The Golden Book cover art

The Golden Book

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 Golden Book

By: Kate Ryan
Narrated by: Casey Withoos
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

Jessie had said they should go at midnight. 'It’s the gods’ time,' she said, narrowing her eyes dramatically.

'Anything could happen.’

It’s the 1980s, and in their small coastal town, Ali and her best friend, Jessie, are on the cusp. With The Golden Book, a journal of incantation and risk-taking as their record, they begin to chafe at the restrictions put on them by teachers, parents, each other. Then Jessie suffers a devastating accident, and both their lives are forever changed.

When Ali is an adult, with a young daughter herself, the news of Jessie’s death brings back the intensity of that summer, forcing her to reckon with her own role in what happened to Jessie so many years ago.

As this stunning debut moves back and forth in time, and Ali’s secrets are forced into the light, Kate Ryan asks profound questions about responsibility and blame, and, ultimately, about love.

©2021 Kate Ryan (P)2021 W F Howes
Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Women's Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird cover art
Braver cover art
Granta cover art
Skin cover art
Just for Today cover art
The Sapphire Cove cover art
The Butterfly Garden cover art
The July Girls cover art
Nightingale Point cover art
The Garden of Lost Memories cover art
Good Girls cover art
Paper Dolls cover art
Mother Mother cover art
Grand cover art
Something Quite Beautiful cover art
What July Knew cover art

Critic reviews

"An exquisite study of the liminal space between words and acts, and the necessary redrafting of our life stories. This is a golden book." (Myfanwy Jones, author of Leap)

"A gorgeous evocation of the wildness of youth.... A beautiful, resonant book." (Peggy Frew, author of Islands)

No reviews yet