The Ruins
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The Ruins
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Narrated by:
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Dora Davis
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By:
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Phoebe Wynne
About this listen
Behind every strong woman is a girl who survived....
Amidst the glamour of the French Riviera lies the crumbling façade of Chateau de Sètes, a small slice of France still held by the British aristocracy. But this long since abandoned chateau is now up for sale, and two people are desperate to get their hands on it despite its terrible history.
Summer, 1985: Ruby has stayed at the chateau with her family every summer of her 12 years. It was her favourite place to be, away from the strictures of her formal childhood, but this year uninvited guests have descended and everything is about to change....
As the intense August heat cloaks the chateau, the adults within start to lose sight of themselves. Old disputes are thrown back and forth, tempers rise, morals loosen and darkness begins to creep around them all. Ruby and her two young friends soon discover it is best not to be seen or heard as the summer spirals down to one fateful night and an incident that can never be undone....
Summer, 2010: one of the three young girls, now grown and newly widowed, returns to the chateau, and in her fight to free herself from its grip, she uncovers what truly happened that long, dark summer.
With riveting psychological complexity, The Ruins captures the glittering allure of the Mediterranean and the dark shadows that wait beneath the surface.
©2022 Phoebe Wynne (P)2022 Quercus Editions LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"I was completely transported by The Ruins. Phoebe Wynne has evocatively rendered a beautiful, doomed French chateau while creating immersive, almost dream-like atmospherics. I loved this novel." (Sarah Pearse, best-selling author of The Sanatorium)
What listeners say about The Ruins
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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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
- Nicks
- 22-07-22
A thought provoking and engaging book
The reader is drawn into the lives of 4 families who are all long-time friends and holiday together in France. But it’s not a superficial holiday drama; there is so much occurring that is not spoken about. Whether you like the individual characters or not, each play a part to create a drama that feels real and intimate - and is not easily forgotten when the book is finished. The narration is superb. And I have found a new favourite author.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nesscafé
- 01-02-24
Oh dear
The story itself is so beautifully crafted. A very different kind of tension was built in this book; the characters were well-crafted and I enjoyed the two time periods across which the story is told. Unapologetically, it’s very much like a modern Greek myth from the female perspective.
Now, I don’t know if it’s the performer/ editor/ producer who takes the heat for this but there are several mispronunciations “FOILage” is said a few times rather than foliage, I-THACK-a rather than I-thur-ka (Ithaca); characters are largely indistinguishable and the one character who does have a slightly different accent, at one point in the book, loses that accent altogether; the reader continually sucks air through her teeth when speaking in character (multiple characters have this trait); emphasis is placed in unusual parts of sentences so as to render some meaningless. All of these things got in the way of what was otherwise a really great novel, which is incredibly frustrating.
Sections of this book should be re-recorded to do the author’s work justice.
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