The Heat of the Day cover art

The Heat of the Day

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Heat of the Day

By: Elizabeth Bowen
Narrated by: Nadia Albina
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

It is wartime London, and the carelessness of people with no future flows through the evening air.

Stella discovers that her lover, Robert, is suspected of selling information to the enemy. Harrison, the British intelligence agent on his trail, wants to bargain, the price for his silence being Stella herself.

Caught between two men and unsure who she can trust, the flimsy structures of Stella's life begin to crumble.

©1948 Elizabeth Bowen (P)2021 Penguin Audio
Classics Fiction Historical Fiction War & Military Military
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Magic Mountain cover art
The Good Soldier cover art
The Heart of the Matter cover art
Mistletoe Malice cover art
The Forsyte Chronicles, Vol. 3: End of the Chapter cover art
Absalom, Absalom! cover art
The Stolen Letter cover art
The Charioteer cover art
Touch Not the Cat cover art
Cold Comfort Farm cover art
The Voyage Out cover art

What listeners say about The Heat of the Day

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing

Congratulations to those who managed to finish this book - I couldn’t. It sounded like such a good story but I found it very tedious and verbose, not helped by the narrator’s flat monotonous delivery.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Dull book and terrible narrator

There are the makings of an interesting plot in this book, but it is broken up by huge sections of incomprehensible language, with endless sentences going nowhere. Many of these just don't make sense even after repeated listens and often seem to be a series of words randomly put together to give the novel some kind of philosophical gravity. The main story of Stella, Robert and Harrison is presumably supposed to be a spy novel, but there are also a number of other sub-plots containing related, but uninteresting characters and with no real significance to the main story. Worst of all is the narrator, who despite a pleasant voice appears to have never looked at the text and to have no idea of where the sentences are going. As a result, words are given the wrong emphasis, are spaced too far apart and the confused language becomes even more difficult to follow. I cannot recommend this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Great novel, badly read

With strange pauses and random emphases it was at times like listening to a satnav voice, pronouncing words without understanding.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic narration

The narrator brilliantly brings Bowen to life, such a natural, lovely voice. Bowen's novel is wordy, cryptic, fantastic.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!