Cursed Bread
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Cursed Bread
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Narrated by:
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Genevieve Gaunt
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
From the Booker-nominated author of The Water Cure and Blue Ticket comes a chilling feminist fable, based on the true story of an unsolved historical mystery...
If you eat the bread, you'll die, he said. The statement made no sense, but it filled me with an electric dread.
Elodie is the baker's wife. A plain, unremarkable person, largely ignored by her husband and everyone else, she burns with the secret hunger to be extraordinary, to be desired, to be seen. One day a charismatic new couple appear in town - the ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet - and Elodie quickly falls under their spell. All summer long she stalks them through the shining streets: inviting herself into their home, trying to decipher their coded conversations, longing to possess them at any cost.
Meanwhile, beneath the tranquil surface of daily life, strange things are happening. Six horses are found dead in a sun-drenched field, laid out neatly on the ground like an offering. Widows see their lost husbands walking up the river in the night, coming back to claim them. A teenage boy throws himself into the bonfire at the midsummer feast. A dark intoxication is spreading through the town, and when Elodie finally understands her role in it, it will be too late to stop.
Audacious and mesmerising, Cursed Bread is a fevered confession, an entry into memory's hall of mirrors, a fable of obsession and transformation. Sophie Mackintosh spins a darkly gleaming tale of a town gripped by hysteria, envy like poison in the blood, and desire that burns and consumes.
©2023 Sophie Mackintosh (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"Sensuous and haunted, like Madame Bovary reworked as a ghost story - an incredible book about desire, pleasure, beauty. Sophie's fiction always has a gauzy quality, filled with strange, languid images, which rise to a narrative crescendo like clues in a detective novel. She makes it look effortless." (Jo Hamya, author of Three Rooms)
"Intoxicating, sumptuous and savage, Cursed Bread has a gothic sensibility that is entirely original. In Mackintosh's hands, the strange, compulsive machinations of desire become luminous and ghastly all at once." (Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine)
"Her writing is so sleek, the characters mysterious and yet indelible - a taut, seductive, thrilling gem of a novel." (Olivia Sudjic, author of Asylum Road)
What listeners say about Cursed Bread
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 19-03-23
Disturbing and dark.
This book was just not for me. I find it too dark. Long story short: schizophrenic mind of a woman eroticizing her neighbours. Then there is bread; presumably it's poisoned.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 21-03-23
Bewildering dream-like implausible story
The narration flows and carries you along until suddenly you realise that maybe you missed something as the story lurches from one thing to another becoming increasingly more implausible and strange. On re-reading you discover that no you didn’t miss anything and the narration is meandering and dreamy, becoming dark at times and almost directionless. Not my ideal read.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- FreakyLizard
- 21-11-23
Don't Bother
Bizarre story, rambley, over indulgent by author at times, and just... Weird! The narrator was good, but I wouldn't recommend this book.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Celia
- 08-03-23
Intense, evocative, intriguing.
Intense and uncomfortable at times, this novel gives richness to the inner life of its complex main character and confidently unveils a twisted story and a bitter outcome. kept me gripped.
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2 people found this helpful
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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
- Kindle Customer
- 24-01-24
A book to make you stop and think.
I think this is a book where the reader has to look beneath the surface narrative to the mirrored narrative submerged bellow the water line. It is also about appetites of various types, and how trauma can affect both individual.
I very much enjoyed the language of this novel and can highly recommend the audiobook the narrator does a wonderful job.
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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
- Amazon Customer
- 14-02-24
incredible
I loved this... the style and how you can imagine the world and mystery based on the knowledge you are given.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Rosa
- 04-11-23
Waste of my time
Wasted 3 hours of my life trying to follow along with this meandering and nonsensical plot.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- BookGeek
- 02-12-23
Beautiful fever dream
A fever dream of a novel, with an unreliable narrator recounting her experiences of what happened when a mysterious couple moved to the neighbourhood. Beautiful prose and a fast, captivating pace. If you like unusual writing styles and getting caught up in the journey rather than basic plots then this is for you. I listened on audio and then read the hard copy as some of the prose was too delicious not to go back and savour.
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