Listen free for 30 days
-
The Spider Truces
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
People who bought this also bought...
-
Soldier Boy
- By: Cassandra Parkin
- Narrated by: Henrietta Meire
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Under the shadow of trauma, Liam has been discharged from the army. As night terrors torment him and he struggles to keep his anger intact, he finds himself in his car, his daughter, Alannah, asleep in the back, while his wife, Emma, has gone AWOL. With no idea where to go for shelter, his only goal is to hold onto his daughter at all costs. But Alannah is on a journey of her own. As the consequences of Alannah’s choices unfold, nothing will ever be the same again.
-
Feathertide
- By: Beth Cartwright
- Narrated by: Sophie Colquhoun
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born covered in the feathers of a bird and kept hidden in a crumbling house full of secrets, Marea has always known she was different but has never known why. And so to find answers, she goes in search of the father she has never met. The hunt leads her to the City of Murmurs, a place of mermaids and mystery, where jars of swirling mist are carried through the streets by the broken-hearted. And Mara will never forget what she learns there.
-
-
Truly Magical
- By Lubsy1 on 20-01-21
-
Meeting Mungo Thunk
- By: Keith A. Pearson
- Narrated by: Stewart Crank
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was Daisy's birthday, and Adam had the perfect gift for his fiancée. A dozen red roses? Jewellery? A weekend in Paris? Nope.... A set of bathroom scales. Sadly, Adam's poor judgement goes way beyond god-awful gifts. He's been cursed by a lack of common sense. Now, he's about to make the worst decision of his life and stands to lose the love of his life. Enter Mungo Thunk: an odd little man who claims he can fix Adam's thinking once and for all. Can Adam really trust the mysterious stranger's bizarre brand of therapy, or will he come to rue the day he met Mungo Thunk?
-
-
Not sure
- By Heather on 15-04-21
-
Men Like Air
- By: Tom Connolly
- Narrated by: Piers Wehner
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Connolly's dazzling second novel is a funny, turbulent and heartfelt study of male relationships and a glorious love letter to the city of New York. It is April in Manhattan, and the destinies of four very different men are about to collide. Nineteen-year-old Finn has just arrived in the city with his irrepressible and volatile girlfriend, Dilly, determined to even the score with his older brother, Jack, for abandoning him in the UK in the aftermath of their parents' deaths.
-
-
Touching and beautifully crafted.
- By Alastair J Bullock on 01-12-16
-
Sealskin
- By: Su Bristow
- Narrated by: Angus King
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when magic collides with reality? Donald is a young fisherman, eking out a lonely living on the west coast of Scotland. One night he witnesses something miraculous...and makes a terrible mistake. His action changes lives - not only his own but those of his family and the entire tightly knit community in which they live. Can he ever atone for the wrong he has done, and can love grow when its foundation is violence?
-
-
Why oh why the unwelcome twist?
- By Kaggy on 28-05-17
-
The Temple House Vanishing
- By: Rachel Donohue
- Narrated by: Nicola Coughlan, Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Louisa arrives at Temple House, an elite catholic boarding school, she quickly finds herself drawn to sophisticated fellow pupil Victoria and their young bohemian art teacher, Mr Lavelle. The three of them form a bond that seems to offer an escape from the repressive regime of the nuns who run the cloistered school. Until Louisa and Mr Lavelle suddenly vanish. Years later, a journalist with a childhood connection to Louisa determines to resolve the mystery.
-
-
Dreary, worthy stuff
- By Gerard on 23-02-20
-
Soldier Boy
- By: Cassandra Parkin
- Narrated by: Henrietta Meire
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Under the shadow of trauma, Liam has been discharged from the army. As night terrors torment him and he struggles to keep his anger intact, he finds himself in his car, his daughter, Alannah, asleep in the back, while his wife, Emma, has gone AWOL. With no idea where to go for shelter, his only goal is to hold onto his daughter at all costs. But Alannah is on a journey of her own. As the consequences of Alannah’s choices unfold, nothing will ever be the same again.
-
Feathertide
- By: Beth Cartwright
- Narrated by: Sophie Colquhoun
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born covered in the feathers of a bird and kept hidden in a crumbling house full of secrets, Marea has always known she was different but has never known why. And so to find answers, she goes in search of the father she has never met. The hunt leads her to the City of Murmurs, a place of mermaids and mystery, where jars of swirling mist are carried through the streets by the broken-hearted. And Mara will never forget what she learns there.
-
-
Truly Magical
- By Lubsy1 on 20-01-21
-
Meeting Mungo Thunk
- By: Keith A. Pearson
- Narrated by: Stewart Crank
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was Daisy's birthday, and Adam had the perfect gift for his fiancée. A dozen red roses? Jewellery? A weekend in Paris? Nope.... A set of bathroom scales. Sadly, Adam's poor judgement goes way beyond god-awful gifts. He's been cursed by a lack of common sense. Now, he's about to make the worst decision of his life and stands to lose the love of his life. Enter Mungo Thunk: an odd little man who claims he can fix Adam's thinking once and for all. Can Adam really trust the mysterious stranger's bizarre brand of therapy, or will he come to rue the day he met Mungo Thunk?
-
-
Not sure
- By Heather on 15-04-21
-
Men Like Air
- By: Tom Connolly
- Narrated by: Piers Wehner
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Connolly's dazzling second novel is a funny, turbulent and heartfelt study of male relationships and a glorious love letter to the city of New York. It is April in Manhattan, and the destinies of four very different men are about to collide. Nineteen-year-old Finn has just arrived in the city with his irrepressible and volatile girlfriend, Dilly, determined to even the score with his older brother, Jack, for abandoning him in the UK in the aftermath of their parents' deaths.
-
-
Touching and beautifully crafted.
- By Alastair J Bullock on 01-12-16
-
Sealskin
- By: Su Bristow
- Narrated by: Angus King
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when magic collides with reality? Donald is a young fisherman, eking out a lonely living on the west coast of Scotland. One night he witnesses something miraculous...and makes a terrible mistake. His action changes lives - not only his own but those of his family and the entire tightly knit community in which they live. Can he ever atone for the wrong he has done, and can love grow when its foundation is violence?
-
-
Why oh why the unwelcome twist?
- By Kaggy on 28-05-17
-
The Temple House Vanishing
- By: Rachel Donohue
- Narrated by: Nicola Coughlan, Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Louisa arrives at Temple House, an elite catholic boarding school, she quickly finds herself drawn to sophisticated fellow pupil Victoria and their young bohemian art teacher, Mr Lavelle. The three of them form a bond that seems to offer an escape from the repressive regime of the nuns who run the cloistered school. Until Louisa and Mr Lavelle suddenly vanish. Years later, a journalist with a childhood connection to Louisa determines to resolve the mystery.
-
-
Dreary, worthy stuff
- By Gerard on 23-02-20
-
You Let Me In
- By: Camilla Bruce
- Narrated by: Claire Rushbrook
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eccentric, infamous and exceedingly wealthy, the romantic novelist Cassandra Tipp has, it seems, vanished. In her large, rambling house sits a pile of paper addressed to her niece and nephew. It is a letter. Cassie has been a murder suspect twice in her life. Her family have long been convinced of her guilt. Could the letter be her confession? Or might it be her last will and testament? It turns out to be not quite what anyone expected....
-
-
Gripping story excellently read!
- By MimiFanini on 05-06-20
-
The Franchise Affair
- By: Josephine Tey
- Narrated by: Carole Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marion Sharpe and her mother seem an unlikely duo to be found on the wrong side of the law. Quiet and ordinary, they have led a peaceful and unremarkable life at their country home, The Franchise. Unremarkable that is, until the police turn up with a demure young woman on their doorstep.Not only does Betty Kane accuse them of kidnap and abuse, she can back up her claim with a detailed description of the attic room in which she was kept, right down to the crack in its round window.
-
-
Well-paced and intriguing
- By Knucklebones on 23-07-11
-
The Ardent Swarm
- A Novel
- By: Yamen Manai, Lara Vergnaud - translator
- Narrated by: Youssif Kamal
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sidi lives a hermetic life as a bee whisperer, tending to his beloved “girls” on the outskirts of the desolate North African village of Nawa. He wakes one morning to find that something has attacked one of his beehives, brutally killing every inhabitant. Heartbroken, he soon learns that a mysterious swarm of vicious hornets committed the mass murder - but where did they come from, and how can he stop them? If he is going to unravel this mystery and save his bees from annihilation, Sidi must venture out into the village and then brave the big city and beyond in search of answers.
-
Crooked Heart
- By: Lissa Evans
- Narrated by: Lucy Briers
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Noel Bostock - aged 10, no family - is evacuated from London to escape the Blitz, he winds up in St Albans with Vera Sedge - 36, drowning in debts. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it. The war's thrown up all manner of new opportunities, but what Vee needs is a cool head and the ability to make a plan. On her own, she's a disaster. With Noel, she's a team.
-
-
Wonderful
- By aidan murphy on 15-02-21
-
Scenes of a Graphic Nature
- By: Caroline O'Donoghue
- Narrated by: Esther O'Moore Donohoe
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charlie's career as a filmmaker is on standby, she hasn't had a girlfriend in forever, her best friend is sickeningly successful (and being awkward since that night) and her dad is dying of cancer. So the invitation from Cork Film Festival comes like a sign - a chance to explore the Irish homeland she's never seen. But this isn't just any search for long-lost ancestry: Charlie's father is the sole survivor of a tragic accident that killed every other child on the small island where he grew up, and Charlie's one achievement is the film she made that tells his story.
-
-
The accents
- By Ruth on 29-08-20
-
First You Write a Sentence.
- The Elements of Reading, Writing...and Life.
- By: Joe Moran
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The sentence is the common ground where every writer walks. A poet writes in sentences, but so does the unsung author who came up with Items trapped in doors cause delays. A good sentence can be written (and read) by anyone if we simply give it the gift of our time, and it is as close as most of us will get to making something truly beautiful. Enter acclaimed author Professor Joe Moran. Using minimal technical terms, First You Write a Sentence is his unpedantic but authoritative explanation of how the most ordinary words can be turned into verbal constellations of extraordinary grace.
-
-
Brilliant
- By marija maher on 25-12-18
-
The Murder of Harriet Monckton
- By: Elizabeth Haynes
- Narrated by: Lisa Coleman, Joe Jameson, Richard Reed, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On 7th November 1843, Harriet Monckton, 23 years old and a woman of respectable parentage and religious habits, is found murdered in the privy behind the chapel she regularly attended in Bromley, Kent. The community is appalled by her death, apparently as a result of swallowing a fatal dose of prussic acid, and even more so when the surgeon reports that Harriet was around six months pregnant. Drawing on the coroner’s reports and witness testimonies, Elizabeth Haynes builds a compelling picture of Harriet’s final hours through the eyes of those closest to her and the last people to see her alive.
-
-
Very enjoyable, despite a couple of anachronisms
- By Lorna on 04-03-19
-
Memorial
- By: Bryan Washington
- Narrated by: Bryan Washington, Kotabe Akie
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years - good years - but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other. But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye.
-
-
ok. not likeable characters or writing style
- By Anonymous User on 23-01-21
-
The Strange Adventures of H
- By: Sarah Burton
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orphaned young, H is sent to live with her doting aunt in London. H’s life is a happy one until her lecherous cousin robs her of her innocence and the plague takes away the city and the people she loves. H is cast out – friendless, pregnant and destitute – into the rapidly emptying streets of London under quarantine. Forced to fend for herself, she is determined to gain back the life she lost. H will face a villain out for revenge, find love in the most unexpected places and overcome a betrayal that she never could have foreseen.
-
-
Slapstick Comedy at its best
- By Kimberly Thompson on 15-08-20
-
The Lingering
- By: SJI Holliday
- Narrated by: Julia Barrie, David Monteath
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Married couple Jack and Ali Gardiner move to a self-sufficient spiritual commune in the English Fens, desperate for fresh start. The local village is known for the witches who once resided there, and Rosalind House, where the commune has been established, is a former psychiatric home, with a disturbing history. When Jack and Ali arrive, a chain of unexpected and unexplained events is set off, and it becomes clear that they are not all that they seem. As the residents become twitchy, and the villagers suspicious, events from the past come back to haunt them, and someone is seeking retribution....
-
-
Evocative And Haunting
- By AudibleFan on 03-11-18
-
The Rip
- By: Mark Brandi
- Narrated by: Tamala Shelton
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young woman, living on the street, has to keep her wits about her. Or her friends. But when the drugs kick in that can be hard. Anton has been looking out for her. She was safe with him. But then Steve came along. He had something over Anton. Must have. But he had a flat they could crash in. And gear in his pocket. And she can't stop thinking about it. A good hit makes everything all right. But the flat smells weird. There's a lock on Steve's bedroom door. And the guy is intense. The problem is, sometimes you just don't know you are in too deep until you are drowning.
-
Doggerland
- By: Ben Smith
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the North Sea, far from what remains of the coastline, a wind farm stretches for thousands of acres. The Boy, who is no longer really a boy, and the Old Man, whose age is unguessable, are charged with its maintenance. They carry out their never-ending work, scoured by wind and salt, as the waves roll, dragging strange shoals of flotsam through the turbine fields. Land is only a memory. So too is the Boy’s father, who worked on the turbines before him, and disappeared.
-
-
Atmospheric and lonely
- By James C. on 22-05-19
Summary
Ellis is obsessed with the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister and Great-Aunt Mafi - and by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family's otherwise happy existence.
He is a sensitive soul - awkward and out of place most of the time but funny, too, and with an embarrassing habit of speaking his thoughts aloud, whatever the company. From early attempts at relationships to unskilled jobs, flatshares and drug-addled nights on the beach, Ellis muddles his way towards adulthood. What endures is the strength of his bond with his dad, Denny, and his affectionate relationship with his intrepid sister, who turns up whenever he needs her - a new boyfriend in tow every time.
The family banter is Ellis' lifeline and a counterpoint to the constant heartache of his desire to know something - anything - about his mother. Meanwhile Denny, an ex-Merchant Navy man, bottles up his grief at the loss of his wife, refusing to talk about her.
Critic reviews
"A remote corner of Kent is the background to Connolly's magical coming-of-age novel. Growing up, Ellis prefers to spend time on the local farm; later he will develop a talent for photography, but relationships remain a mystery to him in this fierce, humane and hazily poetic work." (Guardian)
More from the same
Author
What listeners say about The Spider Truces
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- hazanne
- 31-01-16
classic
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes because it is beautiful, cleverly written and would appeal to all age groups.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Ellis the lead character because he is quirky attractive flawed but perfect.
What does Joe Jameson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
I must say I have a problem with many narrations but Joe Jameson is a favourite. He brings Ellis to life, and not only that but does the same authentically with all the other characters. male and female.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes and no. I would rather savour it slowly as it has become one of my favourites
Any additional comments?
This is a book that stays with you long after the end and gives you food for thought. I had read it a few years ago but this was one of my best listening experiences.