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Wild Strawberries

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Wild Strawberries

By: Angela Thirkell
Narrated by: Hilary Neville
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About this listen

Pretty, impecunious Mary Preston, newly arrived as a guest of her aunt Agnes at the magnificent wooded estate of Rushwater, falls head over heels for handsome playboy David Leslie. Meanwhile Agnes and her mother, the eccentric matriarch Lady Emily, have hopes of a different, more suitable match for Mary. At the lavish Rushwater dance party, her future happiness hangs in the balance....

©1934 The Estate of Angela Thirkell (P)2015 Rockethouse Productions Ltd Classics

Critic reviews

"Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself." (Alexander McCall Smith)
"Appealing." ( Glasgow Sunday Herald)
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I am thrilled that Angela Thirkell's books are finally being released on audio, and that they started with this one (my absolute favourite). Hilary Neville does a really perfect job of narrating, and I can't fault it. I hope she does the next one, and not Yonnie Fraser who was used for Pomfret Towers (dreadful).

Perfection

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This grew on me as I listened to it. There is no real plot to speak of but the social comedy is delicious as the author shows up the foibles and foolishness of her characters from the very camp social climbing gardening expert to the beautiful woman entirely obsessed by her children. There is also a rather touching romance, undertones of sadness as parents remember their eldest son killed in World War I, and some teenage French Royalists. I went from slightly underwhelmed to entirely charmed in the course of listening, helped by the really excellent narration.

Delicious social comedy

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Human beings do not change, and this book is just as funny now as it was when it was published in 1934. The author has real insight into how people think, feel, and behave, and it is easy to identify with the characters. Nice people in a lovely environment. It’s wonderful to escape back to those days. The book gives a real insight into life in England in that period. The narrator is excellent; she performs all the voices really well – both male and female, both French and English. It’s the kind of book that you can listen to/read over and over again. Perfect.

Excellent, really funny and delightful

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A pleasurable listen, which like all Angela Thirkell, tracks the summer activities and romances of an upper/upper middle class family. Less accomplished than some of her other books, the 'sub-plot' of a French family doesn't quite work for me - tired jokes about foreigners seem unfunny today - and the language can be occasionally excruciatingly dated and painful to the modern ear. Still, most of it is a pleasant love story with the predictable happy ending.

Generally delightful - but dated - social comedy

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