Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

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.

Triflers Need Not Apply

By: Camilla Bruce
Narrated by: Natalie Naudus, Stacey Glemboski
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

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.

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

The deliciously dark reimagining of the life and times of history's original female serial killer.

Belle Sorensen loves men. She loves them to death....

Early in life Belle Sorensen discovers the world is made only for men. They own everything: jobs, property, wives. But Belle understands what few others do: where women are concerned, men are weak.

A woman unhampered by scruples can take from them what she wants. And so Belle sets out to prove to the world that a woman can be just as ruthless, black-hearted and single-minded as any man.

Starting with her long suffering husband, Mads, Belle embarks on a killing spree the like of which has never been seen before nor since.

And through it all her kind, older sister Nellie can only watch in horror as Belle's schemes to enrich herself and cut down the male population come to a glorious, dreadful fruition....

Based on the true story of Belle Gunness, whose murderous rampage began in Chicago in 1900, Triflers Need Not Apply is a novelistic tour de force exploring one woman's determination to pay men back for all they have taken.

©2021 Camilla Bruce (P)2021 Penguin Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

People of Abandoned Character cover art
The Winter Spirits cover art
Emily's House cover art
The Winter People cover art
The Toll House cover art
December Girl cover art
Our Darkest Night cover art
Pearl of Pit Lane cover art
Pit Bank Wench cover art
A Home for Unloved Orphans cover art
The School Mistress cover art
Isabelle's Choice cover art
A Love Forbidden cover art
Banished cover art
The Forgotten Home Child cover art
The Whore's Tale: Sarah cover art

What listeners say about Triflers Need Not Apply

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    16
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    27
  • 4 Stars
    10
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    23
  • 4 Stars
    11
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1

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

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

Natalie Naudus is an awesome narrator

Awesome and magical story, great narration. So good, relatable, entertaining and enjoyable. Thank you Camila Bruce.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

A Concoction of Truth and Rumour

I enjoy a good bit of historical fiction, especially the enthralling type based on fact (albeit very loosely in this case). This story by Carmilla Bruce is all about real-life serial killer Belle Gunness of USA fame, and boy is she just one big ball of feminine rage. I loved everything about this concoction of truth and rumour. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Absolutely Gripping & Amazing Narration

Couldn’t wait to listen to this each day, cleverly written & one of the next books I’ve listened to in a while.

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
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A binge-worthy listen

I really liked this book and listened to the entire thing over two days. Excellent writing and a great interpretation of real life historical events.

My only criticism is that the two narrators have similar voices so I got a bit lost at the beginning. Plus, the narrator for Belle seemed to use pretty much the same voice for every male character and it spunded like what I'd interpret as a bit of a 'sexy' voice which was quite distracting at first but I got used to it.

Worth a listen and an enjoyable story. I hope Camilla Bruce releases more books in the future.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

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

brilliant

enjoyed this so much, really riveting novel, different plot that i really did enjoy, original ideas

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

Possibly the best book I've listened to...

...during lockdown. Harrowing, grim and heartbreaking all in one. The author deftly combines revulsion and compassion for the main character, whilst tying in life as an immigrant and social prejudice. Narrators did a good job, perfectly portraying fear, anxiety, pride, anger and loss in their readings.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

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

Gripping fact-based female serial-killer story

Gripping based-on-truth female serial killer story.

I was caught up in this from the first. Based on a true account of a female serial killer, the path she will later follow isn't immediately obvious to the reader, but we build with first-person and her sister's soft-hearted observations to a place where murder is excused and explained away.

Brunhilde (interestingly enough, meaning 'battle armour') is a name the main character sheds when she moves to a new life in America. The young woman is lucky to be able to make the journey though, after finding herself with child by the farmer's son... who will not marry her and tries to make sure he does not need to. It's an experience and a scene that changes who this girl is, how she sees men, how she decides she can respond to their treatment of her.

When her sister Nellie pays for Brunhilde (now calling herself Bella) to cross the ocean and start a new life with her, helping with her housework and babies, Nellie no longer sees the innocent girl of the past, but a woman determined to find a better place for herself, using whatever she possesses to reach a place of safety, of security, of a full larder and respectability.

But Bella is not going to let people or problems stand in her way. She hasn't before.

Bella's character is understandable in so many ways. Her craving to always have more food than she actually needs is one I personally understand. Even if I can't explain it myself easily. Alright so the justification to kill a man who isn't perfect may not be one that I can also understand, but her history and mental state do help explain why a woman may have turned into a creature who both felt she had to do this, and wanted to do this.

We needed Nellie's view on Bella's behaviours, to remind ourselves how outside the norm almost everything she does actually was. Her sisterly 'looking away' and justifying her little Brunhilde's actions to herself is at once horrifying (as we know the details) but also so easy to rationalise. Her little sister is trying to make her mark and win in a man's world, with everything against her, and Nellie can't make herself believe all those terrible things her gut is telling her. She herself is a truly honest and upright woman, a counterpoint to Bella, cut from the same cloth but through different paths heading in the polar opposite direction in life, the slow plodding way to contentment.

For fans of bloody gore, you'll get your fill. For fans of (social) history, especially from the female perspective, you will also be spoiled. There's psychology and plenty here for discussion, and definitely a good TV series to be made from this.

And a few moments you might not be expecting. My one qualm was with the Audible version. Two voices, each portraying a sister, were great. But when one sister's voice then 'put on' the voice of the other sister, it sounded totally wrong. Too old and different to the voice given us by the opposing actor. It jarred a little and I wasn't actually sure who they were voicing until it became obvious from the narrative. Aside from that, this worked brilliantly on audio, and I raced through 15 hours in just a few days.

Excellent, evocative storytelling. Horrific, enticing and very convincing as a fictionalised account of a real-life killer.

With thanks to Nudge Books for providing a sample Audible copy, and to Netgalley for the reading copy.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

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

Wow what a book

What an amazing book - I felt a mix of emotions but enjoyed it all - but also cried in parts. Well written

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

A woman after my own heart.

Although very long I did enjoy this audible book. Based on some facts and some fiction it was an interesting story. Certainly not a woman to Trifle with.

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

Triflers Need Not Apply

The first time I heard of Belle Gunness was in episode 52 of Aaron Mahnke's podcast series Lore. (It is available on Audible if you want to check it out).

That was quite some time before I listened to this audio book, but the impression I had of the real woman and the character that was presented in the novel didn't quite fit together. It felt as if the character in the book and the real woman were too far apart for me to really get into the story.

I also found it to be overly long and in truth somewhat repetitive. Some parts of the story dragged on too long.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!