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The Lie of the Land

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The Lie of the Land

By: Amanda Craig
Narrated by: Emma Powell
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£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

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'A very good read indeed' MATT HAIG

'Terrific, page-turning, slyly funny' INDIA KNIGHT

'As satisfying a novel as I have read in years' SARAH PERRY

'One of the most brilliant and entertaining novelists' ALISON LURIE

Quentin and Lottie Bredin, like many modern couples, can't afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, they can't afford to go on living in London; instead, they must downsize and move their three children to a house in a remote part of Devon. Arrogant and adulterous, Quentin can't understand why Lottie is so angry; devastated and humiliated, Lottie feels herself to have been intolerably wounded.

Mud, mice and quarrels are one thing - but why is their rent so low? What is the mystery surrounding their unappealing new home? The beauty of the landscape is ravishing, yet it conceals a dark side involving poverty, revenge, abuse and violence which will rise up to threaten them.

Sally Verity, happily married but unhappily childless knows a different side to country life, as both a Health Visitor and a sheep farmer's wife; and when Lottie's innocent teenage son Xan gets a zero-hours contract at a local pie factory, he sees yet another. At the end of their year, the lives of all will be changed for ever.

A suspenseful black comedy, this is a rich, compassionate and enthralling novel in its depiction of the English countryside, and the potentially lethal interplay between money and marriage.

A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, EVENING STANDARD, SUNDAY TIMES AND IRISH TIMES©2018 Amanda Craig (P)2018 Little, Brown Book Group Dark Humour Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Satire Small Town & Rural Marriage Thought-Provoking
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I really liked this book. Amanda Craig is very good although I get a bit fed-up with the constant references to errant husbands and hard-done-by wives. There's also too much on living on the bread line. I understand that both are necessary to the story but enough!.
Also I find Emma Powell's voice hard to listen to, rather croaky and inclined to drop to a whisper which is useless for hard of hearing people like me.
It was my second Amanda Craig audio book and I shall look for another.

A page turner

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This is a book for townies, about the perils of moving to the countryside. It's a comedy of social manners but it's also a mystery/thriller. At times the plot was a bit jerky and, regrettably, the narrator's voice sometimes jarred with me. She sounds about 12 years old and needs to introduce some more 'timber' into her voice. I finished it because I wanted to know how it ended but unlike other Audibles that I binge to the end, this one took longer to finish and I often resorted to music and limited it to forty minutes at a time when I was doing chores. It is a bit too middle class (Fulham meets Bruton, Somerset) and as I live in genuine countryside, the contrived class and wealth distinctions began to jar after a bit.

Countrified mystery

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good pace and great story. not so much about life in the country than a number of relationships set in a murder mystery

not your usual murder story - very enjoyable

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This was a bit of a slow burner for me. I think I struggled to get into it because I just didn’t care much for the characters. The son Xan was the only one I did like.
A bit predictable but I did enjoy it in the end.
The narrator was ok in general but was terrible at ‘accents’ and that put me off a bit.

Decent read

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This is the second Amanda Craig book I’ve ‘read’, after loving ‘Hearts and Minds’. It’s just as good and I didn’t want it to end. What makes it so great? Really well shaped characters, an exciting plot and the whole dichotomy the main family faces between living in London and rural Devon.
Just read it!

Just brilliant

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