Brilliant

One of best, loved it from start to finish, especially the interview at the end.

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Disappointing

I was eagerly awaiting this book as I loved Stacey Hall's previous books. However, the style of this one was different. I loved the first person narrator in previous books, which worked fantastically on audiobook. They were also more relatable and gave fascinating insights into the history of the time. However, this book was a series of characters in third person. It felt more disjointed and impersonal. There were some interesting themes but these didn't develop quite as I'd like and bordered on sentimentalism. I felt it would have been so much more interesting and deeper in the style of the previous novels. I felt it was all diluted a but by the number of characters it was following. I also really wasn't impressed with the ending.
In all, it wasn't a bad historical fiction read, but it was so full of promise that it just didn't live up to.

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3 people found this helpful

Amazing

Couldn’t stop listening to this book, I felt I was there with the girls in the cottage, so real

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The dynamic duo

The writing style of Stacey Halls and superb voice of Tuppence Middleton make for such an enjoyable listen. I'm extremely picky with narration and it makes or breaks a book for me. A. Stacey Halls book is always well worth a credit for me consistent in the quality of writing and Tuppence brings the characters to life so well. Together they are the dynamic duo 🤓

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1 person found this helpful

Fabulous narration and story.

Hated putting this down. Brilliant characters and story line particularly as it’s based on truth although all characters are fictional.

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Another fabulous read

Another great book! Stacey has enormous skill at creating her characters and giving them enormous depth. This ensures that right from the start you have favourites, people to root for, feel sympathy for and of course those you love to hate. I have loved all of Stacey's books and this was no different. I also enjoyed the chat/interview with Sophia at the end, opened up some more of the real family history.

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Difficult to follow

I have read all Stacy Hall's previous books and was so excited to see she'd written another and the premise sounded great. But not having the first person perspective ruined it for me. I kept having to go back and really think about what was going on and who we were with, which made the story so hard to follow, in comparison. Such a shame. I guess because ij her other stories there were only really 2 main characters it would have been too much to do everyone's perspective but it felt muddled to me. Hopefully she goes back to her usual way of writing for the next one. I'm half way through this and struggling when I read the others so quickly because I couldn't put them down!

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1 person found this helpful

Another great listen

I found this audiobook harder to get into unlike with Stacey’s previous 3 masterpieces. Once I was there however I found it difficult to pause and I found the narrators brought it all so brilliantly to life. The plot was different and it’s a really good touch to know that some of the story as well as Urania Cottage were from reality. Some good twists as usual as well as some clever surprises.

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1 person found this helpful

Fascinating and well-researched

Loved the interview at the end too, which was an unexpected bonus. Stacey Halls brought the darker side of life in early Victorian London into sharp focus. The narration was also excellent. I can’t wait to read the author’s next book.

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Very good fictionalised version of the Dickens “experiment”

Characters were well drawn and lots of the iniquities of Victorian London regarding women are explored. I felt that the story was a little unevenly told and one of the problems of Audible is that you can’t move about to check details. I didn’t like the narration - lots of strange emphases.

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