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Desperate Remedies
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Anthologies & Short Stories
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Summary
Thomas Hardy's first published novel, Desperate Remedies is a thrilling blend of Gothic mystery and love-triangle romance.
After the untimely death of their parents, Cytheria and Owen Graye must go out into the world and fend for themselves. Cytheria's journey leads her to the dark and mysterious household of Miss Aldclyffe, a capricious and eccentric woman, who steers Cytheria into a love affair with her charismatic steward, Aeneous Manston. All is not what it seems, and Cytheria finds herself entangled in a violent web of lust, murder, deception, and blackmail.
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PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
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What listeners say about Desperate Remedies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tad Davis
- 15-02-19
A thriller!
Anna Bentinck gives a terrific reading of this early novel by Thomas Hardy. She's becoming one of my favorite narrators.
The chapters in Desperate Remedies are organized by time - nothing unusual about that in a conventional novel. But in this one, the time covered by each chapter is announced loudly and clearly by the chapter title: The Events of Three Weeks, The Events of Ten Months, The Events of One Day: with the date and sometimes the hour of the day precisely named.
At this point it shouldn't be a spoiler to say the book has a mostly happy ending. It gets there by some of the most melodramatically thrilling plot twists Hardy ever wrote. Toward the end it becomes something of a mystery novel, with one professional and several amateur detectives on the case; and it's topped off with not one but two deathbed confessions.
A hugely enjoyable listen for me (and I hope for others as well).
7 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 25-11-21
Excellent!!!
I thought I’d read all of Thomas Hardy’s novels, and then came across this one. Figured it might not be great, since I hadn’t heard of it, but love Hardy, so read it. It is exceptional! So intriguing and suspenseful!
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- AstoriaSis
- 04-11-21
So glad I finished it.
The thing that keeps me reading Hardy books is because . . . well, it's Hardy. Sometimes difficult but always good. My advice is to change the narration speed up to 1.2x - perfect.
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- Suzi Y
- 28-02-20
Dreadful reading
The book and the author are wonderful but the reading was painful and totally lacking in depth, nuance or feeling. I couldn't stomach it and feel that it was a waist of my money.