The Dark Flood Rises cover art

The Dark Flood Rises

 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.

The Dark Flood Rises

By: Margaret Drabble
Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
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 £27.99

Buy Now for £27.99

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 Dark Flood Rises asks momentous questions as it entertains and enthralls. In her beautifully imagined new book, Margaret Drabble is at her incisive best, exploring the end of life with her trademark humour, composure and wisdom.

Francesca Stubbs holds our hand as we take a walk through old age and death. Fran brings us to drinks with her dear friends, dropping off mouth-watering suppers for Claude, her ex-husband, warm and cosy in his infirmity. She visits her daughter, Poppet, holed up as the waters rise in a sodden West Country, and texts her son Christopher in Lanzarote, as he deals with the estate of his shockingly deceased girlfriend. The questions of what constitutes a good death and how we understand it preoccupy this glittering novel.

©2016 Margaret Drabble (P)2016 Bolinda Publishing Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction Natural Disaster

Listeners also enjoyed...

 To Heaven by Water cover art
Pieces of Justice cover art
Next of Kin cover art
The Smoking Diaries cover art
The Song Before It Is Sung cover art
Other People's Money cover art
Another Planet cover art
Just Me cover art

Critic reviews

"One of the most versatile and accomplished writers of her generation." ( The New Yorker)
"Reading Margaret Drabble's novels has become something of a rite of passage.... Sharply observed, exquisitely companionable tales." ( The Washington Post)
All stars
Most relevant
There is much about illness, death and ending. A very ruminative book read with an appropriate dry style.

Ending

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have found a new voice and a new canon of novels to devour. Does anyone have any suggestions on the order they should be read?

Marvellous Marge

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I like the story very much but oh how many times the narrator mispronounce most common-sensical proper names like De Chirico etc so many times. It is my bad to be lazy enough to want to read something narrated by someone, but it really is not a good feeling to know that something of wit and wisdom like Margaret Drabble is read by someone that is not very educated or cultured.

Love the story, narration is torture

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