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How It All Began

A Novel

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How It All Began

By: Penelope Lively
Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
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About this listen

When Charlotte is mugged and breaks her hip, her daughter, Rose, cannot accompany her employer, Lord Peters, to Manchester, which means his niece, Marion, has to go instead, which means she sends a text to her lover which is intercepted by his wife, which is…just the beginning of the ensuing chain of life-altering events.

In this engaging, utterly absorbing and brilliantly told novel, Penelope Lively shows us how one random event can cause marriages to fracture and heal themselves, opportunities to appear and disappear, lovers who might never have met to find each other, and entire lives to become irrevocably changed.

©2011 Penelope Lively (P)2012 Isis Publishing Ltd Fiction Literary Fiction Marriage

Critic Reviews

" Whatever your age, How It All Began is a splendid tonic." ( Telegraph)
"A sublime storyteller." ( Guardian)

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Profile Image for Gerard Neiditsch

Late work of an aged author

I found it difficult to get into the predictable plot. Some (female) protagonists much stronger than most of the men.

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