Hide Me Among the Graves

By: Tim Powers

Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham

Winter 1862, London. Adelaide McKee, a former prostitute, arrives on the doorstep of veterinarian John Crawford, a man she met once seven years earlier. Their brief meeting produced a child who, until now, had been presumed dead. McKee has learned that the girl lives - but that her life and soul are in mortal peril from a vampiric ghost. But this is no ordinary spirit; the bloodthirsty wraith is none other than John Polidori, the onetime physician to the mad, bad, and dangerous Romantic poet Lord Byron. Both McKee and Crawford have mysterious histories with creatures like Polidori, and their child is a prize the malevolent spirit covets dearly.

Polidori is also the late uncle and supernatural muse to poet Christina Rossetti and her brother, painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. When she was just fourteen, Christina unwittingly brought Polidori's curse upon her family. But the curse bestowed unexpected blessings as well, inspiring both Christina and Gabriel's work. But when Polidori resurrects Dante's dead wife - turning her into a vampire - and threatens other family members, Christina and Dante agree they must destroy their monstrous uncle and break the spell, even if it means the end of their creative powers.

Determined to save their daughter, McKee and Crawford join forces with the Rossettis, and soon these wildly mismatched allies are plunged into a supernatural London underworld whose existence goes beyond their wildest imaginings. Ultimately, each of these disparate individuals - the sensitive poet, the tortured painter, the straitlaced animal doctor, the reformed prostitute, and even their Artful Dodger - like young daughter - must choose between the banality and constraints of human life and the unholy immortality that Polidori offers.

©2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ghost Cats

One of Powers’ most gripping and detailed worlds. Includes the best scene ever written involving ghost cats.

Great novel, poorly edited reading

I'm a big fan of Tim Powers, and I was really looking forward to this audiobook. However, the narration is a disappointment. In some cases I think that editing is at fault; once some words were repeated, and multiple words are mispronounced--including a major character's name. The reader has also made some odd choices about the characters' accents. I found it a bit unbelievable that a middle-class, well-educated country clergyman's daughter would develop a working-class London accent at age 20 or so after a year spent as a prostitute and then keep that accent for the rest of her life. I wonder the same thing about another character, Edward Trelawny, who in real life was an educated man from an old family and friend of Byron and Shelley--a cockney? No. Finally, the reader seems to struggle to make sense of the poems that are used as epigraphs throughout the book.

Good, creepy vampire story

What did you love best about Hide Me Among the Graves?

The narrator. This is only my second Audible book, but Fiona Hardingham was lovely, and I'm thinking about trying The Scorpio Races just because she narrates it. She's got a pleasant voice, doesn't narrate too slowly, and does the various British accents with better skill and fluency than most American narrators would.

It was also refreshing to read a vampire story without romance or teen angst. The vampires were evil, made no apology for it, and that was that.

Any additional comments?

Normally I dislike books which take liberties with historical figures' lives, but this is sort of Tim Powers's thing, and he did it beautifully. He took the Rosettis' real history and filled in his story between the lines, in a sort of way that might make sense were vampires and ghosts real.

Not a best effort

I'm normally a Tim Powers fan and adore Last Call and many others of his books. They do have a Hemmingway,/Hammet quality of starting every morning with liquid courage. This book suffers much from that. Worse still, it suffers from unbelievable characters. I was quite curious with what he would do with this and it went somewhere dreadful. Not fun, interesting, my that was intense dreadful. I mean grotty.

Narration is a no go

Tim Powers is one of my favorite authors. I devour everything he writes. Unfortunately the narration on this ruined it for me. Sometimes I cannot even understand what she is saying as she slurs words, mispronounces words and generally doesn't really know the characters.

I'd love to hear this narrated by someone else as I really want to listen to it but I just can't continue.