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Jack & Bet

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Jack & Bet

By: Sarah Butler
Narrated by: Margaret Cabourn-Smith
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About this listen

'A tender, unsentimental exploration of the bittersweet joys of lifelong companionship' – Daily Mail

Even the longest marriages have their secrets . . .

Jack and Bet have been married for seventy years. Happily so, for the most part. Now, all they want is to enjoy the time they have left together in their small flat. But their son Tommy has other ideas: he thinks they should move out and opt for round-the-clock care in a very different kind of home.

When a young Romanian woman, Marinela, enters their lives, Bet thinks she might have found a solution to all of their problems; one that could change Marinela’s life for the better. But doing so would mean confronting a long-buried secret Bet has kept hidden from everyone, even Jack, for decades.

An irresistibly moving story about love and loss, Sarah Butler's Jack & Bet is at once a story of unlikely friendship and a tender look at a lifelong struggle to find a place to call home.

'Full of beauty, pain and joy, I loved Jack & Bet' – Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of Us

 Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Romance Feel-Good

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Critic reviews

A tender, unsentimental exploration of the bittersweet joys of lifelong companionship, beautifully capturing the pangs of ageing and the treacheries of time
Full of beauty, pain and joy, I loved Jack & Bet (Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of Us)
A moving yet unsentimental story about family and love and the secrets we live with (Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son)
With mounting tension, it demonstrates why it’s never too late to have your world turned upside down (Oliver Harris, author of A Shadow of Intelligence)
Seductive and assured, Jack & Bet is a warm, wise and wonderfully defiant exploration of a long marriage and a short-lived experiment in social housing (Emma Claire Sweeney, author of Owl Song at Dawn)
I read Jack & Bet with enjoyment and heartbreak . . . wins its place in the burgeoning writing that shines a spotlight on the lives of over seventies in Britain (Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, author of The First Woman)
I loved Jack & Bet. Butler writes from Jack, Bet and Marinela's perspectives with such compassion and understanding (Susan Barker, author of The Incarnations)
A fantastic novel - totally absorbing and full of heart (Helen Mort, author of No Map Could Show Them)
All stars
Most relevant
I purchased this book after searching the narrator and I am so glad I did - this story is so lovely, well narrated and touching and you won’t be disappointed.

Heartwarming story guaranteed to draw you in

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Such a wonderful book. So beautifully written and thoughtful. Reminded me of my grandparents. Recommend!

Loved it

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