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  • Relative Fortunes

  • A Julia Kydd Novel, Book 1
  • By: Marlowe Benn
  • Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
  • Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
  • 3.4 out of 5 stars (5 ratings)

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Relative Fortunes

By: Marlowe Benn
Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
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Summary

In 1920s New York, the price of a woman’s independence can be exorbitant - even fatal.

In 1924 Manhattan, women’s suffrage is old news. For sophisticated booklover Julia Kydd, life’s too short for politics. With her cropped hair and penchant for independent living, Julia wants only to publish books under her own imprint. But as a woman, Julia must fight for what’s hers - including the inheritance her estranged half brother, Philip, has challenged, putting her aspirations in jeopardy.

When her friend’s sister, Naomi Rankin, dies suddenly of an apparent suicide, Julia is shocked at the wealthy family’s indifference toward the ardent suffragist’s death. Naomi chose poverty and hardship over a submissive marriage and a husband’s control of her money. Now, her death suggests the struggle was more than she could bear.

Julia, however, is skeptical. Doubtful of her suspicions, Philip proposes a glib wager: if Julia can prove Naomi was in fact murdered, he’ll drop his claims to her wealth. Julia soon discovers Naomi’s life was as turbulent and enigmatic as her death. And as she gets closer to the truth, Julia sees there’s much more at stake than her inheritance....

©2019 by Margaret L. Benton. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
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Critic reviews

“[A] stylish debut... The author effectively shows the casual discrimination against women at the time. Benn is off to a promising start.” --Publishers Weekly

“Set in the 1920s and framed by the quest for women’s rights and details about publishing and printing, this satisfying historical mystery includes a smart, feisty heroine and numerous plot twists.” --Booklist

“Fans of Agatha Christie novels will love this clever murder mystery, with a cast of suspects to keep readers guessing. Julia Kydd’s endeavour is entertaining and engaging to the end.” --Gemma Liviero, international bestselling author of historical fiction

What listeners say about Relative Fortunes

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Tedious

I got 3 hours into this story and found it tedious. There seemed to be too many diversions into descriptions of art/literature for my taste. If the story was tightened by reducing it to ~70% of its length, it might be a reasonably good listen, but I've lost patience with it. Unfortunately, the experience was decidedly worsened by the narrator. She seemed to rush the delivery without a pause between sentences and paragraphs and with little inflection. Also, there was no distinction between the story and the diversions so that one was left wondering where one finished and the other started. This made it difficult to follow the thread of the story, particularly when doing something else whilst listening. I'll be returning it.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Very good story minus the random tangents

It took a little while to get into this story but once there I really enjoyed it. The setting, the mystery and the characters were very well created. The reason I couldn't give it 5 stars is due to the often long-winded tangents the story went off on. I found myself skipping through a lot of unnecessary descriptions of printing presses and fonts!! It didn't add anything to the story other than time.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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good overall

took a while to get into it, found narration a little flat. however an interesting listen.

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