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A Dry Spell

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A Dry Spell

By: Clare Chambers
Narrated by: Emma Noakes
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Brought to you by Penguin.

From the highly acclaimed author of Small Pleasures - longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021

In 1976, four students took a trip to the desert. Now the repercussions of that fateful summer are coming back to haunt them....

And repercussions are just what Guy doesn't need: his wife, Jane, is moving swiftly from slightly eccentric to downright peculiar, their three-year-old daughter seems set on destroying Jane's sanity, and now even God's gone quiet on him.

As for Nina, she's having enough trouble with her son, James. He's got exams looming, a new girlfriend with pneumatic breasts, and now, it seems, he's on drugs. Nina certainly won't welcome any ghosts from the past.

Life isn't going smoothly for anyone. But when Hugo, long-forgotten agent of misfortune, threatens to pay them all a visit, disaster seems unavoidable.

©2000 Clare Chambers (P)2021 Penguin Audio Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Haunted Comedy
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A good reflective listen without causing stress. A story, read well, about friendship and caring relationships.

A relatable story

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I couldn’t listen to the novel due to the execrable accent. I love Clare Chambers.

That S African Accent

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I enjoy Clare Chambers’ writing, but this one felt a little too long with less going on. The female characters were really one dimensional, we just knew Jane as quite miserable, jealous and lost, but didn’t get to know her as a person,
Definitely not her best but ok if you like her other books.

For me, the narration on this one was much too ‘noticeable’. The accents were off-putting. I had to speed up the sections where the South African character was talking to get through them as quickly as possible. The strength of the accent was way too much considering the character was supposed to have lived in the UK since childhood. I really didn’t enjoy the narrator doing a baby voice for the child character, it was so loud and whiny that it fully detracted from the story.

Story was ok, narration was overpowering

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A bit slow to start but really glad I stuck with it. Brilliant characters. Gentle pace. Really enjoyed it.

Great

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Just brilliant an amazing story- poignant and witty with it- and very well narrated. Unmissable

Superb

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