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Family Likeness

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Family Likeness

By: Caitlin Davies
Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins, Vivien Rochester
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About this listen

In a small Kent town in the 1950s, a bewildered little girl is growing up. Ostracised because of her colour, she tries her best to fit in, but nobody wants anything to do with her.

A nanny climbs the steps of a smart London address. She’s convinced that her connection to the family behind the door is more than professional.

And on the walls of an English stately home, amongst the family portraits, hangs an eighteenth-century oil painting of a mysterious black woman in a silk gown.

In ways both poignant and unexpected, the three lives are intertwined in a heartbreaking story of prejudice and motherless children, of chances missed, of war time secrets and the search for belonging...

 Contemporary Fiction Family Life Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Small Town & Rural Women's Fiction

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Critic reviews

A beautiful story of family and loss. Haunting and compelling. (Lisa Jewell)
A quickly engaging domestic mystery … gently ingenious
Davies is an unfussy and intelligent storyteller with a gift for translating the complexities of ordinary lives into novelistic form
This moving tale of life-long searches and accountability will pull at the heart strings
An absorbing, beautifully-written and very topical novel … Part mystery-novel, part historical, it is both readable and entertaining. (Amanda Craig, author of Hearts and Minds)
Family Likeness is a story of prejudice, war, secrets and the search to belong, which follows parallel stories of a child growing up in 18th century Kenwood House, and another in a 1950s children’s home.
A thoughtful and involving look at the social consequences of race and illegitimacy and how one’s need for a place to belong never really goes away. (Sarah Johnson)
A suspenseful novel. Muriel’s story, infused with the sadness of growing up not knowing why her parents abandoned her, has a ripple effect throughout the lives of the other characters ... culminating is some remarkable and moving scenes.
Family Likeness is a fascinating story, and a moving exploration of issues of race, family and belonging.
A mix of compelling family story, exquisite historical detail and layers of mystery, this is a very satisfying novel indeed. One of this summer’s must reads!
All stars
Most relevant

Would you try another book written by Caitlin Davies or narrated by Penelope Rawlin and Vivien Rochester ?

Yes I would try another book both by writer and narrators. There were flaws but overall they all have promise/talent

Would you be willing to try another book from Caitlin Davies? Why or why not?

I would like to try another book by Caitlin Davies as, overall, I think she is a good writer. Personally, I was just disappointed in the rather contrived and rather unbelievable series of events in the last third of the book. Therefore it would be interesting to listen/read another book written by this author to see if my opinion was likely to change.

Have you listened to any of Penelope Rawlin and Vivien Rochester ’s other performances? How does this one compare?

No, that was my first experience of listening to both of these narrators. They were both very good but I heartily disliked the child " Ella" and I'm not sure if this was because of the way the narrator spoke her lines. She came across as an extremely obnoxious child yet the storyline did not indicate this personality.

Did Family Likeness inspire you to do anything?

Perhaps to seek out another of the authors works to see if I'm going to be a regular listener.

Any additional comments?

I felt this book had huge potential and this was fulfilled in lots of ways. The style of writing. The interwoven storylines. Two good narrators. Yet, in the end I felt somewhat disappointed. It is difficult to review without giving away the storyline but towards the end I just found it all rather unbelievable that things happened the way they did. Also a little too contrived and full of coincidences for my liking.

Promising start does not fulfill

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