Desiree: The Bestselling Story of Napoleon's First Love
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Desiree: The Bestselling Story of Napoleon's First Love
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Narrated by:
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Nicole Quinn
About this listen
To be young, in France, and in love....
Fourteen-year-old Desiree can't believe her good fortune. Her fiance, the dashing and ambitious Napoleon Bonaparte, is poised for battlefield success, and no longer will she be just a French merchant's daughter. She could not have known the twisting path her role in history would take, nearly breaking her vibrant heart but sweeping her to a life rich in passion and desire.
A love story, but so much more, Desiree explores the landscape of a young heart torn in two, giving listeners a compelling true story of an ordinary girl whose unlikely brush with history leads to a throne no one would have expected.
An epic best seller that has earned both critical acclaim and mass adoration, Desiree is at once a novel of the rise and fall of empires, the blush and fade of love, and the heart and soul of a woman.
©1953 Annemarie Selinko (P)2012 Nicole QuinnListeners also enjoyed...
![Emma [Naxos Edition] cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519lrG-hG-L._SL240_.jpg)
Critic reviews
What listeners say about Desiree: The Bestselling Story of Napoleon's First Love
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
- MumsieWumsie
- 02-11-12
Favourite Story, but listen to the sample first!
Let me start by saying that the story itself gets 5 stars from me - this has been one of my favourite books since I first read it aged about 15, (more years ago than I care to remember) and I think I learned more about this period in history from this book than from any other source.
I was delighted to see it on Audible so bought it with my next credit. Whilst I still very much enjoy the story, I find the narrator's voices/accents irritating, so much so that they detract from my enjoyment. I'm sure this is a personal thing, there will be many of you who don't find it so, but do listen to the sample first to see if you have the same problem. It is for this reason that I've only given it 3 stars - I'd give it two, but I'd hate anyone to think it's not a good story when it is!!
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Roni
- 20-04-24
One of my favourite books of all time
It was wonderful to revisit one of my all time favourite books, prompted by my almost 11-year-old daughter discovering my old battered paperback copy and falling in love with it just as I had many years ago…
The narration is satisfactory, even if in places not what I imagined while reading the book myself so many times in the past.
The story is a wonderful retelling of some of the best known historical events in Europe from a perspective of someone who was often central to those events, while often oblivious to their significance or on the other hand painfully aware of it.
And I would heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a bit of romance, drama, intrigue and a happy-ish ending on the background of historical events.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Lucy Swanton
- 13-06-20
Nice story
l read this book many, many years ago... l was really looking forward to listen to it, but was a bit disappointed with the narration which put a damper on my expectations.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lisa
- 07-07-14
Good story - shame about the narrator
Would you consider the audio edition of Desiree: The Bestselling Story of Napoleon's First Love to be better than the print version?
I prefer the book version of the story, only because the narration of this book tended to spoil the story. I appreciate at the beginning that Desiree was young, but the narrator became increasingly childlike throughout the book.
Did Nicole Quinn do a good job differentiating each of the characters? How?
A different narrator would have made a better job, when she stopped the whiny accent of desiree and spoke more normally it became easier on the listener.
Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I have loved this book since I first read it and knowing it was based on real events (although the author has taken some liberties) just made it more interesting.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Pollyanna
- 14-08-13
Le français pronounced in anglais
I've liked this book since I first read it in my teens. Sadly, the narrator does not seem to have the faintest notion of French, and her mis-pronunciations are grating on the ear. The Duc d'Enghien comes out as the Duc d'Enghine, and "le jour de gloire" becomes the "jour de glory". These are just two instances. I did listen to the whole book, but would welcome the chance of hearing it properly read.
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4 people found this helpful