Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Bookman's Tale  By  cover art

The Bookman's Tale

By: Charlie Lovett
Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.75

Buy for $15.75

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Guaranteed to capture the hearts of everyone who truly loves books, The Bookman's Tale is a former bookseller's sparkling novel and a delightful exploration of one of literature's most tantalizing mysteries with echoes of Shadow of the Wind and A.S. Byatt's Possession.

Hay-on-Wye, 1995. Peter Byerly isn't sure what drew him into this particular bookshop. Nine months earlier, the death of his beloved wife, Amanda, had left him shattered. The young antiquarian bookseller relocated from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to rediscover the joy he once took in collecting and restoring rare books. But upon opening an 18th-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, Peter is shocked when a portrait of Amanda tumbles out of its pages. Of course, it isn't really her. The watercolor is clearly Victorian. Yet the resemblance is uncanny, and Peter becomes obsessed with learning the picture's origins.

As he follows the trail back first to the Victorian era and then to Shakespeare's time, Peter communes with Amanda's spirit, learns the truth about his own past, and discovers a book that might definitively prove Shakespeare was, indeed, the author of all his plays.

©2013 Charlie Lovett (P)2013 Penguin Audio

What listeners say about The Bookman's Tale

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    147
  • 4 Stars
    160
  • 3 Stars
    85
  • 2 Stars
    18
  • 1 Stars
    7
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    161
  • 4 Stars
    147
  • 3 Stars
    53
  • 2 Stars
    16
  • 1 Stars
    6
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    140
  • 4 Stars
    139
  • 3 Stars
    73
  • 2 Stars
    22
  • 1 Stars
    5

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Trying story

The first chapter of this book sounds good - then it gets muddled. Did any editor touch this? Too much backstory, too much many details that don't flesh out the characters. It needed some serious revision. It might have been a good outline but the execution was not well done. The reader was OK with some weak material.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful