The Gingerbread Woman cover art

The Gingerbread Woman

A Novel

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The Gingerbread Woman

By: Jennifer Johnston
Narrated by: Nicola Barber
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About this listen

On a rainy afternoon on Killiney Hill, a young man walking, without his overcoat, happens upon a woman gazing out over Dublin bay, standing perilously close to the edge. From their testy encounter develops a remarkable friendship which will enable each to face afresh their very different, damaged pasts, and to look, however tentatively, toward the future.

©2000 Jennifer Johnston (P)2014 Audible Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

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All stars
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The accents annoyed me as neither characters had a Dublin nor an Antrim accent, but the story is interesting and jennifer johnston has a beautiful language that gives food for thought.

beautiful language

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What a beautiful novel, full of pain and loss. Jennifer Johnson’s style is so poetic. A real find. Will be looking up other titles.

Beautiful tale

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The voices of the two central characters were so real and true. I loved the style of writing.

Beautifully written

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The storyline actually isn't awful - the lives of a grieving man and a physically and emotionally fragile woman intersect for a brief while while she deals with her heartbreak over her married lover and he refuses to get over the death of his wife and child two years earlier. However, neither character was particularly likeable, particularly Clara so it seemed fairly out of character for her to invite this random stranger into her home and the German and Italian bits scattered throughout just seemed a bit of a pretentious and unnecessary device to make the book more literary.

The biggest problem for me was that the narration was atrocious - please get actual Irish people to narrate the voices of Irish characters, the fact that the narrator didn't take the trouble to find out how to correctly pronounce Dalkey and Dun Laoghaire is poor given that the characters are Irish and she's meant to be speaking in Irish accents for the majority of the book. Lar didn't seem to know if he was from Northern Ireland, Birmingham, Newcastle or the West Country - his accent was all over the place and Clara's was fairly inconsistent too. This really ruined the listening experience for me - I'd quite happily listen to an otherwise good narrator read a book in their own accent rather than attempt accents they clearly can't do.

might be better reading it

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Not nearly as engaging as The Captains and the Kings. Two people struggling with loss and trauma who happen upon each other at a point in time.


The accents are dreadful and varying all over the place. Lar is given a strong Dublin accent at times. The novel requires that Lar and his family be heard in an Antrim accent which is utterly different to Dublin. Place names mispronounced too. Much better use ones own accent than attempt accents one can't do at all. Or at least be consistent with an accent. This took away from it quite a lot for me.

Two people meet at a time when both are traumatised

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