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Ghost Light

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Ghost Light

By: Joseph O'Connor
Narrated by: Marcella Riordan
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About this listen

Dublin 1907, a city of whispered rumours. An actress still in her teens begins an affair with a damaged older man, the leading playwright at the theatre where she works.

Rebellious, irreverent, beautiful, flirtatious, Molly Allgood is a girl of the inner city tenements, dreaming of stardom in America. Witty and watchful, she has dozens of admirers. But in the backstage of her life, there is a secret.

Her lover, John Synge, is a troubled, reticent genius, the son of a once prosperous landowning family, a poet of fiery language and tempestuous passions. Yet his life is hampered by Edwardian conventions and by the austere and God-fearing mother with whom he lives.

©2010 Joseph O'Connor (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Witty

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All stars
Most relevant
During my 10 hours of commuting every week I depend upon audio books to make this torture bearable. This offering of Joseph O'Connor was such a rare pleasure that I immediately set up my player to repeat the pleasure. The language is rich and colourful and many of his metaphors leave me sighing with envy. The characters are rounded and 3-D and wonderfully portrayed by Marcella Riordan. Her rendition of rude Irish is just great.
When I have completed this second hearing I shall buy the book so that I can underline my favourite passages so that I can plagiarise them at will.
This is the best since 'The Book Thief' in my opinion.

Once was not enough!

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Having enjoyed Star of the Sea and Shadowplay, I was looking forward to another historical novel, especially as it was set in the world of theatre.

This book begins, not in the Dublin of 1907, but in a more modern, post WWII world where the protagonist is an elderly, alcoholic, mostly out of work actor. It is interminably tedious. The action cuts between 'then and now', and some of the 'then' is quite interesting, but it's very disjointed, and the more modern parts are so, so boring.

I don't think the narrator could have done much more than she did.

Misleading Synopsis

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Very disappointing! I loved The Star of the Sea by Joeseph O'Connor so had looked forward to listening to Ghost Light. A few well written chapters but the story was disjointed and at times I struggled to understand what was happening. The story jumped back and forward in time which made it very difficult to warm to the characters. I persevered, thinking it would make sense in the end.......wish I hadn't, life is too short to waste on a poor novel.

Ghost Light

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