The Dressmaker's Gift

By: Fiona Valpy

Narrated by: Anne Flosnik, Justine Eyre

Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's Summary

A Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon Charts best seller.

From the best-selling author of The Beekeeper’s Promise comes a gripping story of three young women faced with impossible choices. How will history - and their families - judge them?

Paris, 1940. With the city occupied by the Nazis, three young seamstresses go about their normal lives as best they can. But all three are hiding secrets. War-scarred Mireille is fighting with the Resistance; Claire has been seduced by a German officer; and Vivienne’s involvement is something she can’t reveal to either of them.

Two generations later, Claire’s English granddaughter Harriet arrives in Paris, rootless and adrift, desperate to find a connection with her past. Living and working in the same building on the Rue Cardinale, she learns the truth about her grandmother - and herself - and unravels a family history that is darker and more painful than she ever imagined.

In wartime, the three seamstresses face impossible choices when their secret activities put them in grave danger. Brought together by loyalty, threatened by betrayal, can they survive history’s darkest era without being torn apart?

©2019 Fiona Valpy (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Fifty/Fifty

The war portion of this story far outweighs the present day story. I did not grow to like Harriet. Her story doesn’t have the power of that of her grandmother’s. I wasn’t really interested in her “poor me, nobody loved me” ideas. It would have been a better book just to tell the WWll story.

not her best

the story was very interesting but dragged at may points. the repetition of the theory of mental illness coming from family past trauma over and over was really wearing. the voice and accent of the primary reader was really grating.

Don't let it stop.

What a moving story, from the present to the past; from the joy to the pain. The reader envelopes you and brings you into the story keeping you engrossed throughout.

Highly recommend!

A little hard to follow

Although this book was a little difficult to follow, it was another great glimpse into history. It's hard to hear what people had to endure during the war. It makes one appreciate their sacrifices.

Not for me

Terrible narration, dismal story, slow moving plot, if any. I just couldn't face another hour of that voice.

The Dressmaker’s Gift

I very much enjoyed the story, but I found the narration to be choppy and forced.

Fascinating story!

It reinforces the brutality of the Nazis and the courage of the men and women in the Resistance.

Memorable

This book will stay with me for a very long time. I moved between tears a smiles so often - the lines between kinship, love and horror where very close. I can only imagine how harrowing the research must have been.

Narration was a disappointment

I know the book itself has amazing reviews and I love audiobooks, but the narration in this was so bad that I found it distracting. The pacing, the intonation, the nasal tone... all difficult to tolerate.

The Dressmaker's Gift

Present day story line was repetitious. Found the narration to be challenging. This one may be better in print.

Couldn’t get into it

I’m sure this story was lovely but I found the narration confusing and slightly automated. I couldn’t finish the book because of this because I found it very distracting - sorry x

Poor narration

The narrator is appalling, completely ruins the book. The story is ok, quite interesting. I wouldn’t recommend though.

Another dreadful computer sounding narration

The story isn’t bad but the narration is so monotone I do not believe that these narrators are real people, it sounds like a computer generation and totally ruins the book. It’s impossible to listen to, thankfully it was free with kindle unlimited but if you are considering using a credit don’t waste it, it is dreadful

Horrific narration

I really wanted to listen to this all the way through but I just couldn’t stand the narration, it was teeth-grittingly awful. Robotic, with inflections in strange places. The performance didn’t even sound like it was being delivered by a human. Awful. What a way to ruin a book.

Disappointed

I listened to this book on audible and have to say it’s the worst narration I have heard!! I couldn’t enjoy the story at all I was so distracted by the strange voices and pronunciation!

Can’t listen to this book

This book’s narration is extremely irritating. The story after the intro is really simplistic - might be me as I had really high hopes for this novel.

Beware!! Intensely irritating narration

Not sure how I got to the end without ripping my ears off. Harriet's character sounds like she's about to cry at the end of every sentence and some of the Anglo French narration literally sounded like a robot.... and a very annoying robot at that. Good enough story, just wish I'd read it instead of listened to it. A shame.It was a painful listen.

Awful AI NARRATION

couldn't even get past chapter 1, narration so poor, if I could give it a minus rating I certainly would

Too flowery

Overly flowery, reader over melodramatic. Good storyline spoilt by writer and reader. Kept us going on French motorways.

Avoid - narration appalling

I tried but gave up with 3hrs to go. Computer-sounding narration with duff pronunciation of even the simplest words and utterly PERplexING word STRESS - Story? Dunno, Repetitious phrases, uninspiring writing. Sorry, would give 0* if I could...