Speaking From Among the Bones cover art

Speaking From Among the Bones

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Speaking From Among the Bones

By: Alan Bradley
Narrated by: Sophie Aldred
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

The villagers of Bishop’s Lacey are holding their collective breath as St Tancred’s tomb in the local church is about to be opened after five hundred years. Inveterate eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce is first at the scene, but the body she finds lying there is not that of a desiccated saint; it is Mr Collicutt, St Tancred's celebrated organist.

©2013 Alan Furst (P)2013 W F Howes Ltd
Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Mystery

Listeners also enjoyed...

Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories cover art
Crocodile on the Sandbank cover art
The Dark Unwinding cover art
The Black Echo: Special Edition cover art
Shadows at the Door cover art
Tilt-a-Whirl cover art
The Witness cover art
Evie's Ghost cover art
A Morbid Taste For Bones cover art
A Great Deliverance cover art
Masked Ball at Broxley Manor cover art
The Pearl Thief cover art
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter cover art
The Soprano cover art
Speaks the Nightbird cover art
Glass and Steele Boxed Set: Books 1-3 cover art

Critic reviews

"The Flavia de Luce novels are now a cult favourite" ( Mail on Sunday)
All stars
Most relevant

Would you consider the audio edition of Speaking From Among the Bones to be better than the print version?

I love this whole series of books. The main character (and narrator) is a wonderfully enjoyable creation.This audio edition does Flavia justice! Flavia is 10 years old and both vulnerable and tough as old boots. Hugely intelligent and mentally tough,sometimes frighteningly ruthless in her methods, yet touchingly innocent in some ways. Funny,intrepid,insightful but sometimes outrageous especially when investigating murder.She is unstoppable.

What did you like best about this story?

Love the setting , the crumbling stately home, the villagers, the period (early 1950s), the family and the laugh out loud inner thoughts of Flavia.. All these books are very funny because of the relationships between the characters and their various idiosyncrasies. The relationship of Flavia and her sisters is both difficult and close.

Which character – as performed by Sophie Aldred – was your favourite?

Flavia - wonderful character,perfectly portrayed by Sophie Aldred. Love all the characters , the De Luce family , Dogger and The Mullets, the long-suffering Inspector Hewitt and his men. The relationship of the three sisters. Flavia's reliance on and love for ( though she would never call it that) the troubled Dogger.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There are passages in these books when Flavia's razor sharp brain and ruthless quest for a murderer are suspended and you see the vulnerable child beneath the intelligence.

Any additional comments?

Please can we have the about to be published 'Thrice The Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd' in audiobook form ASAP - preferably read by Sophie Aldred?

Flavia is unique

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This episode is rather light on material for the usual epic tale from Alan Bradley but nonetheless enjoyable and provides continuity to the series of young Flavia's detecting and chemistry adventures. I get the sense this book was a filler, laying the groundwork for what is to come.

Light on story, superb performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Would you try another book written by Alan Bradley or narrated by Sophie Aldred?

With this story Alan Bradley is well into his Flavia de Luce series. With royalties flowing in he (and his editors) must have felt no need to maintain the continuity of the background of the de Luce family who despite being Catholic seem to have allowed their youngest to be baptised by an Anglican vicar in this book, then, shortly after, claim to be Catholic again. Make your mind up Alan, you're hardly recreating Brideshead Revisited. Also, why are they still skint despite finding a priceless Folio edition of Romeo and Juliet in their library in the last book? As well as these, there are a variety of historical linguistic incongruities that have, by this stage in the series, started to grate.
There is a weird trait amongst narrators in general, including Sophie Aldred, to portray all lower class characters with a myriad of 'yokel' voices ranging from Northumberland to Penzance despite the fact that most of them would have grown up in the same village. Ignoring this small annoyance, Ms Aldred's jaunty rendering of the novel actually makes it MORE palatable than the printed version.

Would you ever listen to anything by Alan Bradley again?

The stories are lively, what you might call easy listening, but the flaws in the plot, background and historical details are definitely starting to set my teeth on edge.

Have you listened to any of Sophie Aldred’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Sophie Aldred's lively, prim and child-like voice does pay homage to the upper-crust a half century ago and does, I think, make these books more enjoyable and help smooth over the incongruities of the novel.

If this book were a film would you go see it?

Providing a proper researcher went through script with a fine tooth comb, then possibly.

Any additional comments?

I'm surprised these books got through an editor's hawk-like gaze with is many historical clangers still in place.

Continuity?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I’ve listened to the previous books in this series and was worried it was starting to falter but this book had a good storyline, certainly not as predictable as the previous two, and is excellently performed. One of the best audiobook performers I’ve listened too

Return to form for Flavia

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Would have been helpful if there were some indication that this book is aimed at the Junior market before buying. However, it was well performed and the plot good. It's just I hated the child detective, Flavia, and found her precocity irritating! Not for me, maybe when I was about 10.


Didn't Realise It Was A Children's Book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews