Listen free for 30 days
-
The Woman Behind the Waterfall
- Narrated by: Helen Taylor
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £18.29
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs
- By: Linda Olsson
- Narrated by: Edwina Wren
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a wintry landscape in the Swedish countryside, the paths of two women cross. One bleak March evening, Veronika, a young writer, arrives in a small village in pursuit of stillness and solitude to enable her to come to terms with grief and loss, and to complete a novel.
-
-
Great novel
- By Anonymous User on 27-11-17
-
Still Life
- By: Sarah Winman
- Narrated by: Sarah Winman
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier; Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.
-
-
A gentle story of love and Florence
- By V. O'Regan on 04-06-21
-
Songbirds
- By: Christy Lefteri
- Narrated by: Indira Varma, George Georgiou, Art Malik, and others
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. Now she spends her days caring for someone else's daughter while her own waits for her return, half a world away. For Petra, it is only natural to hire a domestic worker to keep her house clean and her family fed. Their lives have nothing in common, except the love they feel for their daughters. Then one day, Nisha vanishes. No one cares about the disappearance of a foreign domestic worker, except Petra and Nisha's secret lover, Yiannis, the only connection to her daughter back in Sri Lanka.
-
-
Profoundly moving
- By Karen Around The Table on 01-08-21
-
Women of the Dunes
- By: Sarah Maine
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the rugged, sea-lashed coast of west Scotland lies Ullaness: home to the Scottish legend of Ulla, a Viking woman who washed up on Scottish shores centuries ago. The legend will bring the stories of three different women together. In AD 800 there is Ulla, lost in a foreign country after her lover is brutally killed. Ellen, a servant-girl in the 1800s, catches the unwanted attentions of the master of the house's lascivious son. And, in the present day, there is Libby - an archaeologist who is determined to uncover an age-old mystery.
-
The Last Reunion
- The Thrilling and Achingly Romantic New Historical Novel from the International Bestselling Author
- By: Kayte Nunn
- Narrated by: Amanda McKay
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Burma, 1945. Bea, Plum, Bubbles, Joy and Lucy are five young women looking for adventure, fighting a forgotten war in the jungle attached to the 14th Army. Running a mobile canteen, navigating treacherous roads and dodging hostile gunfire, they soon become embroiled in life-threatening battles of their own - battles that will haunt the women for the rest of their lives.
-
Seed
- By: Lisa Heathfield
- Narrated by: Avita Jay
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fifteen-year-old Pearl has lived her whole life protected within the small community at Seed, where they worship nature and idolise their leader, Papa S. But when some outsiders arrive, everything changes. Pearl experiences feelings that she never knew existed and begins to realise that there is darkness at the heart of Seed. A darkness from which she must escape before it's too late.
-
-
o my gosh!
- By Claire on 25-05-17
-
Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs
- By: Linda Olsson
- Narrated by: Edwina Wren
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a wintry landscape in the Swedish countryside, the paths of two women cross. One bleak March evening, Veronika, a young writer, arrives in a small village in pursuit of stillness and solitude to enable her to come to terms with grief and loss, and to complete a novel.
-
-
Great novel
- By Anonymous User on 27-11-17
-
Still Life
- By: Sarah Winman
- Narrated by: Sarah Winman
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier; Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.
-
-
A gentle story of love and Florence
- By V. O'Regan on 04-06-21
-
Songbirds
- By: Christy Lefteri
- Narrated by: Indira Varma, George Georgiou, Art Malik, and others
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. Now she spends her days caring for someone else's daughter while her own waits for her return, half a world away. For Petra, it is only natural to hire a domestic worker to keep her house clean and her family fed. Their lives have nothing in common, except the love they feel for their daughters. Then one day, Nisha vanishes. No one cares about the disappearance of a foreign domestic worker, except Petra and Nisha's secret lover, Yiannis, the only connection to her daughter back in Sri Lanka.
-
-
Profoundly moving
- By Karen Around The Table on 01-08-21
-
Women of the Dunes
- By: Sarah Maine
- Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the rugged, sea-lashed coast of west Scotland lies Ullaness: home to the Scottish legend of Ulla, a Viking woman who washed up on Scottish shores centuries ago. The legend will bring the stories of three different women together. In AD 800 there is Ulla, lost in a foreign country after her lover is brutally killed. Ellen, a servant-girl in the 1800s, catches the unwanted attentions of the master of the house's lascivious son. And, in the present day, there is Libby - an archaeologist who is determined to uncover an age-old mystery.
-
The Last Reunion
- The Thrilling and Achingly Romantic New Historical Novel from the International Bestselling Author
- By: Kayte Nunn
- Narrated by: Amanda McKay
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Burma, 1945. Bea, Plum, Bubbles, Joy and Lucy are five young women looking for adventure, fighting a forgotten war in the jungle attached to the 14th Army. Running a mobile canteen, navigating treacherous roads and dodging hostile gunfire, they soon become embroiled in life-threatening battles of their own - battles that will haunt the women for the rest of their lives.
-
Seed
- By: Lisa Heathfield
- Narrated by: Avita Jay
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fifteen-year-old Pearl has lived her whole life protected within the small community at Seed, where they worship nature and idolise their leader, Papa S. But when some outsiders arrive, everything changes. Pearl experiences feelings that she never knew existed and begins to realise that there is darkness at the heart of Seed. A darkness from which she must escape before it's too late.
-
-
o my gosh!
- By Claire on 25-05-17
-
Century
- By: Sarah Singleton
- Narrated by: Julia Barry
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mercy and her sister Charity live in a twilight world, going to bed just as the sun rises. Their house remains shrouded in perpetual winter, each day unfolding exactly the same as the last. Mercy has never questioned her widowed father about the way they live and why, until one day, she wakes up to find a snowdrop on her pillow: a first sign of spring and a nod towards a new future. A meeting with the mysterious Claudius unsettles Mercy and starts her on a winding path through the family's history.
-
-
Thoroughly enjoyed it
- By DianeF on 17-02-15
-
Honour Thy Father
- By: Lesley Glaister
- Narrated by: Jilly Bond
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a remote, crumbling house in the Fens live four sisters - Agatha, Milly, and Ellen and Esther - identical twins so closely linked as to be almost one person. They have lived there all their lives, trapped still by the fear of their dead father, who governs his daughters' lives from beyond the grave. And then there is George, another inhabitant, imprisoned in the cellar. Little by little, macabre events come to light: events that transform an idyllic country childhood into a world of eccentric isolation.
-
-
Surprising!
- By Latelunch on 05-04-15
-
The Girl in the Garden
- By: Kamala Nair
- Narrated by: Anitha Gandhi
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer, when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her home to an Indian village untouched by time. There, she discovers in the jungle behind her ancestral house a spellbinding garden that harbors a terrifying secret.
-
A Gentleman in Moscow
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Soon to be a major TV series starring Kenneth Branagh. On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval. Can a life without luxury be the richest of all?
-
-
Spoiled by reader
- By barjil on 21-02-19
-
Daughters of War
- The Daughters of War, Book 1
- By: Dinah Jefferies
- Narrated by: Stephanie Racine
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
France, 1944. In an old stone cottage, on the edge of a beautiful French village, three sisters long for the end of the war. Hélène, the eldest, is trying her hardest to steer her family to safety, even as the Nazi occupation becomes more threatening. Elise, the rebel, is determined to help the Resistance, whatever the cost. And Florence, the dreamer, just yearns for a world where France is free. Then, one dark night, the Allies come knocking for help.
-
-
Another superb story from a fine writer.
- By Pat Roberts on 04-04-22
-
The Last Green Valley
- By: Mark Sullivan
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late March 1944, as Stalin’s forces push into Ukraine, young Emil and Adeline Martel must make a terrible decision: Do they wait for the Soviet bear’s intrusion and risk being sent to Siberia? Or do they reluctantly follow the wolves - murderous Nazi officers who have pledged to protect “pure-blood” Germans? The Martels are one of many families of German heritage whose ancestors have farmed in Ukraine for more than a century.
-
-
Another great story based on true events …
- By Anonymous User on 27-09-21
-
Beneath a Scarlet Sky
- A Novel
- By: Mark Sullivan
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 17 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager - obsessed with music, food, and girls - but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier - a move they think will keep him out of combat.
-
-
Incredible! Can’t wait to see the movie!
- By Lanny 32 on 26-11-17
-
The Dress
- Everyday Magic, Book 1
- By: Sophie Nicholls
- Narrated by: Eve Webster
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet Ella and her mother Fabia Moreno, who arrive in York one cold January day to set up their vintage dress shop. The flamboyant Fabia wants to sell beautiful dresses to nice people and move on from her difficult past. Ella just wants to fit in. But not everyone is on their side. Will Fabia overcome the prejudices she encounters? What's the dark secret she's hiding? And do the silk linings and concealed seams of her dresses contain real spells or is this all just 'everyday magic'?
-
The Couple at No. 9
- By: Claire Douglas
- Narrated by: Kenton Thomas, Nathalie Buscombe
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When pregnant Saffron Cutler moves into 9 Skelton Place with boyfriend Tom and sets about renovations, the last thing she expects is builders uncovering a body - two bodies, in fact. Forensics indicate the bodies have been buried at least 30 years. Nothing Saffy need worry herself over. Until the police launch a murder investigation and ask to speak to the cottage's former owner - her grandmother, Rose. Rose is in a care home, and Alzheimer's means her memory is increasingly confused. She can't help the police, but it is clear she remembers something.
-
-
Claire Douglas back on breathtaking top form again
- By Podenco Fan on 07-10-21
-
The Silent Wife
- By: Kerry Fisher
- Narrated by: Emma Spurgin-Hussey
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lara's life looks perfect on the surface. Gorgeous doting husband Massimo, sweet little son Sandro and the perfect home. Lara knows something about Massimo. Something she can't tell anyone else or everything Massimo has worked so hard for will be destroyed: his job, their reputation, their son. This secret is keeping Lara a prisoner in her marriage. Maggie is married to Massimo's brother Nico. She knows all of Nico's darkest secrets - or so she thinks. The one day she discovers a letter in the attic....
-
-
Better analysis of coercive control than The Archers!
- By Frances Locke on 21-09-17
-
The Sea
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Jim Norton
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma.
-
-
Dull and self-indulgent
- By ciarando on 23-05-18
-
The Mermaid of Black Conch
- By: Monique Roffey
- Narrated by: Ben Onwukue, Vivienne Acheampong
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
March 1976: St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village on the island of Black Conch, at the start of the rainy season. A fisherman sings to himself in his pirogue, waiting for a catch but attracts a sea-dweller he doesn't expect. Aycayia, a beautiful young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid, has been swimming the Caribbean Sea for centuries. And she is entranced by this man David and his song.
-
-
An unusual but engaging love story
- By bookylady on 05-02-21
Summary
Heartbreak and transformation in the beauty of a Ukrainian village.
For seven-year old Angela, happiness is exploring the lush countryside around her home in western Ukraine. Her wild imagination takes her into birds and flowers, and into the waters of the river.
All that changes when, one morning, she sees her mother crying. As she tries to find out why, she is drawn on an extraordinary journey into the secrets of her family, and her mother's fateful choices.
Can Angela lead her mother back to happiness before her innocence is destroyed by the shadows of a dark past?
Beautiful, poetic and richly sensory, this is a tale that will haunt and lift its listeners.
Critic reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about The Woman Behind the Waterfall
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Ian
- 06-02-18
Just Lovely :)
I just finished listening to Leonora Meriel's novel "The Woman Behind the Waterfall." The story is about a young girl who, with the help of her grandmother's spirit, tries to help her mother battle her depression. It is a heartfelt, charming tale which somehow manages to make Ukraine seem like a place worth visiting. The only downside is first three chapters are tough to follow. However, once you figure out who everybody is, it turns into a fun listen. On a scale of "so bad I never want to listen to a book again" to "the greatest book ever." This one comes in as a "lovely read."
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- moorj
- 16-01-18
Brilliant
This is a stunning book worth listening to. The story centers around a young girl and her view of a difficult world in a small village as the child of a single mother. As the story weaves the tail of how this came to be childhood optimism shines through and leads her mother from the edge of despair.
The prose of the scenery alone is wonderful to hear. The descriptions of villagers reactions and whispers reminds of how gossip can impact lives. This was delightful to listen and leaves you with a great sense of redemption.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Karen M.
- 16-11-17
Beautiful Story
Hauntingly beautiful, wonderfully written and thought-provoking - these are my thoughts after finishing this story. I loved the strong connection between Angela, her mother and her grandmother and how one generation can give strength to another. The writing had an ethereal quality and I was lost in the imagery and culture of the Ukraine. I just loved this heart-warming story even though it left me a bit drained emotionally after finishing it. This was something to be experienced, not merely listened to and I was grateful for it. Helen Taylor as narrator did a wonderful job conveying the emotions of the story and her voice was just lovely. If you're looking for a truly rewarding listen, I would highly recommend The Woman Behind The Waterfall.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. This review is my honest opinion.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 19-04-20
Not for me.
I struggled to finish this book. I lost the struggle. Guess it just wasn't for me. Not even sure how to describe it. Maybe 2 stars is too much. I hate to not like a book as the author has poured their soul into it but sometimes it just isn't meant for everyone.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Reader
- 10-01-18
Too slow, unconvincing character voice
I tend to enjoy descriptive and ethereal books. The Woman Behind the Waterfall, however, was not one of those. I failed to connect to the characters and the plot was molasses slow. Worst of all, in my opinion, was the first person narrator, whose inner voice and world view did not sound at all convincing of a young child.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. This review is my honest opinion.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Connie Higgins
- 31-10-17
Not my cup of tea
This book was well written and narrated but the story could not keep my interest. But I will try another Leonora Meriel book. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy by the author, narrator or publisher