Listen free for 30 days
-
This Lovely City
- Narrated by: Theo Solomon, Karise Yansen
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
People who bought this also bought...
-
Love After Love
- By: Ingrid Persaud
- Narrated by: Ingrid Persaud
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household, happy in their differences, as they build a home together. Home: the place where your navel string is buried, keeping these three safe from an increasingly dangerous world. Happy and loving they are, until the night when a glass of rum, a heart to heart and a terrible truth explodes the family unit, driving them apart.
-
-
I loved this book from start to finish, brilliant
- By stolen from me on 12-04-20
-
Small Pleasures
- By: Clare Chambers
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and - on the brink of 40 - living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys.
-
-
Poignant, thoughtful & beautifully crafted
- By Rachel Redford on 26-07-20
-
Fifty-Fifty
- By: Steve Cavanagh
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two sisters on trial for murder. They accuse each other.
-
-
Mr Cavanagh’s usual brilliance.
- By Kindle Customer on 08-09-20
-
Love in Colour
- Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold
- By: Bolu Babalola
- Narrated by: Ajjaz Awad, Nneka Okoye, Bolu Babalola, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Join debut author Bolu Babalola as she recreates the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology and retells them with new incredible detail and vivacity. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines iconic Greek myths, ancient legends from South Asia and stories from countries that no longer exist in our world. Babalola is inspired by tales that truly show the variety and colours of love around the globe.
-
-
Fantastic!
- By Anonymous User on 09-09-20
-
The Devil and the Dark Water
- By: Stuart Turton
- Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world’s greatest detective, is being transported from the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam, where he is facing trial and execution for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent, while also on board are Sara Wessel, a noble woman with a secret, and her husband, the governor general of Batavia.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Theodora Clark on 12-11-20
-
The Other Side of the Bridge
- By: Mary Lawson
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Arthur and Jake are the sons of a farmer in the mid-1930s, when life is tough and another world war is looming. Arthur is solid and dutiful, set to inherit the farm and his father's character; Jake is younger, attractive, mercurial and dangerous to know.
-
-
Characters in Canada you have to care about ...
- By Anushka on 28-09-09
-
Love After Love
- By: Ingrid Persaud
- Narrated by: Ingrid Persaud
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Irrepressible Betty Ramdin, her shy son Solo and their marvellous lodger, Mr Chetan, form an unconventional household, happy in their differences, as they build a home together. Home: the place where your navel string is buried, keeping these three safe from an increasingly dangerous world. Happy and loving they are, until the night when a glass of rum, a heart to heart and a terrible truth explodes the family unit, driving them apart.
-
-
I loved this book from start to finish, brilliant
- By stolen from me on 12-04-20
-
Small Pleasures
- By: Clare Chambers
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and - on the brink of 40 - living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys.
-
-
Poignant, thoughtful & beautifully crafted
- By Rachel Redford on 26-07-20
-
Fifty-Fifty
- By: Steve Cavanagh
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two sisters on trial for murder. They accuse each other.
-
-
Mr Cavanagh’s usual brilliance.
- By Kindle Customer on 08-09-20
-
Love in Colour
- Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold
- By: Bolu Babalola
- Narrated by: Ajjaz Awad, Nneka Okoye, Bolu Babalola, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Join debut author Bolu Babalola as she recreates the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology and retells them with new incredible detail and vivacity. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines iconic Greek myths, ancient legends from South Asia and stories from countries that no longer exist in our world. Babalola is inspired by tales that truly show the variety and colours of love around the globe.
-
-
Fantastic!
- By Anonymous User on 09-09-20
-
The Devil and the Dark Water
- By: Stuart Turton
- Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world’s greatest detective, is being transported from the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam, where he is facing trial and execution for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent, while also on board are Sara Wessel, a noble woman with a secret, and her husband, the governor general of Batavia.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Theodora Clark on 12-11-20
-
The Other Side of the Bridge
- By: Mary Lawson
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Arthur and Jake are the sons of a farmer in the mid-1930s, when life is tough and another world war is looming. Arthur is solid and dutiful, set to inherit the farm and his father's character; Jake is younger, attractive, mercurial and dangerous to know.
-
-
Characters in Canada you have to care about ...
- By Anushka on 28-09-09
-
The 24-Hour Café
- By: Libby Page
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Day and night Stella's Café opens its doors for the lonely and the lost, the morning people and the night owls. It is many things to many people, but most of all it is a place where life can wait at the door. A place of small kindnesses. A place where anyone can be whoever they want, where everyone is always welcome.
-
-
Sat outside my house just to see what happened to Mona and Hannah
- By "alinoyce" on 28-02-20
-
Love and Other Thought Experiments
- By: Sophie Ward
- Narrated by: Sophie Ward
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rachel and Eliza are hoping to have a baby. The couple spend many happy evenings together planning for the future. One night Rachel wakes up screaming and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. She knows it sounds mad - but she also knows it's true. As a scientist, Eliza won't take Rachel's fear seriously, and they have a bitter fight. Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question.
-
-
Sci-Fi meets philosophy
- By David M on 04-08-20
-
The Last Snow
- By: Stina Jackson
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What secrets are hidden within the walls of a desolate farmhouse in a forgotten corner of Lapland? Early spring has its icy grip on Ödesmark, a small village in northernmost Sweden, abandoned by many of its inhabitants. But Liv Björnlund never left. She lives in a derelict house together with her teenage son, Simon, and her ageing father, Vidar. They make for a peculiar family, and Liv knows that they are cause for gossip among their few remaining neighbours.
-
The Mission House
- By: Carys Davies
- Narrated by: Raj Ghatak
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the prize-winning author of West, a collision between old and new, east and west, in a former British hill station in contemporary South India. Fleeing the dark undercurrents of contemporary life in Britain, Hilary Byrd takes refuge in Ooty, a hill station in South India. There he finds solace in life's simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small town with his driver, Jamshed, and staying in a mission house beside the local presbytery where the Padre and his adoptive daughter, Priscilla, have taken Hilary under their wing.
-
The Girl with the Louding Voice
- By: Abi Daré
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
14-year-old Adunni has a dream: to be educated. But her father needs her bride-price, so sells his daughter to an older man, who demands she give him the fine boy-children his first two wives have failed to produce. When things go tragically wrong, Adunni flees to Lagos. It's what she has always wanted, to leave Ikati and see the world, and though her heart is full of sorrow for her lost family and the shame she has left behind, still Adunni will not be quiet and do as she's told.
-
-
Uplifting Story
- By O. on 22-03-20
-
The Midnight Library
- By: Matt Haig
- Narrated by: Carey Mulligan
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thirty-four-year-old Nora's life could be better. She's lonely, single and has just lost her job. Her cat dying feels like the last straw. What else is there to live for? Then she finds a library between life and death where she gets to try all the other lives she could have lived. The Midnight Library is a gloriously relatable novel about life, death and the in-between. It is about finding hope, playing chess, dumping regrets and picking the right people around you.
-
-
Fantasy may be hard to take if you’re depressed
- By Joan on 04-09-20
-
The Corner Shop
- Shopkeepers, the Sharmas and the Making of Modern Britain
- By: Babita Sharma
- Narrated by: Babita Sharma
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Babita Sharma was raised in a corner shop in Reading and over the counter watched a changing world, from the clientele to the products to the politics of the day. Along with the skills to mop a floor perfectly and stack a shelf, she gained a unique insight into a changing world - and an institution that, despite the creep of supermarkets, online shopping and delivery, has found a way to evolve and survive. The Corner Shop is the remarkable human story of these little institutions that have changed the course of our history.
-
-
grt.book
- By Kindle Customer on 27-09-19
-
The Thursday Murder Club
- By: Richard Osman
- Narrated by: Lesley Manville, Richard Osman, Marian Keyes
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved killings. But when a local property developer shows up dead, 'The Thursday Murder Club' finds themselves in the middle of their first live case. The four friends, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron, might be octogenarians, but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late?
-
-
Oh WHAT a disappointment!
- By mollyeyre on 03-09-20
-
All the Lonely People
- By: Mike Gayle
- Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship and fulfilment. But Hubert Bird is lying. The truth is day after day drags by without him seeing a single soul. Until, that is, he receives some good news - good news that in one way turns out to be the worst news ever, news that will force him out again, into a world he has long since turned his back on. Now, Hubert faces a seemingly impossible task: to make his real life resemble his fake life before the truth comes out.
-
-
Be more Hubert. Be more Ashleigh.
- By John Wilberforce on 04-08-20
-
The Vanishing Half
- By: Brit Bennett
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white and her white husband knows nothing of her past.
-
-
An Important Read
- By Kindle Customer on 23-06-20
-
People Like Us
- By: Louise Fein
- Narrated by: Holli Dempsey
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hetty Heinrich is a young girl growing up under Nazi rule. With an SS Officer father, a brother in the Luftwaffe and a member of the BDM, Hetty is the epitome of a perfect German child. But Walter changes everything. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, perfect-in-every-way Walter. The boy who saved her life. A Jew. As she falls more and more in love with a man who is against all she has been taught, Hetty begins to question everything. Will the steady march of dark forces destroy their world, or can love ultimately triumph?
-
-
very powerful - beautifully and hauntingly told
- By Moira on 16-05-20
-
Valentine
- By: Elizabeth Wetmore
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Jenna Lamia
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town’s men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow. In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, 14-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager has been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field – an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law.
-
-
Absolutely wonderful!
- By Penny G. on 13-08-20
Summary
Selected for the new BBC Two TV book club, Between the Covers, airing October 2020
Longlisted for the HWA Debut Crown Award Indie Book of the Month for March, selected by the Booksellers Association One of OBSERVER’S 10 best debut novelists of 2020 Woman & Home
Best of 2020 EVENING STANDARD
Best books of 2020 Mail on Sunday
2020 Highlights I Best of 2020
The drinks are flowing.The music is playing. But the party can’t last.
With the Blitz over and London reeling from war, jazz musician Lawrie Matthews has answered England’s call for help. Fresh off the Empire Windrush, he’s taken a tiny room in south London lodgings and has fallen in love with the girl next door. Touring Soho’s music halls by night, pacing the streets as a postman by day, Lawrie has poured his heart into his new home – and it’s alive with possibility. Until, one morning, he makes a terrible discovery. As the local community rallies, fingers of blame are pointed at those who had recently been welcomed with open arms. And, before long, the newest arrivals become the prime suspects in a tragedy which threatens to tear the city apart. Atmospheric, poignant and compelling, Louise Hare’s debut shows that new arrivals have always been the prime suspects. But, also, that there is always hope.
Critic reviews
"I loved, loved, loved it, and desperately wanted things to work out for Lawrie and Evie." (Cathy Rentzenbrink, Sunday Times best-selling author of The Last Act of Love)
"A tale to wring the heart and make the blood boil, swirling with post-war gloom, illuminated by the shining lights of Lawrie and Evie." (Saga)
"This atmospheric novel is a triumphant debut." (Woman & Home)
More from the same
What listeners say about This Lovely City
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JaneyB
- 28-02-20
A MUST listen!
This Lovely City is a love story set in London in between 1848 and 1950 in the aftermath of the war and the arrival of HMS Windrush. It is beautifully written and performed. It is comparable to Small Island for its poignant description of the Windrush generation, invited to help rebuild the Mother Country after the war, who, instead of receiving gratitude and a warm welcome, faced racism and discrimination at every turn. The characters are all subtle and multi-faceted and it is impossible not to fall for the main protagonists, Evie and Lawrie. It is a wonderful listen, leaving me wishing to start all over again!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sair0075
- 10-08-20
As the title suggests: Lovely... but with a twist
I didn't see the full ending coming of this story but it made for a pretty clever and subtle twist. Every time I read something about racism, I am deeply angry and upset. The characters in this story are well meaning people that have happened to go through some really horrendous things just because of the colour of their skin. It saddens me that in 2020 this is not completely behind us. The audiobook is worth your time and I really enjoyed the voice actors work and their interpretation.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Veronica
- 08-06-20
I truly wish times would change
I listened to this book at the time of the George Floyd murder. Those who want to educate themselves need to know how ingrained Racism is.
A great book. Made me remember my parents ‘welcome’ to theUK.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lorna
- 29-04-20
Great story
I really enjoyed listening to this book. Both the narrators have good clear voices and were able to provide convincing accents. Its a bitter sweet tale with several doses of harsh reality examining life in London as it must have been for the new arrivals from the Caribbean in the post war years. A really human story of love, death and motherhood told with compassion but without any sickly sweet romance. Really entertaining and intriguing.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 24-02-21
Highly recommend
Loved it, couldn't stop listening. A beautifully narrated tale which kept me hooked. I'll certainly be on the lookout for more from this author.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Vonnie
- 08-12-20
A Windruah story bought to life
I immediately became immediately immersed in this book, the characters flesh before my eyes.
I was taken on a journey of love, heartbreak, mystery and the raw emotion of being despised by many in post war Britain due to the colour of your skin.
I listened to the audio version of this and Theo Solomon and Karise Yansen really do justice to the amazing novel written by Louise Hare.
I shall certainly be recommending this book to friends and potentially giving it out as Christmas gifts.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- carol mitchell
- 18-11-20
Unexpectedly fabulous!
I listened to this book after seeing the review on Between the Sheets, I probably wouldn’t have read this had I not seen the programme, not only a moving story but a history lesson too, very thought provoking. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will look out for Louise’s next book.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- Amazon Customer
- 05-03-20
Compelling story line.
The story line was such that I was determined not to stop listening. I was disappointed however, I am sorry to say, with the narration by Karise Yansen. I just do nd it rather bland.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Viv
- 22-02-21
Brave and captivating story
i really enjoyed this, although not always an easy listen- It made me reflect on my white privilege and the horrific racism that affected so many coming to the UK, having been promised so much.
The story was well-read and the twists and turns of the plot kept me captivated. a slightly unsatisfactory ending, but nevertheless, a good listen.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Seaside Barb
- 18-02-21
Thought-provoking story
The challenges faced by the characters were so well-described that I was drawn into the story and desperately wanted a happy ending; however I wasn't keen on the female narrator so that detected from the overall enjoyment for me.