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Waiting for Sunrise

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Waiting for Sunrise

By: William Boyd
Narrated by: Jack Rowan
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Vienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor, sits in the waiting room of the city's preeminent psychiatrist as he anxiously ponders the particularly intimate nature of his neurosis. When the enigmatic, intensely beautiful Hettie Bull walks in, Lysander is immediately drawn to her, unaware of how destructive the consequences of their subsequent affair will be. One year later, home in London, Lysander finds himself entangled in the dangerous web of wartime intelligence - a world of sex, scandal and spies that is slowly, steadily permeating every corner of his life....

©2012 William Boyd (P)2020 Penguin Audio 20th Century Historical Fiction World War I Fiction England

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All stars
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I’m a fan of William Boyd ( Any Human Heart is terrific ) but this book was ruined by the narrator’s complete lack of ability to do any accents at all apart from cockney, to vary the the different characters voices ( one was so grating it hurt to listen to him ) and finally he couldn’t actually pronounce words. Quadrangle became quandrangle and he pronounced the ‘ l ‘ in Folkestone to name two of many. It did distract from the story when the narrator couldn’t actually read or got the emphasis on the wrong syllable of a word.

Interesting story ruined by awful narration

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The story would have been enjoyable, I think - but the narrator’s insistence of not pronouncing any ‘Ts’ completely spoiled it for me and I couldn’t get past the first chapter. I’m afraid good English pronunciation for audible is essential to my enjoyment of the books.

Poor narration

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Solid story by Boyd, but absolutely ruined by a narrator who constantly mispronounces words, doesn’t seem to know how to pronounce common English place names like Winchelsea and Folkestone and speaks throughout in a completely inappropriate Estuary English drawl full of glottal stops.

That type of read might be appropriate for a modern novel set among ‘the yoof’ of Sarf London, but it’s a disaster for a story set in Edwardian England.

Audible - can you refund my credit please: it was simply impossible to enjoy this book given the awfulness of the reading.

Ruined by awful narration

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I'm very much enjoying william Boyd's books at the moment and this one did not disappoint. It has his signature blend of recreating an image of a particular place and time in your in your memory (here Vienna, London and Geneva 1913-15) whilst filling it with interesting characters and language that is a pleasure to read/listen to.

Jack Rowan does a good job overall and he has a nice voice. His English accents are great, but foreign pronunciations need some work. Quite refreshing to have a novel like Boyd's narrated in a cockney twang.

Very enjoyable.

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I’m confident that a 1910s West End actor would not have lost his ‘t’s in the middle of quite so many words. And I'm sure he'd know how to pronounce Folkestone. Perfect for a Nick Hornby but very, very distracting here. Ultimately made it almost impossible to suspend disbelief.

Spoiled by t glottalisation and mispronunciation

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