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.
Park Lane cover art

Park Lane

By: Frances Osborne
Narrated by: Jane Collingwood
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 £13.00

Buy Now for £13.00

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.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Oceans Between Us cover art
A Mad, Wicked Folly cover art
We That Are Left cover art
White Feathers cover art
White Gardenia cover art
The Four Last Things cover art
Past Encounters cover art
The Shifting Fog [also published under the alternate title The House at Riverton] cover art
The English German Girl cover art
Wildflower Hill cover art
Bleeding Heart Square cover art
East of the Sun cover art
In the Dark cover art
The Lost Letters cover art

Summary

Bea treads carefully on the thick carpet, quite deliberately like a servant. Her elder sister, Clemmie, tells her that it is "not done" to worry about being heard but Bea enjoys this oh-so-silent rebellion against convention. She teases back, "This is the twentieth century, Clem, things are about to change." London, 1914. Two young women dream of breaking free from tradition and obligation; they know that suffragettes are on the march and that war looms, but at 35 Park Lane, Lady Masters, head of a dying industrial dynasty, insists that life is about service and duty. Below stairs, housemaid Grace Campbell is struggling. Her family in Carlisle believes she is a high earning secretary, but she has barely managed to get work in service - something she keeps even from her adored brother. Asked to send home more money than she earns, Grace is in trouble.

As third housemaid she waits on Miss Beatrice, the youngest daughter of the house, who, fatigued with the social season, is increasingly drawn into Mrs Pankhurst's captivating underground world of militant suffragettes. Soon Bea is playing a dangerous game that will throw her in the path of a man her mother wouldn't let through the front door. Then war comes and it is not just their secrets - now on a collision course - that will change their lives for good.

Brilliantly capturing a deeply fascinating period of British life in which the normal boundaries of behaviour were overturned and the social hierarchy could no longer be taken for granted, Park Lane is as gripping and intense as Frances Osborne's number one bestselling The Bolter.

©2012 Frances Osborne (P)2012 Hachette Digital

What listeners say about Park Lane

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    5
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1

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

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Couldn't get into it

Was disappointed with this book as I had previously enjoyed The Bolter by the same author. I found the narrater poor and thought her reading did not help.
I'm afraid I abandoned it.

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
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring

I bought this book based on a newspaper article. I found the storyline boring, This was disapointing as there appeared to be so much scope for an interesting story.

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

one of the most boring books I've come across.

Having plodded my way through half of this book I too have abandoned it.
I find the narrator's voice really irritating.

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

slow starter but worth the wait

It took me a while to get really get caught up in the stories of Bea and Grace - but I think the writing improves considerably as the book progresses and I felt genuinely sorry when it came to an end. This is indeed a fascinating insight into a changing world and the use of the somewhat weak willed Bea - who is so very much a product of the old ways - to reflect the suffrage movement is quite clever. Certainly Bea does not start out with any high ideals or militant tendencies but her gradual awareness of the real world and how her place in it might perhaps not have to be as pre-ordained does gradually captivate.
The two prongs of the suffrage movement shown through Mrs Pankhurst and Bea's own mother I also found very interesting. Well worth a listen.


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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!