Preview
  • Without a Backward Glance

  • By: Kate Veitch
  • Narrated by: Edwina Wren
  • Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (14 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Without a Backward Glance

By: Kate Veitch
Narrated by: Edwina Wren
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.49

Buy for $19.49

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

A spellbinding contemporary novel, Without a Backward Glance draws us deep into the intensely private world of family life and brilliantly illuminates the joys, sorrows and sustaining comfort that we find there.

On Christmas Eve in 1967, a London woman unhappily transplanted to the Australian suburbs makes a decision that will change forever the lives of her four young children. Forty years on, those children are adept at concealing their shared pain. Deborah has a demanding political career, James is a successful artist, Robert a respected school principal. Only Meredith, the baby of the family seems struck. But as their father begins to lose his grip on reality, they find themselves floundering in an unfamiliar sea. And their past is about to reach into t he present in ways that will shock and challenge them all.

©2007 Kate Veitch (P)2007 Bolinda Publishing
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Editorial reviews

Since Tolstoy, writers have clamored to provide particular variations on that seemingly illimitable theme: the dark heart of the family. In Kate Veitch’s first novel, Without a Backward Glance (originally published as Listen, in Australia, in 2006), Veitch imagines a family whose young mother walks out on Christmas Eve in 1967 and never returns.

The versatile and lovely voice of Edwina Wren carries the listener through several decades of the wounded McDonald family’s life and into that harrowing and unexpected moment of long-awaited truth. The novel follows not the mother, but rather the abandoned children who cope with their unexplained loss in distinct ways.

What listeners say about Without a Backward Glance

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

great read

I really enjoyed this book. The author has great skill in telling an interesting story with complex and rich characters. Definitely a step above the usual contemporary fiction. It was well-written and narrator was wonderful. I don't often write reviews but had to write one for this. Couldn't put it down.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    out of 5 stars

no no no

skip it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful