Your audiobook is waiting…
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy
People who bought this also bought...
-
Summary and Analysis of Karen Abbott's 'Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War'
- By: Summary Station
- Narrated by: Doris A. Ervin
- Length: 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is easy to feel an overwhelming sense of empowerment while listening to Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War. This was in a time where women were considered the weaker or fairer sex, before they were given the vote, and in a time where they were expected to maintain a certain air of etiquette. These four women chose their own fates, involving themselves in a war that pitted neighbors against one another.
-
Sin in the Second City
- Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul
- By: Karen Abbott
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Karen Abbott's colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters; their world-famous brothel, the Everleigh Club; and the perennial clash between our nation's hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots culminates in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers. Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America's journey from Victorian-era propriety to 20th-century modernity.
-
-
Great book - brilliant narrator!
- By Z. Halley on 04-17-10
-
Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets
- An Audible Original
- By: John Woolf, Nick Baker
- Narrated by: Stephen Fry
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the surface, the Victorian age is one of propriety, industry, prudishness and piety. But scratch the surface and you’ll find scandal, sadism, sex, madness, malice and murder. Presented by Stephen Fry, this series delves deep into a period of time we think we know, to discover an altogether darker reality. The stories we’re told offer a different perspective on an era which underwent massive social change. As education, trade, technology and culture blossomed, why was there an undercurrent of the ‘forbidden’ festering beneath Victorian society?
-
-
Please, have mercy and cut out the sound effects
- By Areader on 11-29-18
-
American Rose
- A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee
- By: Karen Abbott
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, best-selling author Karen Abbott “pioneered sizzle history” ( USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of America’s coming-of-age—told through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee and the world she survived and conquered.
-
-
Well done biography of a complicated Icon
- By Moire on 01-27-11
-
Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
-
-
Naivety VS Barbarians Of War
- By Sara on 03-05-16
-
Code Girls
- The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II
- By: Liza Mundy
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Recruited by the US Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than 10,000 women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of codebreaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them.
-
-
Important story, lousy writing!
- By J. Biallas on 08-11-18
-
Summary and Analysis of Karen Abbott's 'Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War'
- By: Summary Station
- Narrated by: Doris A. Ervin
- Length: 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is easy to feel an overwhelming sense of empowerment while listening to Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War. This was in a time where women were considered the weaker or fairer sex, before they were given the vote, and in a time where they were expected to maintain a certain air of etiquette. These four women chose their own fates, involving themselves in a war that pitted neighbors against one another.
-
Sin in the Second City
- Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul
- By: Karen Abbott
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Karen Abbott's colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters; their world-famous brothel, the Everleigh Club; and the perennial clash between our nation's hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots culminates in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers. Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America's journey from Victorian-era propriety to 20th-century modernity.
-
-
Great book - brilliant narrator!
- By Z. Halley on 04-17-10
-
Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets
- An Audible Original
- By: John Woolf, Nick Baker
- Narrated by: Stephen Fry
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the surface, the Victorian age is one of propriety, industry, prudishness and piety. But scratch the surface and you’ll find scandal, sadism, sex, madness, malice and murder. Presented by Stephen Fry, this series delves deep into a period of time we think we know, to discover an altogether darker reality. The stories we’re told offer a different perspective on an era which underwent massive social change. As education, trade, technology and culture blossomed, why was there an undercurrent of the ‘forbidden’ festering beneath Victorian society?
-
-
Please, have mercy and cut out the sound effects
- By Areader on 11-29-18
-
American Rose
- A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee
- By: Karen Abbott
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, best-selling author Karen Abbott “pioneered sizzle history” ( USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of America’s coming-of-age—told through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee and the world she survived and conquered.
-
-
Well done biography of a complicated Icon
- By Moire on 01-27-11
-
Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
-
-
Naivety VS Barbarians Of War
- By Sara on 03-05-16
-
Code Girls
- The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II
- By: Liza Mundy
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Recruited by the US Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than 10,000 women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of codebreaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them.
-
-
Important story, lousy writing!
- By J. Biallas on 08-11-18
-
Before We Were Yours
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Catherine Taber
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge - until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents - but they quickly realize the dark truth.
-
-
I was rivetted, finished in three days.
- By Lin Cloward on 06-26-17
-
The Alice Network
- A Novel
- By: Kate Quinn
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive.
-
-
We are standing on the shoulders of giants...
- By Marie on 02-25-18
-
The Spymistress
- By: Jennifer Chiaverini
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Chiaverini delights fans by transforming true events into riveting historical fiction. Set during the Civil War, The Spymistress introduces little-known Elizabeth Van Lew, a Virginia woman who used a vast spy network to steal Confederate secrets for the Union. But her next mission would prove the ultimate test of her mettle: infiltrate the infamous Confederate Libby Prison and orchestrate a daring escape.
-
-
Great Civil War era book!
- By Timp598 on 10-24-13
-
The Husband Hunters
- American Heiresses Who Married into the British Aristocracy
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Towards the end of the 19th century and for the first few years of the 20th, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege, and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, 50 years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known "Dollar Princess", married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage....
-
-
Bondfide Valuable History Lesson
- By Nurture Learners and Able Observers on 09-21-18
-
Pachinko
- By: Min Jin Lee
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Profoundly moving and gracefully told, Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them. Betrayed by her wealthy lover, Sunja finds unexpected salvation when a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan to start a new life.
-
-
wonderful book
- By erin on 12-11-17
-
After Anatevka: Live
- By: Alexandra Silber
- Narrated by: Ellie Fishman, Kerstin Anderson, Sheldon Harnick, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 23 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fiddler on the Roof revival cast member Alexandra Silber continues the story of the beloved characters from the Broadway classic.
-
-
Disappointing and pretentious
- By Sundance Metelsky on 10-15-18
-
Christmas Eve, 1914
- By: Charles Olivier
- Narrated by: Cameron Daddo, Xander Berkeley, Cody Fern, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 13 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1914, the war which was to have been wrapped up by Christmas had - in reality - only just begun, as all sides entrenched themselves deeper into the Great War. Christmas Eve, 1914 follows one company of British officers as they rotate forward to spend their Christmas on the front lines, a mere 80 yards from the German guns. Upper- and working-class men and boys are thrown together into one trench and struggle to survive.
-
-
Beautifully "illustrated"
- By anonymous on 12-25-14
-
The Glass Ocean
- A Novel
- By: Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson, Saskia Maarleveld, Brittany Pressley
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a captivating historical mystery, infused with romance, that links the lives of three women across a century - two deep in the past, one in the present - to the doomed passenger liner, RMS Lusitania.... Her finances are in dire straits, and best-selling author Sarah Blake is struggling to find a big idea for her next book. Desperate, she breaks the one promise she made to her mother and opens an old chest that belonged to her great-grandfather, who died when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915. What she discovers there could change history.
-
-
The Glass Ocean- a tale of two times
- By Anonymous User on 09-19-18
-
Emma
- An Audible Original Drama
- By: Jane Austen, Anna Lea - adaptation
- Narrated by: Emma Thompson, Joanne Froggatt, Isabella Inchbald, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This Audible Original production is narrated by Emma Thompson (Academy Award, Golden Globe, Emmy and BAFTA winner, Love Actually, Harry Potter, Sense and Sensibility), with a full supporting cast including Joanne Froggatt, Morgana Robinson, Aisling Loftus, Joseph Millson, Alexa Davies and rising star Isabella Inchbald as our eponymous heroine.
-
-
More of a Radio Drama than an audiobook
- By Cyberlucy on 09-11-18
-
Lincoln in the Bardo
- A Novel
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, George Saunders, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The long-awaited first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented. February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill.
-
-
A Mixed Bag
- By Thomas More on 02-24-17
-
The Woman Who Smashed Codes
- A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies
- By: Jason Fagone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1912, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
-
-
An important biography, perfectly told
- By sarah brown on 10-25-17
-
A Gentleman in Moscow
- A Novel
- By: Amor Towles
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in an elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors.
-
-
A Reprieve Amidst Ugly News, Relentless Negativity
- By Cathy Lindhorst on 08-27-17
Publisher's Summary
Karen Abbott, the New York Times best-selling author of Sin in the Second City and "pioneer of sizzle history" (USA Today), tells the spellbinding true story of four women who risked everything to become spies during the Civil War.
Karen Abbott illuminates one of the most fascinating yet little-known aspects of the Civil War: The stories of four courageous women - a socialite, a farmgirl, an abolitionist, and a widow - who were spies.
After shooting a Union soldier in her front hall with a pocket pistol, Belle Boyd became a courier and spy for the Confederate army, using her charms to seduce men on both sides. Emma Edmonds cut off her hair and assumed the identity of a man to enlist as a Union private, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. The beautiful widow, Rose O'Neale Greenhow, engaged in affairs with powerful Northern politicians to gather intelligence for the Confederacy, and used her young daughter to send information to Southern generals. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond abolitionist, hid behind her proper Southern manners as she orchestrated a far-reaching espionage ring, right under the noses of suspicious rebel detectives.
Using a wealth of primary source material and interviews with the spies' descendants, Abbott seamlessly weaves the adventures of these four heroines throughout the tumultuous years of the war. With a cast of real-life characters including Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, General Stonewall Jackson, detective Allan Pinkerton, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and Emperor Napoleon III, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy draws you into the war as these daring women lived it.
More from the same
What members say
Average Customer Ratings
Overall
-
-
5 Stars142
-
4 Stars132
-
3 Stars63
-
2 Stars15
-
1 Stars16
Performance
-
-
5 Stars128
-
4 Stars106
-
3 Stars54
-
2 Stars21
-
1 Stars20
Story
-
-
5 Stars140
-
4 Stars109
-
3 Stars57
-
2 Stars14
-
1 Stars7
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sheesha
- Chicago
- 11-12-14
Shockingly Bad Narrator
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
A different narrator would have helped a great deal. It's hard to understand how this style of narration could have been permitted. She reads in an artificially stilted cadence presumably meant to evoke a serious tone, and perhaps to signify direct quotations in the text. It is awful and completely distracting from the story.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
A different narrator. It was often hard to follow the content due to the problems noted above with the narrator.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Erin - Audible
- Jersey City, NJ
- 10-07-14
Sensational!
What a freaking thrill ride. Karen Abbott found four of the most interesting and well-documented women in the Civil War and took off like a shot. One narcissist, two socialites, one cross-dresser, all spies.
I'm relatively knowledgeable about the American Civil War thanks to my father and the constant rehashing of the history from 4th grade through high school. Never before have I read something that gets so perfectly in depth about what the hell happened in Richmond. The microfocus on this particular city lends more depth and humanity to each person we meet--whether that's Pinkerton (mhmm, how did you think they started?) or Stonewall Jackson (yeah, he's there, too.)
It was a great look at how thoroughly incompetent some of the Union Generals were. This is less a history-written-by-the-winners... there's a lot of facepalming over McClellan.
Anyway, give it a listen.
The narrator, Karen White, was not great. 3 of 5 stars for her. She has the tendency to read in a stilted, serious "this is nonfiction" pattern, rather give way to the delightful narrative flow Abbott provided.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jean
- Santa Cruz, CA, United States
- 09-22-14
Engrossing book
I enjoyed this book as it provided another aspect of the Civil War that one rarely hears about. Abbott provides an alternate view of the Civil War by featuring previously untold stories of the impact women and civilians had on the war effort. She brings these individuals fully to life with passion for their causes. The subjects of Karen Abbott’s engrossing book are four women who worked undercover in the Civil War. Belle Boyd and Rose O’Neal Greenhow worked for the confederacy and Elizabeth Van Lew and Emma Edmondson worked for the Union. Boyd was 17 years old in 1861, known as “The Secesh Cleopatra” and La Bella Rebelle” she flirted and spied never making pronounced efforts to conceal her espionage activities. Emma Edmondson born in 1841 from Flint Michigan, by way of Canada, worked as a nurse and also infiltrated enemy terrain to gather intelligence. She masqueraded herself in various disguises to do this. She even disguised herself as a man and fought with the 2nd Michigan Infantry. Greenhow ran a spy ring out of Washington D.C. she also learned cipher and Morse code. In 2012 I read “Wild Rose” by Ann Blackman which gave an in-depth history of Greenhow’s life. Elizabeth Van Lew was of Richmond society. Her father was a prominent businessman and slave owner. She was one of Richmond’s wealthiest citizens. She had been educated in Philadelphia by an abolitionist governess. She ran a spy ring, learned to cipher and Morse code. Van Lew’s most impressive agent was Mary Jane Bower, her black servant.
Abbott did meticulous research for the book and it is smoothly written and structured (chronologically) so as a certain amount of suspense is built in. The author’s research included letters, diaries and news accounts of the time. Abbott claims that as many as four hundred women both North and South were posing and fighting as men. The author also stated women were capable not only of significant acts of treason, but of executing them more deftly than men. Karen Abbott is a well known history author and a graduate of Villanova University.
If you enjoy history and true stories of adventure and courage you will find this is just the book for you. I read this as an audio book with the use of “whispersync” so I could take advantage of the photographs in the book. Karen White did a good job narrating the book.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- B Rose
- Hillsborough NC
- 11-15-14
Good book ruined by narrator!
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
I couldn't even finish it because narrator was horrible.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
A different narrator.
What didn’t you like about Karen White’s performance?
She can't figure out what tone of voice to use it changes from one minute to the next. Horrible!
Any additional comments?
Why doesn't audible screen these narrators better? It so irritating when a good book is ruined by one. There are so many great ones, be more selective!
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Katie
- 05-23-15
Extraordinary Women of the Civil War
Story was fascinating. Narration was average. Characters well developed. Learned a lot. Worth the listen.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- alecia sirk
- pittsburgh, pa
- 07-06-18
Wonderful Civil War story
I have read several things about the Civil War including the stellar Killer Angels, but I am so grateful to have read this book about for iron women who served their respective countries with gumption and dignity!
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nichole
- 04-03-17
terrible narrator
I'm not sure if the story was good or not since the narration was awful. It was like listening to an automated voice, like the kind that guides you through prompts when calling your credit card company
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S. Gille
- United States
- 02-03-15
Narrator difficult to get past, I gave up
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
No, unfortunately the narrator was tough for me to get used to. Her pattern and emphasis seemed unnatural to me, an American born person.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Karen White?
Probably anybody.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Grace
- 01-18-15
History They Don't Teach You In School
This is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of four women during the Civil War. It's a good 'survey' book in that it's a good overview of these women's lives and deeds.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michellerose
- 02-19-19
Find a different narrator, but make sure to read
Great story. I think it would make a fantastic popcorn flick. The narrator is indecisive weather to use a character's voice, or her information voice. This was bearable, but annoying. I would recommend this one as a read, not a audio book. I feel that I would have compleated it sooner if there was a different narrator.