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The Whalebone Theatre
- Narrated by: Olivia Vinall
- Length: 18 hrs and 23 mins
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The Whalebone Theatre
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Publisher's Summary
Brought to you Penguin.
'Maudie, why are all the best characters men?'
Maudie closes the book with a clllump. 'We haven't read all the books yet, Miss Cristabel. I can't believe that every story is the same.'
Cristabel Seagrave has always wanted her life to be a story, but there are no girls in the books in her dusty family library. For an unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, there is no place at all for her in a traditional English manor.
But from the day that a whale washes up on the beach at the Chilcombe estate in Dorset, and 12-year-old Cristabel plants her flag and claims it as her own, she is determined to do things differently.
With her step-parents blithely distracted by their endless party guests, Cristabel and her siblings, Flossie and Digby, scratch together an education from the plays they read in their freezing attic, drunken conversations eavesdropped through oak-panelled doors, and the esoteric lessons of Maudie their maid.
But as the children grow to adulthood and war approaches, jolting their lives on to very different tracks, it becomes clear that the roles they are expected to play are no longer those they want. As they find themselves drawn into the conflict, they must each find a way to write their own story....
What listeners say about The Whalebone Theatre
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- rae murphy
- 04-04-2023
Loved this so much!!
What a beautifully written story. Loved every minute of this wonderful book! I Highly recommend it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 25-06-2022
A must read
exquisite writing and deeply insightful. Her use of language is breathtaking. The narrator is perfect.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Helen Engstrom
- 11-02-2023
18 hours and 23 minutes of lyrical beauty
As soon as I finished this beautiful book I went to the beginning and started again. The action moves from 1919 to, other than an epilogue, the end of the Second World War. Such an interesting period in history, told through the Seagrave children. The idea and portrait of the whalebone theatre is so evocative, and the experiences and fates of the children a story that illustrates a pivotal moment in time. A wonderful book
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Deirdre E Siegel
- 07-07-2023
Beautiful
Life from a perspective very few consider until… when the real world arrives, where the realization of preparation lacked a reality check, while the example setters played at normality.
A chance glimpse of living being made with poetic license.
Brilliant collection of words Joanna Quinn narrated eloquently by Olivia Vinall, very much appreciated ladies. :-)
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-01-2023
The whalebone theatre
I loved it ..a delightful mix of darling buds of mat and the secret garden.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- David Cooke
- 08-01-2023
Wonderfully evocative writing
I loved the rich use of language describing place and person equally evocatively. There are some brilliant and original similies. It is a long book but beautifully read (6 stars if I could) and at one point I felt it might have been better as two novels; childhood and war. Both would stand well alone but the magical weaving of threads reaches a satisfying conclusion. It would be most interesting to read the onward journey of this unusual family. I was intrigued about the detail of Christobel’s SOE training. The book I read immediately before The Whalebone Theatre was Giles Milton’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,‘essentially an embellished non-fiction account of just such training of operatives. The Home Counties mansion, the Scottish Manse with ex-China police as instructors was correct in all its detail, as indeed so many of the period minutiae of the period. What thorough ‘homework’ Ms Quinn must have undertaken. Thoroughly recommend and I eagerly await her next novel
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anne P
- 06-09-2023
Breathtakingly beautiful
18 hours of listening pleasure! Superb novel beautifully presented and outstandingly read. Just loved it!
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