A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar: A Novel

This title had a dreamy, watercolor-like quality. It follows two strong women living one hundred years apart, both British but spending much of their lives in far-off locales under challenging conditions. I didn't expect to like this title as much as I did. After hearing it I now want to visit China. A bonus: I could listen to Susan Duerden's gorgeous voice all day long.

Normally I am the guy who writes a review defending a book that other people gave a poor review, but this time the shoe is on the other foot. I admit, I didn’t do my research before I started this book. I just read the title and thought, “I like bicycles, travel logs, the Silk Road, Ladies, and even a little Chic-Lit, I will give this book a try!” Sadly, there is almost none of those things in this book. A better title would have been "All Relationships Suck; No Really, They Do." Reading this book, I am not sure if there is anything Suzanne Joinson likes. I am also not sure if she was just trying to shock the reader or if someone should sit her down with a drink and tell her ‘things aren’t that bad.’ It’s not even that Ms Joinson lacks talent, or even that the idea is bad, this book just doesn’t work.

The narrator, Susan Duerden, also did a dismal job, which is sad because she has a nice voice. My biggest problem is that she put inflection at the end of 99.9% of the sentences. It was like she was asking me questions for ten and a half hours instead of telling me a story. I have to admit that she either got better after about 5 hours or I just got used to it, but I don’t want to waste the time to go back and check.

This is a "Top Ten"!

I found the story and characters absolutely spellbinding. The crescendo of suspense is perfectly modulated, and the author's imagery is nothing short of gorgeous.

Eva. Another reviewer complained about the narration. I thought the narration was pitch perfect, a very feminine voice for a very feminine story. Every character has his or her own voice. The listener will notice changes in diction between them.

Spoiler alert .............. Millicent. What a tragically awful and misguided person!

Please give this beautiful book a listen!

I tried, I really did. I tried to listen to this book but the narrator is so bad that you can't concentrate on the book. What I thought might be an interesting book, turned into a sad, sad attempt to get past the poor narration of the story. One wonders if the publishing company did not have enough money to hire a good narrator, or perhaps, there was a female relative in need of a job? Ms. Duerden spends half her time whispering the words and half her time making the story sound like a very poor attempt at an epic poem- complete with pregnant pauses at the end of each phrase. And she literally sings the last word in each phrase, single syllable or not, with each word having two sing-song notes in it. Enough. I couldn't get through the first chapter and that is a shame because the plot and synopsis sounded very interesting. A complete waste of a credit.

Anyone, even Yoda would have been a better narrator.

Who knows if the book had redeeming qualities, as I could not get past the awful narration.

Sorry, Suzanne Joinson! I am sure that you spent an extraordinary amount of time writing this book and when it went audio, I bet you were thrilled. Who knew it would sink like the Titanic simply because of the narration.

yes, great story

terrible monotone performance, the worst narrator I have heard on audible

yes, despite the terrible narration

definitely worth listening too, despite the narration

I was warned. Oh, how bad could it be? It's bad. Really bad. The performance by Susan Duerdan was spectacularly....bad. Listen to the sample and multiply it by 100 on the annoyance scale. I didn't like any of the characters, but I really think that it was due to Duerdan's performance rather than the characters themselves. Trust me--read the book.

She spoke as if she was talking to a servant. Her voice rose ON EVERY SENTENCE!