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Ridley Road

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Ridley Road

By: Jo Bloom
Narrated by: Harriet Carmichael
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About this listen

When her beloved father dies, Vivien Epstein - a 22 year old hairdresser from Manchester - leaves her hometown for London in the hope of finding Jack Fox - a man she had a brief, but intense, love affair with some months ago.

All Vivien has to go is one letter Jack sent to her father, the address of a boarding house scribbled hastily on the back, and very soon her hopes of finding him are dashed. Resigned to this fact, she settles into London life, working in Oscar's - a hairdressing salon in Soho - and spending her nights at home with her motherly landlady. But still, she pines for Jack.

That is, until she becomes involved in the resurgence of anti-facism through the owner of Oscar's, Barb, and her husband Alan. When Alan takes her to a rally in Trafalgar Square and Vivien finally spots Jack amidst the crowds. At long last they lock eyes. And here their story begins again.

©2014 Jo Bloom (P)2014 Orion Publishing Group Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Jewish Literary Fiction Romance Women's Fiction World Literature England Marriage
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Struggled to pay attention. Clunky and formulaic which was a shame as this could have been an electrifying story in more skilful hands.

Also, the pronunciation of Hebrew words was phonetic which meant they were pronounced incorrectly. No one thought to correct the narrator?

Meh.

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Absolutely Fabulous BOOK
Love it. I lived near and visited the area in that era thousands of times.
For a lady like me in her 70th year it brought back such wonderful memories.
This book is so so true to live of the times.

Ridley Road A place near where I grew up

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I really enjoyed this insight into life undercover. it's completely different to the tv adaptation but still amazing.

incredible

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I don’t usually write bad reviews, but I just had to for this. Formulaic drivel. Written by someone who just graduated from a creative writing course and decided to dump every cliche they’d learned in one novel.

The narrator did a decent accent for the female lead, but consistently misread the flow of the text making it even worse.

I really struggled to finish it.

Formulaic

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