Listen free for 30 days
-
Golden Hill
- Narrated by: Sarah Borges
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £20.89
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Light Perpetual
- By: Francis Spufford
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
November 1944. A German rocket strikes London and five young lives are atomised in an instant. November 1944. That rocket never lands. A single second in time is altered and five young lives go on - to experience all the unimaginable changes of the 20th century. Because maybe there are always other futures. Other chances.
-
-
Bad narration
- By Mr Consumer on 15-02-21
-
The Promise
- By: Damon Galgut
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The many voices of The Promise tell a story in four snapshots, each one centered on a family funeral, each one happening in a different decade. In the background, a different president is in power, and a different spirit hangs over the country, while in the foreground the family fights over what they call their farm, on a worthless piece of land outside Pretoria. Over large jumps in time, people get older, faces and laws and lives all change, while a brother and sister circle around a promise made long ago and never kept....
-
-
Difficult experience
- By #carylreads on 23-07-21
-
A Net for Small Fishes
- By: Lucy Jago
- Narrated by: Sarah Durham
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frances Howard has beauty and a powerful family - and is the most unhappy creature in the world. Anne Turner has wit and talent - but no stage on which to display them. Little stands between her and the abyss of destitution. When these two very different women meet in the strangest of circumstances, a powerful friendship is sparked.
-
-
"The great ones swim away"
- By Rachel Redford on 15-02-21
-
The Censor's Hand
- Book One of the Thrice-Crossed Swords Trilogy
- By: A. M. Steiner
- Narrated by: Michael Troughton
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miranda, one of the 100 adopted daughters of the Dowager Duchess, wants nothing more than to become a master of the cunning arts. But never before has a woman been permitted to wield such power. Jonathan faces ruin. The sails of his mill haven't turned since the Company of Cunning diverted the winds of Bromwich to their advantage. How far will he go to protect his family from destitution and the gangsters? If Daniel, his brother, passes the tests to become a censor, maybe he could protect them. He might even get the chance to make amends for what happened to their sister.
-
-
Starts good, gets better, touches greatness.
- By Harry Frost on 30-06-20
-
The Penny Heart
- By: Martine Bailey
- Narrated by: Charlotte Strevens
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sentenced to death for a simple confidence trick, Mary Jebb escapes the gallows...but her reprieve is harsh: seven years in the unforgiving penal colony of Botany Bay. Yet Mary is determined not to be forgotten, sending two pennies, engraved with a promise, to the two men who sealed her fate.
-
Small Things Like These
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 1 hr and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church. The long-awaited new work from the author of Foster, Small Things Like These is an unforgettable story of hope, quiet heroism and tenderness.
-
-
Stunning
- By Keith on 04-11-21
-
Light Perpetual
- By: Francis Spufford
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
November 1944. A German rocket strikes London and five young lives are atomised in an instant. November 1944. That rocket never lands. A single second in time is altered and five young lives go on - to experience all the unimaginable changes of the 20th century. Because maybe there are always other futures. Other chances.
-
-
Bad narration
- By Mr Consumer on 15-02-21
-
The Promise
- By: Damon Galgut
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The many voices of The Promise tell a story in four snapshots, each one centered on a family funeral, each one happening in a different decade. In the background, a different president is in power, and a different spirit hangs over the country, while in the foreground the family fights over what they call their farm, on a worthless piece of land outside Pretoria. Over large jumps in time, people get older, faces and laws and lives all change, while a brother and sister circle around a promise made long ago and never kept....
-
-
Difficult experience
- By #carylreads on 23-07-21
-
A Net for Small Fishes
- By: Lucy Jago
- Narrated by: Sarah Durham
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frances Howard has beauty and a powerful family - and is the most unhappy creature in the world. Anne Turner has wit and talent - but no stage on which to display them. Little stands between her and the abyss of destitution. When these two very different women meet in the strangest of circumstances, a powerful friendship is sparked.
-
-
"The great ones swim away"
- By Rachel Redford on 15-02-21
-
The Censor's Hand
- Book One of the Thrice-Crossed Swords Trilogy
- By: A. M. Steiner
- Narrated by: Michael Troughton
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miranda, one of the 100 adopted daughters of the Dowager Duchess, wants nothing more than to become a master of the cunning arts. But never before has a woman been permitted to wield such power. Jonathan faces ruin. The sails of his mill haven't turned since the Company of Cunning diverted the winds of Bromwich to their advantage. How far will he go to protect his family from destitution and the gangsters? If Daniel, his brother, passes the tests to become a censor, maybe he could protect them. He might even get the chance to make amends for what happened to their sister.
-
-
Starts good, gets better, touches greatness.
- By Harry Frost on 30-06-20
-
The Penny Heart
- By: Martine Bailey
- Narrated by: Charlotte Strevens
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sentenced to death for a simple confidence trick, Mary Jebb escapes the gallows...but her reprieve is harsh: seven years in the unforgiving penal colony of Botany Bay. Yet Mary is determined not to be forgotten, sending two pennies, engraved with a promise, to the two men who sealed her fate.
-
Small Things Like These
- By: Claire Keegan
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 1 hr and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church. The long-awaited new work from the author of Foster, Small Things Like These is an unforgettable story of hope, quiet heroism and tenderness.
-
-
Stunning
- By Keith on 04-11-21
-
Black Betty
- An Easy Rawlins Mystery
- By: Walter Mosley
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Detective Easy Rawlins returns in a mystery set in 1961 Los Angeles as Easy accepts a job searching for a beautiful woman nicknamed Black Betty who works as a housekeeper in Beverly Hills.
-
-
Facinating
- By Mike on 23-12-12
-
The Hummingbird
- By: Sandro Veronesi, Elena Pala - translator
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Silvia Presente, Victor Vertunni
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marco Carrera is 'the hummingbird', a man with the almost supernatural ability to stay still as the world around him continues to change. As he navigates the challenges of life - confronting the death of his sister and the absence of his brother, taking care of his parents, raising his granddaughter, coming to terms with his love for the enigmatic Luisa - Marco Carrera comes to represent the quiet heroism that pervades so much of our everyday existence.
-
-
Average
- By Amazon Customer on 14-07-21
-
Piranesi
- By: Susanna Clarke
- Narrated by: Chiwetel Ejiofor
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.
-
-
Slow grind, for me
- By indigoblue on 22-10-20
-
Hamnet
- Winner of The Women's Prize for Fiction 2020 - the No. 1 Bestseller
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Daisy Donovan
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.
-
-
Narrator fights writing and wins (sadly)
- By Leaf Green on 20-07-20
-
Crossroads
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 24 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 23rd December 1971 and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless - unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father.
-
-
Good narrator. story too long for my liking.
- By Anonymous User on 11-11-21
-
Mother's Boy
- A Writer's Beginnings
- By: Howard Jacobson
- Narrated by: Howard Jacobson
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Mother's Boy, Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson reveals how he became a writer. It is an exploration of belonging and not-belonging, of being an insider and outsider, both English and Jewish. Full of Jacobson's trademark humour and infused with bittersweet memories of his parents, this is the story of a writer's beginnings - as well as the twists and turns that life takes - and of learning to understand who you are before you can become the writer you were meant to be.
-
-
Benefits from being narrated by the author
- By M. Bellamy on 05-03-22
-
The Alchemist of Souls
- Night's Masque, Book 1
- By: Anne Lyle
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Tudor explorers returned from the New World, they brought back a name out of half-forgotten Viking legend: skraylings. Red-sailed ships followed in the explorers’ wake, bringing Native American goods - and a skrayling ambassador – to London. But what do these seemingly magical beings really want in Elizabeth I’s capital? Mal Catlyn, a down-at-heel swordsman, is appointed to the ambassador’s bodyguard, but assassination attempts are the least of his problems.
-
-
Boring boring boring!!!
- By colin on 28-03-13
-
Great Circle
- By: Maggie Shipstead
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship, to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving over the rugged forests of her childhood, to the thrill of flying Spitfires during the war, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger. In 1950, she embarks on her life's dream - to fly a Great Circle around the globe, pole to pole. But after a crash landing, she finds herself stranded on the Antarctic ice without enough fuel.
-
-
Fly. Fly to the horizon
- By JoolsR on 21-06-21
-
The Slowworm's Song
- By: Andrew Miller
- Narrated by: James Lailey
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic living quietly in Somerset, Stephen Rose has just begun to form a bond with the daughter he barely knows when he receives a summons - to an inquiry into an incident during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It is the return of what Stephen hoped he had outdistanced. Above all, to testify would jeopardise the fragile relationship with his daughter. And if he loses her, he loses everything. Instead, he decides to write her an account of his life: a confession, a defence, a love letter. Also a means of buying time.
-
The American Boy
- By: Andrew Taylor
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1819. Two enigmatic Americans arrive in London and soon after, a bank collapses. A man is found dead on a building site; another goes missing in the teeming stews of Seven Dials. A deathbed vigil ends in an act of theft and a beautiful heiress flirts with her inferiors. A strange destiny links each of these events to the American boy Edgar Allen Poe, brought to England by his foster father and sent to the leafy village of Stoke Newington to be educated.
-
-
Excellent!!
- By blueskythinker on 07-08-08
-
The King's List
- By: Peter Ransley
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What price betrayal? The bloody saga of revolution and republicanism reaches its climax in the final instalment of the Tom Neave trilogy.1659. Tom Neave, now Lord Stonehouse and feared spymaster for the republic, must do what he can to maintain the reins of power. With Oliver Cromwell dead, a ruthless struggle for control of the country begins. A Royalist rebellion is easily put down, but is of concern for Tom - his son Luke is among those imprisoned.
-
Small Pleasures
- By: Clare Chambers
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and - on the brink of 40 - living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys.
-
-
Poignant, thoughtful & beautifully crafted
- By Rachel Redford on 26-07-20
Summary
New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan Island, 1746.
One evening, a handsome young stranger off the boat from England pitches up to a counting house on Golden Hill Street, with a compelling proposition - he has an order for 1,000 pounds in his pocket that he wishes to cash. But can he be trusted? New York is a place where a young man with a fast tongue can reinvent himself, fall in love, and find trouble....
Critic reviews
"The best 18th century novel since the 18th century." (BBC Radio 4)
"A cunningly crafted narrative that, right up to its tour de force conclusion, is alive with tantalising twists and turns.... This is a dazzlingly written novel. Little brilliances of metaphor and phrasing gleam everywhere." ( The Sunday Times)
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about Golden Hill
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- EEL
- 29-10-17
Good book, poor performance
While (as the book's ending will show -- no spoilers here) the decision to have the story read in a female American voice is logical, the actor chosen here is not an ideal choice, as she clearly has a much smaller personal vocabulary than the author. She constantly mis-stressed and mispronounced words (steepled, basso, Hades, concupiscence, mountebank), substituting more familiar ones in some places ('connection' for 'contention', 'slivers' for 'silvers', etc). Surely one of the jobs of those at Whole Book Audio should be to ensure that the performance represents the book accurately, otherwise one might as well get a free LibriVox recording. I have decided to write this review (something I rarely do) because I have noticed the same fault on too many of Whole Book Audio's other recordings, and they really need to improve this aspect of their business (the second narrator in David Mitchell's _The Bone Clocks_ was a particularly egregious example).
_Golden Hill_ is set in New York City of the early 18thC and includes a cast of characters with a variety of accents, some of which the reader executed more successfully than others, with her attempt at Scottish sounding very East European. _Golden Hill_ also includes brilliant set-pieces of performance within the novel: a Sinterklaasavond feast, Bonfire Night ('Pope Night'), and the performance of a play. In the last of these, it is central to the plot that two of the characters are much better actors than the others, but the reader was unable to portray the differences between the terrible acting and the great acting, flattening them out to much of a muchness.
I've focused on the performance here because I found it detracted from my enjoyment of what, had I merely read it in my head, would have struck me as a well written, entertaining, and unusual story. Until a better recording is produced, I recommend buying the book and reading it yourself!
33 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Liz
- 23-01-18
I so wanted to love this book..
...but it just didn't quite work for me. It's been reccommended to me often as a match for many authors I like and mentioned in the same breath in reviews... but I found it rather slow and found myself muttering 'get on with it' towards the end of the book.
This isn't helped by the narration. As mentioned in many other reviews, there are strange pronunciations and even stranger accents. I found the 'african' ones particularly wearing. I'm left wondering if I'd have loved this book more if I'd read it rather than listened to it.
I feel rather let down - it's a long listen for something that for me never quite got going. That said, I was very gripped by a long bonfire night sequence. But much less so by the other set pieces (in particular the court scene had me wishing it would move more quickly).
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Busy Reading
- 03-02-18
better read than heard
The narrator mangled the story..She mispronounced lots of words which became annoying especially in such a literary book. For example Colley Cibber was Poet laureate and the target of Pope's Dunciad so this would have been easy to check even if the narrator wasn't familiar with English Literature. She said his name several ways, all of them wrong. The producers should have checked that Borges understood what she was reading and she should have checked the pronunciation of unfamiliar words, even when these were quite simple like "wanly". Unfortunately it really spoilt it for me.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christine
- 03-12-20
Narrator isn’t that bad...
There are a lot of negative reviews about this narrator, but I think she just had a problematic start. As the book progresses, so does the performance. Stick with it, as this is a truly wonderful book that I enjoyed very much.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark Runacres
- 25-03-18
Most unusual
the result of.clearly deep research and nonetheless profoundly focussed on the characters. the author luxuriates in the minutiae of human reaction and inter-action. A masterpiece in its own way. and a revelation about 18th century New York.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- bjh
- 12-02-22
Play at less than normal speed
Sarah gallops through parts of this and for the first time listening to an audible book I struggled to hear the words. I’d recommend you play it on less than full speed in order to make head and tail of the experience.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Janet
- 16-02-21
Fabulous
A wonderful book. I loved it. It's one I'll remember. Everything - plot, language, structure, surprise ending. What more could you want. On to his new book now.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Devon Girl
- 31-01-21
A brilliant and utterly different historical novel
I had somehow missed 'Golden Hill' but am so glad I discovered it. Set in colonial New York in 1746 it is clever, compelling and,ultimately, moving. Not one for the hordes of ghastly self-published books and their apparent admirers on Facebook and Twitter . Just superbly conceived and expertly written .
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mrs U
- 25-04-20
Interesting glimpse at colonial New York
I really enjoyed this tale of the arrival in New York in 1746 of a mysterious visitor and the unintentional effect he has on the close knit community there. Great characters.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brian
- 04-12-17
Engaging New York romp
Would you try another book written by Francis Spufford or narrated by Sarah Borges?
Yes - lively writing and an interesting time to read about.
Who was your favorite character and why?
The monster - really 'orrible
Would you be willing to try another one of Sarah Borges’s performances?
I enjoyed the narrator's voice but there were quite a few mispronunciations of words
Do you think Golden Hill needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
Not really - no spoilers but it's pretty complete
Any additional comments?
Good book -worth a go and keeps it's pace up nicely - I particularly liked the Tabitha character and the card game scene.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Earnest
- 28-04-21
So glad I finally found this book.
Sparkling, zesty and delicious view of times past in Manhattan from the point of view of a unique “Colonial.” Occasionally you might glimpse a Fielding “Tom Jones” or a rakish Age of Innocence fragrance, but really, this writing provides a unique voice. It’s so English but very, very liberal. Glad I didn’t read it before Spufford’s newer novel.
The performance by the actor was splendid too. She pronounced some words differently but in the end I was happy to accept that this was 1700’s English/American.