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How It All Began

A Novel

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How It All Began

By: Penelope Lively
Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
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About this listen

When Charlotte is mugged and breaks her hip, her daughter, Rose, cannot accompany her employer, Lord Peters, to Manchester, which means his niece, Marion, has to go instead, which means she sends a text to her lover which is intercepted by his wife, which is…just the beginning of the ensuing chain of life-altering events.

In this engaging, utterly absorbing and brilliantly told novel, Penelope Lively shows us how one random event can cause marriages to fracture and heal themselves, opportunities to appear and disappear, lovers who might never have met to find each other, and entire lives to become irrevocably changed.

©2011 Penelope Lively (P)2012 Isis Publishing Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Marriage

Critic reviews

" Whatever your age, How It All Began is a splendid tonic." ( Telegraph)
"A sublime storyteller." ( Guardian)
All stars
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Penelope Lively does a very good job with the 'interconnectedness of all things'. The novel is structured with a lot of balance and movement, from person to person, picking up on their changing fortunes and feelings. The story does have you wondering - will they or won't they? It's a gentle story, told at a good pace, a comedy that strikes a chord with life today, particulalrly I suspect for the over-40s!

The reader, Anna Bentinck, does a lovely, lively job with the large and varied cast, with some neat nuances of accent and tone that really brought them to life for me.

I'd recommend this as a very enjoyable listen, light-hearted and engaging.

Amusing, enjoyable, lovely structure

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A good read with lots of dipping in and out of the lives of all these people who make the story come together. Easy to listen to and flows alone nicely. A good story.

How it all began

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How a single event can trigger a whole chain of other events. This is Penelope Lively at her very best - examining the way peoples' lives are linked together in some sort of web. Excellent portrayal of ageing and memory too. Loved it.

Penelope Lively at her best.

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Really lovely story about the knock-on effects of one event- the mugging of an elderly woman. The ripples that spread out have far-reaching effects on many people.
Cleverly interwoven and with Lively’s usual flair this is a compelling listen.

The butterfly effect

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loved the reading and all the wonderful characterisation by Penelope Lively and acted out so well by Anna Bentinck.

The dialogue - insightful and read brilliantly

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