Marrying the Mistress cover art

Marrying the Mistress

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Marrying the Mistress

By: Joanna Trollope
Narrated by: Lindsay Duncan
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About this listen

Merrion Palmer has been Judge Guy Stockdale's mistress for the last seven years and his wife and two grown-up sons know absolutely nothing about her. Up until now, Guy and Merrion have enjoyed a blissfully, uncomplicated relationship in stolen moments in Merrion's flat, and to the rest of the world, Guy has played the part of model husband, father and grandfather.

But now the time has come for things to change. Guy has become conscious of wasted years and he wants to share his relationship with Merrion with the world. He wants, dammit, to marry her. Yet he is quite unprepared for the storm that will follow...

©2009 Joanna Trollope (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Romance Marriage

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Critic reviews

"The court official leaned closer. 'What's gone past', he said, 'is not just an advocate, any old lady advocate. What's gone past is his Honour's totty.'" And what's going past is the life of Guy Stockdale, a 62-year-old judge, who has been married forever, has two sons--Simon and Alan--and three grandchildren. For the past seven years, he's also had a mistress. Merrion Palmer is intelligent, attractive, and half Guy's age, which also makes her younger than both Simon and Alan. Her dad died when she was a toddler and she's well aware that Guy is something of a father substitute. For years the role of mistress has suited her, but, suddenly, this style of relationship isn't enough for either of them. They've both had enough of sneaking around and avoiding people, so Guy has momentously made up his mind to leave his wife, Laura, and marry Merrion. Marrying the Mistress dives into the shock waves that buffet the Stockdale family after Guy leaves Laura. The novel addresses the question of how his sons are going to cope, the explosive opinions of his forthright daughter-in-law Carrie and what his teenage grandchildren make of it all. Can any of them avoid taking sides? Should they? And what about the abandoned wife, Laura, a woman apparently so long-sufferingly self-sacrificing she makes Mother Teresa look selfish? From queen of the saga Joanna Trollope comes a dexterous portrayal of the causes and effects of marital breakdown." (Amazon.com review)
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The author has written yet another well paced and interesting story. The narrator has a beautiful voice but a supremely irritating habit of only half speaking words when she uses a quiet voice - which she does quite a lot. Any word ending in ‘s’ or a similar sound is only half spoken, so grass becomes gra and face becomes fa. Other words seem to get squashed into hardly being audible. The listener has to concentrate hard to follow the story - it is infuriating.

Good story, stupendously irritating narrator

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The father of the family decides to marry his mistress of seven years, but he needs to divorce his wife first. The sons are torn as to how best support each parent. I found it difficult to feel pity for the wife, as although she was hard done by, she emotionally blackmailed everybody throughout; ignoring her own children and grandchildren's pain.

Unhappy Families

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I really like the characters. They feel real and sensitively observed. The plot is well set up but ending feels abrupt and incomplete so reason not 5 star for me

Classic Trollope

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I am a Joanna Trollope fan so am biased, but her insightful writing of family life came to the full in this story. Read many years back but so delightfully read by Lindsay Duncan.

slightly out of date but v enjoyable

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It was good to listen to a Joanna Trollope story after many years of reading her books.
Lindsay Duncan is so recognisable by her voice it is hard not to picture her instead of the characters.

Enjoyed!

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