The Possession of Mr Cave cover art

The Possession of Mr Cave

 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.

The Possession of Mr Cave

By: Matt Haig
Narrated by: Mark Meadows
Try Premium Plus free

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

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

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

From the number one Sunday Times best-selling author.

Terence Cave, owner of Cave Antiques, has already experienced the tragedies of his mother's suicide and his wife's murder when his teenage son, Reuben, is killed in a grotesque accident. His remaining child, Bryony, has always been the family's golden girl, and Terence comes to realise that his one duty in life is to protect her from the world's malign forces, whatever that may take.

But as he starts to follow his grieving daughter's movements and enforce a draconian set of rules, his love for Bryony becomes a possessive force that leads to destruction.

©2009 Matt Haig (P)2018 Canongate Books Ltd Genre Fiction Psychological Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Silence cover art
Nina Is Not OK cover art
Adam's Cross cover art
The Mistake cover art
The Small Hand cover art
What Lies Between Us cover art
Cold Bath Street cover art
Others cover art
When You Disappeared cover art
Dear Mother cover art
Hum If You Don't Know the Words cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
I normally love Matt Haig but this was not my favourite of his, still very good and Mark meadows is always a brilliant narrator so don't let that put you off

a bit confusing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well that was a darker twist on the mental health of a chap with PTSD and mental health issues.

Dark

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book has a very dark ending. This is a character carrying a lot of personal trauma which he unfortunately manifests into being overly protective of his daughter which just pushes her away.

Drags a little but the ending wraps everything up well

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I like Matt Haig but this story is hard work. I wanted to hear the end but won’t be recommending. Definitely not for a light read/listen.

Stuck it out but not the best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Matt Haig was right when he describes that we are limited by our language to describe certain emotions or feelings.

Poetic Sadness

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It was very interesting take on psychosis, impact of grief and how it shows up in relationship.

I’m not sure I would be recommending to others in a hurry, but it was okay. And didn’t hate it,

I think by anyone else I wouldn’t have such high expectations,

Not the best Matt haig

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Disappointed with this quite Depressing book. Usually love Matt Haig Books but this was a struggle to finish. Sorry Matt.

Struggled to finish this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved listening to this book from the father's point of view. He rapidly goes mad when his son dies, leaving his daughters life in tatters. Very well narrated.

Very interesting perspective

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Teen rebellion, parental obsession and a very dark narration.

Matt Haig does 'dark' very well, and it's hard not to read his own history of mental illness into his narrators. This is a book I'd never heard of until it's recent Audible release, and I must say the first person (and sometimes second person) narrative is made for listening to.

Antique dealer Terence Cave has lost almost everyone he loves - his wife murdered, his son a recent accidental death, his mother also dead long ago. Now it is just him and his remaining teenage daughter, Bryony. Always the achiever of his twins, he becomes ever more protective and obsessive about her safety, especially when unsavoury-looking young men begin circling...

In the midst of this emotional turmoil, a teenage girl tries to work through the usual rebellions of adolescence, and though I could see Terence's need to control, Bryony had my sympathies - all she is doing is moving on from childhood, exploring her burgeoning sexuality and trying to enjoy her youth. She is never particularly well-developed though, she's more a stereotype of a teenage girl, an archetype - this is Terence's story of his obsessions. Bryony doesn't really change or get a chance to speak to us, she's always reacting to Terence - whether lying to him about her whereabouts or railing against his unfair rules.

Terence is a character you see gradually unravelling, becoming more and more consumed with his daughter and her perfections; his own intellectual interests and rather elitist outlook makes him less likeable over the course of the book.

It's quite a gripping story, and though it's hard to feel love for the narrator, you do want to know what he is going to do.

There is a supernatural element to this story which I didn't really like, but that's a personal preference - without this then Terence wouldn't have had any way to 'find out' certain things about his son's death (as well as life). It is in the everyday slowly cranking up of a father's narrow boundaries and protective strategies that Haig gives us an intense and frightening 'smothering love' story.

I've only ever seen the 'you' narration used successfully in one other book, not surprisingly a stalker story, and thought it was used to great effect here.

Mark Meadows, as ever, makes a good 'middle class' sounding narrator of the audiobook, with a clear and benign English accent that suits Terence well and brings out the slowly escalating drama of his situation. I'd recommend this as an audio read.

With thanks to Nudge Books for the sample Audible copy.

Oh so disturbing...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I love Matt Haig but struggled to finish this mainly because I think the character paired with the performance felt very real and it unnerved me a little - so make what you will of that! The story itself was a little hard to follow and I think I would have preferred a paper copy to flick back in to get the details straight in my head.

Great characterisation

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