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Bad Dreams and Other Stories
- Narrated by: Emma Gregory
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
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Publisher's summary
The award-winning author of The Past once again "crystallizes the atmosphere of ordinary life in prose somehow miraculous and natural" (Washington Post), in a collection of stories that elevate the mundane into the exceptional.
The author of six critically acclaimed novels, Tessa Hadley has proven herself to be the champion of revealing the hidden depths in the deceptively simple. In these short stories, it's the ordinary things that turn out to be most extraordinary: the history of a length of fabric or a forgotten jacket.
Two sisters quarrel over an inheritance and a new baby; a child awake in the night explores the familiar rooms of her home, made strange by the darkness; a housekeeper caring for a helpless old man uncovers secrets from his past. The first steps into a turning point and a new life are made so easily and carelessly: Each of these stories illuminates a crucial moment of transition, often imperceptible to the protagonist.
A girl accepts a lift in a car with some older boys; a young woman reads the diaries she discovers while housesitting. Small acts have large consequences, some that can reverberate across decades; private fantasies can affect other people, for better and worse. The real things that happen to people, the accidents that befall them, are every bit as mysterious as their longings and their dreams.
Bad Dreams and Other Stories demonstrates yet again that Tessa Hadley "puts on paper a consciousness so visceral, so fully realized, it heightens and expands your own. She is a true master." (Lily King, author of Euphoria)
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Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that seduces beautiful Connie into a second date...and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades later, they live more or less happily in the London suburbs with their moody seventeen year-old son, Albie. Then Connie tells him she thinks she wants a divorce. The timing couldn’t be worse. Connie has planned a month-long tour of European capitals, a chance to experience the world’s greatest works of art as a family, and she can’t bring herself to cancel. And maybe going ahead is for the best anyway? Douglas is privately convinced that this landmark trip will rekindle the romance in the marriage, and might even help him to bond with Albie. Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest, slyly witty, and at times achingly optimistic point of view, Us is the story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves, and learning how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.
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Great novel - my favorite in years
- By Mark on 07-21-15
By: David Nicholls
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Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
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A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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I Couldn't Love You More
- A Novel
- By: Esther Freud
- Narrated by: Niamh Cusack
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
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A sweeping story of three generations of women, crossing from London to Ireland and back again, and the enduring effort to retrieve the secrets of the past.
By: Esther Freud
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The Darkest Secret
- A Novel
- By: Alex Marwood
- Narrated by: Beverley A. Crick
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
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Performance
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Story
Real estate mogul Sean Jackson is throwing himself a splashy 50th birthday party, but trouble starts almost immediately: His ex-wife has sent his teenage daughters to the party without telling him; his current wife has fired the nanny; and he's finding it difficult to sneak away to his mistress. Then something truly terrible happens: one of his three-year-old twins goes missing. No trace of her is ever found. The attendees of the party, nicknamed the Jackson Associates by the press, become infamous overnight.
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Wow
- By Christina on 09-14-16
By: Alex Marwood
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Gold Dust
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Three women linked by their blood, their dreams...and their sins. From Leningrad in the '70s to America and London in the present day, Kimberley Freeman's new novel follows the lives of two sisters, Lena and Natalia, and their cousin, Sofi, as they move away from Russia and all they have known. Despite promising to always take care of each other, a pact to meet every winter is shattered as their lives change and long-held resentments begin to surface. Can that resentment turn to hatred? To murder?
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It's just not the same without Caroline Lee
- By Maria on 12-04-17
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The Keys to the Street
- By: Ruth Rendell
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life of someone she didn’t know. And this generous act led directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with Alistair. For him, it was as though her beauty had been plundered. But the man whose life she had saved would change Mary’s life in a way she could never have imagined.
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Mystery with humor and insight
- By Ida Hagman on 10-02-12
By: Ruth Rendell
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The Muse
- A Novel
- By: Jessie Burton
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin, Maria Elena Infantino
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
England, 1967. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London. When she starts working at the prestigious Skelton Institute of Art, she discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. The excitement over the painting is matched by the intrigue around the conflicting stories of its discovery.
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Mixed narration
- By Amy Fleury on 08-05-16
By: Jessie Burton
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A Pleasure and a Calling
- A Novel
- By: Phil Hogan
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
You won't remember Mr. Heming. He was the estate agent who showed you around your comfortable home, suggested a financial package, negotiated a price with the owner, and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key. That's absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine? The answer is; he has the keys to them all. William Heming's most at home in a stranger's private things.
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The Invisible Man
- By Janice on 02-05-15
By: Phil Hogan
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Secret Smile
- By: Nicci French
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Miranda's sister Kerri has a new boyfriend. He's a handsome charmer who seems to dote on Kerri. But Brendan isn't the man he says he is. Miranda should know. She broke off her own affair with him just a few weeks ago when she found him reading her diary.
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I want my 9 hours back
- By Ashley on 07-19-23
By: Nicci French
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Family Secrets
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Thayer
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Though Diane Randall’s jewelry business is a great success, her marriage is not, and she finds herself growing lonely as her children near adulthood. Meanwhile, her eighteen-year-old daughter Julia is falling dangerously in love, and Diane’s mother, Jean, is relishing her newfound freedom as a single woman in Europe. Distracted by their individual concerns, the three women are ill-prepared for the crisis that suddenly appears on Diane’s doorstep in the form of a handsome FBI agent asking about an explosive secret that’s laid buried for decades.
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Nancy! Is there a sequel? What?
- By PattieLynn on 12-02-22
By: Nancy Thayer
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Unexpected short stories
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Married Love
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Married Love is a collection of short stories to treasure, a masterful new work from one of the UK's most accomplished storytellers. Lottie announces that she is getting married. The youngest daughter of a large and close-knit family, Lottie is 19 but looks five years younger. Her fiancé is Edgar Lennox, a lecturer at Lottie's university, 45 years her senior. We follow as Lottie's life unfolds; it is a story of romantic dreams and daily reality, family loyalties and the comedy and solace to be found in small moments.
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What listeners say about Bad Dreams and Other Stories
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Brendan
- 07-04-17
Perceptive
These stories fill you with a sense of being deeply understood, that all your sorrows and observations and emotions are part of the human experience that is communicated richly and wisely to you by Hadley.
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- Cariola
- 07-15-17
Small Objects, Big Insights
Tessa Hadley's short stories are always deceptive, in a good way. They come off as small tales of ordinary people (a child plagued by nightmares, a housekeeper, two sisters at odds over the sale of their parents; home), often in mundane situations. But what Hadley brings to their stories is a remarkable level of authenticity of character. She has mastered the language of thought, of interior emotions like few other writers today. These are people who think as we tend to think, who feel in the ways that we often feel, and yet she conveys this not through vague, abstract words but through concrete objects, visual snapshots, lingering sounds, metaphors. It's quite a skill, and it serves her well.
The ten stories in this collection vary greatly yet are all linked by a moment of self-discovery. In "Abduction," set in the 1960s, a teenaged girl left home alone on break accepts a ride from three unknown boys. It might have gone the way of Joyce Carol Oates's "Where Are you Going? Where Have you Been?" but Hadley is too perceptive to fall for that trap. In "One Saturday Morning," a 10-year old opens the door to an unknown acquaintance of her parents while they run errands. Their conversation, and the one that she overhears when her parents come home, give her a first peek into adult life and a moment of maturing empathy. Claire, the focus of "Flight," is a successful woman who returns to visit her working class sister, using the birth of a nephew as an excuse for reconciliation, but perhaps her intentions are not as altruistic as she would like to believe. A housekeeper reads her employer's diary, uncovering secrets that change their relationship. A designer is called on to create a trousseau for a former classmate.
Simple stories, simple moments, extraordinary insights into human nature conveyed through Hadley's perceptiveness and masterful style.
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6 people found this helpful
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Story
- Donea Clancy
- 12-06-23
Uneven Group of Stories
Be prepared to skip a few of these stories. Some of the stories would be too silly even for children.
The narrators sometimes use voices that are childish or grating.
However...a few of the stories will evoke memories...real or imagined...that will propel the reader into a Christmas that was longed for...or dreaded.
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- Christalpistol
- 04-11-19
NOT what I was expecting! Disappointed!!
I bought this book because I read an article
In which suspense & horror authors recommended the book they thought was the scariest they ever read. This book is not scary, suspenseful, creepy or shocking. For those customers like me that were led to this book from the bustle article, I repeat this book is NOT scary! I really, REALLY wanted to return this book but I haven’t because I listened to 3/4 of it (albeit with my eyebrows furrowed or only half ass listening because of sheer boredom), and also I have returned several crappy books as of late. I felt so deceived by the recommendation. I rarely read the reviews people post, I go by the stars rating, because although many times the reviewer unintentionally gives spoilers. If you are intent on reading this book, stop reading my review here. I’m not going to spoil the whole book but inbred to give an example. For those of you on the fence, I’m going to try and explain my opinion on this book. This is a book of short stories and I really love short stories and essays because I can listen and go listen to another book without having to read straight through. So my disdain has nothing to do with the books format. Ok for example, in one of the stories, a woman does something near unforgivable to her older sister, they become estranged and the younger sister moves away. She returns years later uninvited, and under false pretenses, after her niece gives birth. The older sister refuses to see her and accept her gifts, so the younger sister leaves. The End. Yes, the end! Seriously, I have had more exciting stories of being cut off on my way to work. I almost listened to the story again to make sure I hadn’t missed something. It was already painful enough the first time so, no. I went to read the reviews to see ‘what gives’ and to see if I could garner any insight as to what I wasn’t hearing. I read a couple sophisticated reviews from those who loved the book. I couldn’t help feeling like when I go to an art museum and I overhear patrons going on about perspective and hidden meaning in a piece, when all I see is a painting of a bowl of fruit with a worm in the apple! Ok so there is a worm in the apple it’s not a metaphor! That’s how I felt with the stories they are so mundane and the worm in the stories are just so minor (such as the false pretense). The author, and I won’t name names, that chose this book as scariest, I’m seriously wondering if she is frightened of her own shadow. If you want good horror or suspense recommendations look to Stephen King, he hasn’t let me down yet! So in conclusion, this book and narration is so boring and if you want help sleeping at night this is PERFECT 👌
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