Love All

By: Elizabeth Jane Howard

Narrated by: Joanna Lumley

Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

From the bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Love All is a heartfelt story of love and adulthood in the 1960s.

The late 1960s. For Persephone Plover, the daughter of distant and neglectful parents, the innocent, isolated days of childhood are long past. Now she must deal with the emotions of an adult world.

Meanwhile in Melton, in the West Country, Jack Curtis – a self-made millionaire – has employed Persephone's aunt. A garden designer in her sixties, she is to deal with the terraces and glasshouses of the once beautiful local manor house – one that he has acquired at vast expense. He also has plans to start an arts festival, as a means to avoid the loneliness of divorce.

Also in Melton are the Musgrove siblings, Thomas and Mary, whose parents originally owned and lived in Melton House. They are still trying to cope with emotional consequences of the tragic death of Thomas's wife, Celia. As is Francis, Celia's brother, who has come to live with them and thereby, perhaps, to find his way through life.

As Jack's festival comes together, so shall these disparate souls – their relationships intertwining, and their loves transformed.

©2008 Elizabeth Jane Howard (P)2008 Macmillan Digital Audio

Critic reviews

'Graceful, moving' – Daily Express

'Her talent seemed so effervescent, so unstoppable, that there was no predicting where it might take her' – Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall

Warning: Abridged version

I have no issues with the narration, but I discovered to my dismay that this is an abridged version of a much longer book. This should have been stated clearly in the Audible description, but was not.

Bad

So disjointed. I felt like slapping everyone and tell them to snap out of it.