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A Pair of Blue Eyes
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Set on Egdon Heath, a fictional barren moor in Wessex, Eustacia Vye longs for the excitement of city life but is cut off from the world in her grandfather's lonely cottage. Clym Yeobright who has returned to the area to become a schoolmaster seems to offer everything she dreams of: passion, excitement and the opportunity to escape. However, Clym's ambitions are quite different, and marriage only increases Eustacia's destructive restlessness, drawing others into a tangled web of deceit and unhappiness.
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Tess of the d'Urbervilles
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,620
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,508
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Tess Durbeyfield has become one of the most famous female protagonists in 19th-century British literature. Betrayed by the two men in her life - Alec D’Urberville, her seducer/rapist and father of her fated child; and Angel, her intellectual and pious husband - Tess takes justice, and her own destiny, into her delicate hands. In telling her desperate and passionate story, Hardy brings Tess to life with an extraordinary vividness that makes her live in the heart of the reader long after the novel is concluded.
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Far From the Madding Crowd
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In a remote corner of early Victorian England, where traditional practices remain untouched by time, Bathsheba Everdene stands out as a beacon of female independence and self-reliance. However, when confronted with three suitors, among them the dashing Sergeant Troy, she shows a reckless capriciousness that threatens the stability of the whole community. Published in 1874, and an immediate best seller, Far From the Madding Crowd established Thomas Hardy as one of Britain's foremost novelists.
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 78
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- Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 10
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11
After the untimely death of their parents, Cytheria and Owen Graye must go out into the world and fend for themselves. Cytheria's journey leads her to the dark and mysterious household of Miss Aldclyffe, a capricious and eccentric woman, who steers Cytheria into a love affair with her charismatic steward, Aeneous Manston. All is not what it seems, and Cytheria finds herself entangled in a violent web of lust, murder, deception, and blackmail.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A thriller!
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The Mayor of Casterbridge
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- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 153
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
This audiobook is about the rise and fall of Michael Henchard. While out-of-work he gets drunk at a fair and impulsively sells his wife and baby for five guineas to a sailor. Eighteen years later he is reunited with his wife and daughter, who discover that he has gained wealth and respect and is now the most prominent man in Casterbridge. Though he attempts to make amends he is no less impulsive and once again loses everything due to bad luck and his violent, selfish and vengeful nature.
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Tangled Webs
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-
The Return of the Native
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- Narrated by: Alan Rickman
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 906
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 828
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 805
Set on Egdon Heath, a fictional barren moor in Wessex, Eustacia Vye longs for the excitement of city life but is cut off from the world in her grandfather's lonely cottage. Clym Yeobright who has returned to the area to become a schoolmaster seems to offer everything she dreams of: passion, excitement and the opportunity to escape. However, Clym's ambitions are quite different, and marriage only increases Eustacia's destructive restlessness, drawing others into a tangled web of deceit and unhappiness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Always Hardy
- By Wallen on 04-20-11
-
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,620
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,508
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,508
Tess Durbeyfield has become one of the most famous female protagonists in 19th-century British literature. Betrayed by the two men in her life - Alec D’Urberville, her seducer/rapist and father of her fated child; and Angel, her intellectual and pious husband - Tess takes justice, and her own destiny, into her delicate hands. In telling her desperate and passionate story, Hardy brings Tess to life with an extraordinary vividness that makes her live in the heart of the reader long after the novel is concluded.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Davina Porter Does It Again!
- By misaki on 06-15-15
-
Far From the Madding Crowd
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Jamie Parker
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,147
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,045
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,044
In a remote corner of early Victorian England, where traditional practices remain untouched by time, Bathsheba Everdene stands out as a beacon of female independence and self-reliance. However, when confronted with three suitors, among them the dashing Sergeant Troy, she shows a reckless capriciousness that threatens the stability of the whole community. Published in 1874, and an immediate best seller, Far From the Madding Crowd established Thomas Hardy as one of Britain's foremost novelists.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Country tales and voices.
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Jude The Obscure
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 111
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 78
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 79
This is the story of a young country workman obsessed by his ambition to become an Oxford student, interwoven with his fraught relationships with two women.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Staggering
- By Tad Davis on 02-16-10
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The Woodlanders
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 162
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 114
Set in the Dorset landscape familiar to Hardy novels, The Woodlanders concerns the fortunes of Giles Winterborne, whose love for the well-do-do Grace Melbury is challenged by the arrival of a dashing and dissolute doctor, Edred Fitzpiers. When the mysterious Mrs Charmond further complicates the romantic entanglements, marital choice and class mobility become inextricably linked.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thomas Hardy lesser known work
- By Molly Aultz on 06-12-08
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Mary Barton
- A Tale of Manchester Life
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 359
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 317
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 314
When her father assassinates Henry Carson, his employer's son and Mary's admirer, suspicion falls on Mary's second admirer, Jem, a fellow worker. Mary has to prove her lover's innocence without incriminating her own father.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Narration as Brilliant Performance Art
- By Amazon Customer on 09-14-10
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Silas Marner
- By: George Eliot
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- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 367
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 318
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 316
For 15 years the weaver Silas Marner has plied his loom near the village of Raveloe, alone and unjustly in exile, cut off from faith and human love, he cares only for his hoard of golden guineas. But two events occur that will change his life forever; his gold disappears and a golden-haired baby girl appears. But where did she come from and who really stole the gold? This moving tale sees Silas eventually redeemed and restored to life by the unlikely means of his love for the orphan child Eppie.
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5 out of 5 stars
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amazing
- By Ramon on 06-04-12
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Daniel Deronda
- By: George Eliot
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- Length: 36 hrs and 4 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 243
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 228
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 227
Meeting by chance at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolyn's redeemer as she finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature after a loveless marriage. But Daniel's path was already set when he rescued a young Jewess from suicide.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Give it a try!
- By Tucker LaPrade on 01-30-16
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Two on a Tower
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Peter Joyce
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 9
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 8
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Story5 out of 5 stars 9
Lonely Viviette Constantine awaits the return of her husband from a hunting expedition to Africa. She becomes involved with a young astronomer, Swithin St.Cleeve, who observes the night sky from a disused tower on her estate. Despite their differing ages and social backgrounds they soon find their destinies linked - but with fateful consequences.
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The Woodlanders
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
The Woodlanders is vintage Hardy. The story revolves around the young woman Grace Melbury, who returns to the leafy world of Little Hintock and soon finds herself at the center of a number of tragic events. In penetrating, incisive, and beautiful prose, Hardy tells a moving tale of unrequited love as fate and the constraints of society thwart the happiness of our heroine. The leafy world of Blackmoor Vale and the hamlet of Little Hintock are all lovingly described by Hardy, who named The Woodlanders as the favorite of all his novels.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Masterpiece of writing and narration!
- By Kathi on 05-17-14
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Vanity Fair
- By: William Makepeace Thackeray
- Narrated by: John Castle
- Length: 31 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 627
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 528
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 520
Set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this classic gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp who craves wealth and a position in society. Calculating and determined to succeed, she charms, deceives and manipulates everyone she meets. A novel of early 19th-century English society, it takes its title from the place designated as the centre of human corruption in John Bunyan's 17th-century allegory.
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A book that was meant to be read aloud!
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Wives and Daughters
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 613
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 451
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 450
Molly Gibson, the only daughter of a widowed doctor in the small provincial town of Hollingford, lost her mother when she was a child. Her father remarries wanting to give Molly the woman's presence he feels she lacks. To Molly, any stepmother would have been a shock, but the new Mrs. Gibson is a self-absorbed, petty widow, and Molly's unhappiness is compounded by the realisation that her father has come to regret his second marriage.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Superb! Story and Narration A++
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The Old Curiosity Shop
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 409
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 340
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 337
Provoking an unprecedented outpouring of public grief when it was first published, it follows the story of Little Nell and her feckless grandfather. Forced to leave their magical shop of curiosities in London, they are pursued across the English countryside by the grotesquely evil dwarf Quilp. They escape - but at what cost?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding Narration
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The Trumpet-Major
- By: Thomas Hardy
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 5
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 6
The Napoleonic Wars are at their height, and upheaval and uncertainty plague British soil. In the midst of it all, the impoverished beauty Anne Garland finds herself at the center of a love quadrangle. She is torn between the persistent and annoying Festus Derryman, her womanizing childhood sweetheart Bob Loveday, and the reliable and thoughtful John Loveday, the eponymous Trumpet-Major. Who will she choose?
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Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady, Volume 1
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 14
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 14
A milestone in the history of the novel, Samuel Richardson’s epistolary and elaborate Clarissa follows the life of a chaste young woman desperate to protect her virtue. When beautiful Clarissa Harlowe is forced to marry the rich but repulsive Mr. Solmes, she refuses, much to her family’s chagrin. She escapes their persecution with the help of Mr. Lovelace, a dashing and seductive rake, but soon finds herself in a far worse dilemma. Terrifying and enlightening, Clarissa weaves a tapestry of narrative experimentation into a gripping morality tale of good versus evil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gripping Novel & Performance
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Jane Austen. The Complete Novels
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- Unabridged
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Overall3 out of 5 stars 23
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Performance2.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4 out of 5 stars 23
This Audiobook contains the complete novels of Jane Austen: "Emma", "Lady Susan", "Love and Friendship, and Other Early Works", "Mansfield Park", "Northanger Abbey", "Persuasion", "Pride and Prejudice", "Sense and Sensibility", "The Watsons".
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1 out of 5 stars
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Utter and complete chaos
- By Cristina Rivas on 12-17-18
Publisher's Summary
Hardy's third novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, follows the story of Elfride Swancourt. The daughter of the rector of Endelstow, a sparse, sea-swept parish in Cornwall, Elfride is caught between two suitors of very different backgrounds: Stephen Smith, a young architect restoring the old parish church; and the respectable, older man of London society, Henry Knight. The blue-eyed and high-spirited protagonist must untangle the conflicting messages of her heart and her mind.
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4 out of 5 stars
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- Molly R.
- 08-14-17
Depressing story & unbelievable central character
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
No. While I realize Thomas Hardy is supposed to be one of the great writers, this wasn't my cup of tea. The story centers around an innocent girl who's not very decisive or clever. It's hard to imagine her last lover, an intellectual, really sees anything in common with her. Hardy is a master of the English language, but at times his using 20 words when 5 will do to get the point across, can tax one's patience.
What could Thomas Hardy have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Create a more believable central character.
What about Anna Bentinck’s performance did you like?
Anna's performance was great. I picked the book in part based on her being the narrator.
Could you see A Pair of Blue Eyes being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
It could be made into a movie I suppose. The leading lady could be Anne Hathaway, with Russell Crowe playing Harry, and Jude Law playing Smith. Elfride's father could be played by Michael Caine.
Any additional comments?
I persevered because of the narrator, but was annoyed with myself for investing that much time to reach a disappointing ending.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- VE
- 06-13-18
Memorable love story
Narrator voices each character with amazing individuality. Hardy’s characters, landscapes and suspenseful plot are brilliant.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Suea
- 12-30-16
What a talent
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Definitely for someone who loves beautiful descriptive writing and development of characters
What was one of the most memorable moments of A Pair of Blue Eyes?
To learn that her father did exactly as he warned his daughter of doing
What about Anna Bentinck’s performance did you like?
She's wonderful with a steady, listenable pace and distinct characterizations
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
As are all of Hardy's books, this was a tradegy. I did cry at the stupid decisions the supposedly educated lover made - even for his time.
Any additional comments?
Hardy's books are gorgeous and meaty and everything I love in a story.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful