The Binding

By: Bridget Collins

Narrated by: Carl Prekopp

Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Imagine you could erase your grief.

Imagine you could forget your pain.

Imagine you could hide a secret.

Forever.

Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice - but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse.

He will learn to handcraft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there’s something you want to forget, he can help. If there’s something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book, and you will never remember your secret, however terrible.

In a vault under his mentor’s workshop, row upon row of books - and memories - are meticulously stored and recorded.

Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it.

The Binding is an unforgettable, magical novel: a boundary-defying love story and a unique literary event.

©2019 Bridget Collins (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"The Binding is a dark chocolate slice of cake with a surprising, satisfying seam of raspberry running through it. It is a rich, gothic entertainment that explores what books have trapped in them and reminds us of the power of story telling. Spellbinding." (Tracy Chevalier)

"Pure magic. The kind of immersive storytelling that makes you forget your own name. I wish I had written it." (Erin Kelly, author of He Said/She Said)

"Truly spellbinding...readers will sink gratefully into the pleasures of its pages.... Like a wonderful meal made from a few simple ingredients: the feeling in your chest when you hold someone in your arms for the first time; the sight of a host of bluebells. In recent years, the state of the world has threatened to make us forget the simple pleasures of kisses and bluebells and thick novels that tell stories of heartbreak. Here is a book to help us remember." (Guardian)

One very special book

It took a few hours, but eventually this book drew me in. By that time, I couldn’t stop listening. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Spellbinding

A beautiful book. I loved it. What imagination, what pictures, and what a wonderful love story.

Add to this, that it was absolutely beautifully narrated, and you have a book that can be recommended to anyone.

A perfect escape from today's world into a wholly different world.

Brilliant

An exceptional story, written with perfect descriptions that painted a vivid picture. Could not put the book down.

spellbinding!

I have to admit that when I first started this, I wondered where it was going for the main character. Then in part 2, it took me a little while to see that it was recounting events that had happened before part 1, and that at least one person's memory had been wiped. In part 3 -- clarity! I immediately listened to it again so as to gain complete understanding.

I liked the 2 main characters once I understood them. Their relationship and the way society sees and treats them transcends space and time -- you could plonk these 2 down into nearly any small town.

The narration was actually rather good. The narrator portrayed solemness, pain, and joy all in appropriate measures. And I loved the northern English accent!

If you wished for another Wuthering Heights

The Binding transports you to the marshes of Yorkshire and binds you to the characters as if you were written into the story along with them. It has the spacious quality of a Max Richter piece of music and the melancholy of a modern Gothic masterpiece.

Breathtakingly beautiful

What a stunning book and stunning performance. I am an avid Audible listener and I haven’t been this absorbed and mesmerized in ages. Highly recommended.

Different

I felt that the story was wonderfully different to what I had expected and similar in ways to "The watchmaker of Filigree Street" by Natasha Pulley.

The narration was incredible- Prekopp did an outstanding job.

I just felt a bit underwhelmed by the ending.