By Robert on 08-13-12
By: Roger Zelazny
-
The Moon-Spinners
- By: Mary Stewart
- Narrated by: Daphne Kouma
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While on a walking holiday through the beautiful, deserted hills of Crete, Nicola Ferris stumbles across a critically injured Englishman, guarded by a fierce Greek. Nicola cannot abandon them and so sets off on a perilous search for their lost companion - all the while being pursued by someone who wants to make sure none of them leave the island....
-
-
Classic thriller, but wish narrator was literate
- By VirginiaMom on 09-04-19
By: Mary Stewart
What listeners say about Wisteria Cottage
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- anne-v
- 07-06-21
Insanely Brilliant!! (Emphasis on "insane)
Are you even kidding me? Where has this gem been hiding? Someone needs to talk to a movie producer about making this into a suspense/horror flick ASAP.
A brilliant psychological examination of insanity told in a slightly dizzying, lilting, even rhyming, rat-a-tat-tat sort of prose (ingeniously narrated by Tim Sailer) that puts you so solidly in Richard's poetically twisted mind that things feel almost dreamlike as the gently violent mayhem unravels.
I started to wonder if I was a little schizophrenic myself, as I could relate to some of his bizarrely dangerous thoughts that, of course, make absolutely perfect sense in the tilted world of a paranoid schizophrenic.
It's such a calm and gentle book, told by a calm and gentle man (a la Norman Bates who "couldn't hurt a fly") yet the frightening insanity behind it is like a background buzz shortening your breath as brief flashbacks hint that things have not ended well.
This book is INCREDIBLE. It was written in 1948, which is when authors delicately wove their tales around madness, building suspense quietly rather than flinging it in your face. If you enjoy things like The Talented Mr. Ripley, Psycho, The Tenant, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Repulsion, Misery, then you will love this gem.
(Apparently a movie called Edge of Fury from 1958 is a film based on this book. I just know it hasn't done it justice though.)
Tim Sailer, the narrator, is a master of his craft. This book cannot have been easy to read for the interesting and challenging way the prose is laid down, but, oh, I imagine Tim had a lot of fun once he decided to really wear Richard's character like a cloak.
Tim, thank you for reading this book so well!! I will seek out more of your work. I was truly blown away by this unexpected gem.
I was provided this book upon my request and have voluntarily left this review.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Deedra
- 08-01-21
Wisteria Cottage
This was a really good read.A man on a beach changes lives.He is crazy,he knows it,it just takes his victims a bit longer to figure him out.I am still not sure of the ending. Tim Sailer was a fantastic narrator!I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.'
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christine Newton
- 07-07-21
the writing style makes it worth your time
As per the book description, this is a story about a man whose mental health issues lead to tragedy. The story was originally published in the late 1940s but the author did a fine job of settling me comfortably into that era. We also get to hear the thoughts and much (but not all) of the backstory of the antagonist, whose mind is like an out-of-tune piano.
I'm thinking about why I liked this story, and the concepts of dissonance and attribution keep popping into my head. We, the audience, see the various characters engage in various behaviours. We interpret and judge those behaviours from our perspective of right and wrong, and we make judgements about the characters based on their actions. People do that all the time, it's human nature. But here we have our antagonist. From his perspective, everything he feels and does makes sense and is reasonable. He has complete confidence in his assessment of other people's characters, he thinks he's the smartest person in the room. But his interpretation and assessment isn't based on empathy, because he lacks empathy. For the first part of the book, it's uncomfortable for us to see his flawed rationalizations because much of his outward behaviour is within the boundaries of social norms. As the story progresses and he experiences his increased paranoia/psychotic break, though, his rationalizations become more warped and his outward behaviour becomes a heck of a lot more anti-social. And yet, he rationalizes everything, even extreme violence. And what he can't rationalize, he blocks out. There are lots of books and movies about psychotic criminals, but those antagonists are fully immersed in their psychosis. The compelling thing about this story is that for much of the story, the antagonist was functional and everyone around him thought he was perfectly fine (or maybe just a bit eccentric). Because we read the book blurb and because we could see his thought processes, we recognized the signs of the psychotic break much faster than most of the other characters in the story. Like watching a horror movie, we know that the murderer is hiding in the closet but the victim doesn't know it yet. Part of the excitement is anticipating the moment when the victim realizes that he/she is suddenly in big trouble.
The author's writing style is excellent and complements the plot and pacing perfectly. Some authors are great storytellers, they are able to make their stories come alive.
The only reason why I deducted a star is because it's discouraging to think that this story might reinforce the belief in some people's minds that people with paranoid schizophrenia are psycho killers. I personally know someone with paranoid schizophrenia and I'm infinitely more concerned about the possibility of her harming herself rather than the people around her.
The narrator is perfect for this type of story. I don't know if this is his natural narration style, but it is very effective for this type of story. I sped up the playback speed slightly to suit my preferences. (A side note: I'm so glad that my audiobook player allows me to change the narration speed - it makes a world of difference when it comes to my listening enjoyment. If I listened to this audiobook at regular 1.0 speed, I might have given the narrator less stars in this review. The playback speed adjustment button is your friend!!)
I was provided this book upon my request and have voluntarily left this review.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!