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The Darling Girls

By: Emma Burstall
Narrated by: Laura Kirman
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Summary

When the world-famous conductor Leo Bruck dies suddenly, the three women who loved him meet for the first time at his graveside. Victoria, his partner of 20 years and mother of two of his children; Maddy, mother of Leo's daughter Phoebe; and 24-year-old Cat. Can these three very different women, whose lives become inextricably bound, break free from the masterful control Leo exerts - even from the grave?

©2013 Emma Burstall (P)2014 W F Howes Ltd
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Critic reviews

"Smart, funny and poignant" (Daily Mirror)
"I couldn't put it down. I loved this honest, absorbing story. A terrific read." (Lorraine Kelly)

What listeners say about The Darling Girls

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

Poor narrator

I gave up on the narrator when she pronounced violin bow as violin bough! Her mispronunciations were scattered throughout the story. Please narrators and producers, if you’re American pretending to be English, do your homework. Some of our words , especially names, have pronunciations that definitely come out of left field. If you’re actually English, shame on you. Go back to school!
The story was nice. I listened to it quite happily though I was expecting more music than it contained. The great conductor could have been an actor or an MP. His profession played little part.

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

A lovely...

storyline with some amazing characters and antics within the book. The narrator was very good at using different voices for the characters.

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

Great plot, despite the reader.

Nice and unusual plot with complicated and believable characters.
However, the book was ruined by the narrator who clearly hadn't a clue or cared what she was reading, she read the whole book, dead pan, like a badly punctuated shopping list.
I'll make sure to avoid her in future.

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

Lovely read

Fast becoming one of my favourite authors, it feels like you really know the characters and they could be you’re friends

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

Good Chick Lit

Good chick lit, but still very much chick lit. Too many descriptions of clothes and make-up. I think it would have been better if it about 20% of the detail had been left out. The story was good and the characters engaging and in it's entirety it was uplifting. But I found myself getting annoyed by some of the irrelevant detail and endless descriptions of looks, hair and clothes.

The narrator has a lovely voice and does accents pretty well, apart from the poor Turkish kebab shop owner who sounded like a caricature of a chinese take-away owner. The problem I had with the narration was one I find all too common in some of the younger readers. She reads the book without first understanding where the sentence is going, therefore pauses in all the wrong places. Though I found it quite frustrating after a while, it wasn't enough to spoil the book for me.

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6 people found this helpful

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

The darling girls

A bit long winded and not a good ending - Shame as it started so well !

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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A Page Turner

This is the second time I have listened to this book. Harry Potter is the only other ones for me to do this. Story kept you engaged and wanting to know what would be the fall out as situations occurred and new information came to light.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Appalling Narrator

I’m persevering with this as having bought it in a sale I’m stuck with it since Audible’s ‘returns’ rule change
I wish I’d read the reviews first though. This narrator has the weirdest delivery, stressing the wrong words in a sentence and changing the whole sense of a phrase. So many mistakes in pronunciation already and I’m only a couple of hours in.
I’m just hoping that as the story develops I’ll be able to get past the awful narration.

Really though, does no one at the publishing house listen to check on the narrators they’re using?

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