Lovers and Liars

By: Sally Beauman

Narrated by: Ray Chase

Length: 26 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Now, from the author of Destiny, comes a novel certain to be as talked about, as richly romantic and wicked, as that number one New York Times best seller. Lovers and Liars is Sally Beauman's sensuous, very contemporary story of public masks and secret lives, of a "perfect" marriage that is not what it seems, and of lovers long separated yet destined to meet, tumultuously, again.

On a frosty January morning soon after the New Year's revels, an exquisitely dressed, beautiful blonde woman sends four identical parcels to four different destinations: Paris, New York, Venice and London. But the lovely messenger is not who she claims to be.

Photographer Pascal Lamartine receives his package in Paris: it is a woman's black glove, silky, scented, and disturbing. In London, reporter Gini Hunter, daughter of a famous Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, opens her parcel to find even more threatening contents. And within hours, Gini's enterprising editor assigns both her and Pascal to expose the story of a lifetime; a story so rich, so ripe with potential scandal, that it could make headlines--and ruin lives.

For Gini and Pascal must penetrate the perfect facade of John Hawthorne, the charming, charismatic U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, to sift through the layers of ever-shifting truth about his life.

The wealthy scion of a famous American family - in short, perfect presidential material - John Hawthorne appears to have thrown away a promising political career to take a diplomatic post. Why? His wife, Lise, a legendary beauty, is a master at seducing the media; her delicate features are a constant presence on the society pages for her charity work, her skills as a hostess, and her unrelenting chic. Yet the exhaustive, adoring coverage has left the real woman mysteriously opaque. And now, unbelievably, she seems to be the source of certain whisperings about her husband.

©1994 Sally Beauman (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Awfull narrator

Would you listen to Lovers and Liars again? Why?

No. I couldn't stand the narrator. He read in a sing song voice completely inapropriate to the content, used low voices for his female voices and a high pitched one for his main male character who is supposed to be a 6'4" masculine guy.
I liked the story but listening to him was torcherous.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

No. I couldn't stand the narrator. He read in a sing song voice completely inapropriate to the content, used low voices for his female voices and a high pitched one for his main male character who is supposed to be a 6'4" masculine guy.
I liked the story but listening to him was torcherous.

Entertaining

This twenty six and a half hour story of star crossed lovers is an entertaining listen until the few hours toward the end when it gets a little bogged down by more 'perils of pauline'-ish plot twists than are necessary to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.

Journalist Gini and photographer Pascal, desperately in love and torn apart by circumstance a decade before the story takes place are thrown together -but this time not by circumstance- assigned to investigate a scandal that would rock the political foundations of the USA and the UK in which each is already mysteriously involved.

Slightly silly, slightly contrived and mostly a lot of fun, Lovers and Liars takes our heroes to the upper echelons of London power, the dark (and smelly!) underbelly of Venice, the streets of Paris and the pastoral manor homes of Oxfordshire. As they struggle to investigate and validate the increasingly muddy waters of a possible news story and rediscover the love they never lost, Pascal and Gini encounter a thoroughly self serving and manipulative cast of characters including the couple at the centre of the scandal whose utter dysfunction and willingness to draw everyone around them into their web of insane ambition would put George and Martha* to shame.

Lovers and Liars' huge cast of characters is where this production falls down. Narrator Ray Chase chose not to do dialects or accents. In a 26+ hour production with 5 major characters other than the heroes, keeping track of voices is tricky. I sometimes had to rewind busy, conversational scenes (like parties), in order to figure out who was talking.

Lovers and Liars is also an artifact. First published in the early 90's, it's an interesting take on Middle East politics and foreshadowing of the west's role in creating the post 9-11 world we live in now. I've just discovered Sally Beauman and listened to one of her recent books before this. She's a better writer now- a superb literary voice. This earlier book is a page turner, written in a fast paced bestseller style anyone can enjoy...with some (but not too much) steamy sex.

It's absolutely worth the credit.



* 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'

Enjoyable

Would you listen to Lovers and Liars again? Why?

This is the kind of book I can't put down! Usually I can guess where a mystery is going -- but Beauman kept me guessing. I'll look for other books by this author. I wouldn't listen again because there;s too many other books I want to hear.

I wasted a credit!

When I sampling the book, the reader’s voice seemed to have some depth. However, after an hour I had to stop listening because I felt like I was at a horrific high school monologue showcase. Ugh