Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
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.
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.
The Readers of the Broken Wheel Recommend cover art

The Readers of the Broken Wheel Recommend

By: Katarina Bivald
Narrated by: Lorelei King, Fiona Hardingham
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£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

The international best seller. Sara is 28 and has never been outside Sweden - except in the (many) books she reads. When her elderly penfriend, Amy, invites her to come and visit her in Broken Wheel, Iowa, Sara decides it’s time.

But when she arrives, there’s a twist waiting for her - Amy has died. Finding herself utterly alone in a dead woman’s house in the middle of nowhere was not the holiday Sara had in mind. But Sara discovers she is not exactly alone. For here in this town so broken it’s almost beyond repair are all the people she’s come to know through Amy’s letters: poor George, fierce Grace, buttoned-up Caroline and Amy’s guarded nephew, Tom.

Sara quickly realises that Broken Wheel is in desperate need of some adventure, a dose of self-help and perhaps a little romance, too. In short this is a town in need of a bookshop.

©2013 Katarina Bivald. English translation copyright © Alice Menzies 2015 (P)2015 Random House Audiobooks

What listeners say about The Readers of the Broken Wheel Recommend

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    16
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    13
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2

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

Chasing

A delight for bookworms & fans of humorous, intelligent chick-lit. With some sly observation about the U.S./Europe thrown in.

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 book for anyone who loves books or life or both

This is a wonderful romantic comedy about books, small town America, books, friendship, books, love, books and how to live a life worth reading about.

At the centre of the book is Sara, a gentle, perceptive young woman from Sweden who has fallen in love with books but has never really succeeded in engaging with people, except for Amy, her pen-friend in the USA with whom she corresponds about books and life and the meaning of both. Through Amy’s letters Sara learns about the small town of Broken Wheel and the people who live in it and a new urge strikes her: to go out into the world and experience things for herself.

Sarah arrives in the USA for her long-planned visit with Amy, only to find that her friend has died. The people of Broken Wheel insist that Amy would have wanted her to stay and move her in to Amy’s house.

What follows is a delightful story of the world as I would like it to be, where good people help each other to be better people and books expand people’s imaginations and unlock their hearts.

The is a perfectly balanced romantic comedy with lots of funny moments and quite a few moments of “Oh, I hope this doesn’t all go badly wrong” angst. The people in the book are described with compassion and without judgement.

Books are also important characters in this novel. I found myself saying hi to many old friends and being reminded of how much fun it is to meet someone who likes the same books as I do but has a few new ones to recommend. At one point in the story, Sara is sitting surrounded by Amy’s books. She’s supposed to be sorting them but ends up dipping into each of them. Sara quotes from half a dozen books without naming them and I realized I’d read all but one. Like Sara, I’ve often found myself surrounded by books and being so dazzled by them that I can’t move on.

“The Readers Of Broken Wheel Recommend” makes an excellent audiobook.Fiona Hardingham, the main narrator, does a great job in setting the tone of the book. She is particularly good at giving the characters distinctive and appropriate voices. Lorelei King, is the voice of Amy in the letters to that punctuate the novel and change our perception of Sara and the people of Broken Wheel.

This book made my laugh and cry. It made me think about the balance between reading and doing and about how both of them count as living. Most of all, it left me wanting to move to Broken Wheel and take all my books with me.

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

New Romantic

Where does The Readers of the Broken Wheel Recommend rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Midway, not my usual escapism.

What did you like best about this story?

Author's love of books.

What does Lorelei King and Fiona Hardingham bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

An interesting two-hander. Worked well when I became used to it. Do not feel that the narration was so unique though.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Dreadful narration and terribly boring.

The narration in this book was terrible - the accents were embarrassingly bad and led to me returning the book. The story was also very. ery dull.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful