Haven cover art

Haven

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Haven

By: Emma Donoghue
Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A story of survival set in 600 AD Ireland; a parable of patriarchy, destruction and religion at sea, by Emma Donoghue, the bestselling author of Room.

'Everything a novel should be: compassionate, unpredictable, and questioning. Haven is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.' - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet

Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award

In seventh-century Ireland, a priest has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks with him, he travels down the Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a new place of worship. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. But in such a place, far from all other humanity, what will survival mean?

‘Haven is a beautiful, bold blaze of a book’ – Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

‘Beautiful and timely’ - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater

‘Sinister, heart-wrenching and beautifully written’ – The Times

‘Combines pressure-cooker intensity and radical isolation, to stunning effect’ – Margaret Atwood via Twitter

‘Book of the Year’ pick in The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Irish Post, RTÉ and The Times.

©2022 Emma Donoghue (P)2022 Macmillan Publishers International Limited Christian Fiction Classics & Allegories Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Psychological Sea Adventures Ireland Adventure

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Iscariot cover art
Highland Dragon Warrior cover art
C. S. Lewis - A Life cover art
Sidroc the Dane: A Circle of Ceridwen Saga Story cover art
The Door on Half-Bald Hill cover art
The Silmarillion cover art
Voice of the Fire cover art
The 49th Mystic cover art
Our Oriental Heritage cover art
Brothers of the Wild North Sea cover art
A.D. 30 cover art
Eve cover art
A Land So Strange cover art
On Wilder Seas cover art
Daughter of Cana cover art
Viking Fire cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Aidan Kelly is a brilliant narrator!
Thoroughly enjoyed his telling of this story.
The story left my mind battered and bruised.
How man represents God proves that man is beyond salvation!

Battered and Bruised!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A dark tale speckled with patches of light as humanity manages to shine through, like the rays of sun through the gaps in the clouds over the Skelligs. Well told and well read. The narrator’s voice fits the story perfectly.

A dark tale well told

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
gripping throughout enlightening and disturbing an insight into a lost world brought to life

remakable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An engrossing account of the efforts of the first three monks to endure life on the Skelligs and life with each other. I couldn’t put it down. Wonderful.

Mesmerising

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
an incredible story that teaches us so much about humanity

wonderfully performed. wonderfully written.
full of love

tender. insightful. monstrous

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Begin with high expectations my poor monks, circumstance expectations and innocence will uncover an unknown unexplained and u expected experience

A tale of abuse and betrayal

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thought of giving up on this book early on - but glad I persisted. The exploration of living a life of devoted religious faith, and the extremes it might lead to, interested me. The two companion monks were warm and well drawn characters, and it was they who kept me going. I would have liked more exploration of Artt's inner life, motivation and the source of his faith in face of such extreme testing. The book's relevance to the modern world is clear - the perils of following fanatical leaders, of the meaningless rules and austerity imposed in the name of faith etc

The perils of following fanatics

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Sensitive narration of a very powerful story, beautifully depicted. The feelings of isolation and desperation are almost tangible, and the power of humans to be overwhelmingly selfish and unjustifiably cruel in the name of religion is devastating. I loved this audiobook.

Beautiful and devastating in equal measure.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The constant quoting of the bible to manipulate the monks wore me down. The actual island and the monks' plight kept me going..

Beautifully written and well researched but..

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Firstly, what a bizarre story! 3 monks in the year 600ish row to a pretty much uninhabitable island with the intention of dedicating the island and themselves to God - for the rest of their lives.

It's a grim, brutal tale of the relentless efforts of the men to achieve their goal whilst trying to survive the harsh conditions with as little as possible. I gave up a few times to listen to other books as it was a tough story to 'experience'. Several times I found myself saying "why the heck am I still listening to this?! These bloomin' monks on an island!"
But I'm glad I persevered. Although I do feel like I lived on that island with them - so good was Emma Donohue's writing. By the end I was eager to see what became of them and I was satisfied with the outcome.

I've 'listened' to 2 of Emma Donogue's other books. The topics are always unique. My favourite by far was The Pull of The Stars.

A very interesting and talented author.

Unique to say the least but good....I think?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews