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In a Good Light

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In a Good Light

By: Clare Chambers
Narrated by: Imogen Church
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

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

Without even noticing, Esther Fairchild has become locked into routine.

Living with her adored brother, Christian, she divides her time between illustrating children's books, nightly shifts as a waitress, weekly visits to her father and fortnightly meetings with her married lover.

Then one day she encounters a face in the crowd which jolts her out of her mundane existence and makes her question both her life and the past that has helped to shape it. Memories she had long chosen to forget begin to resurface. Memories of an eccentric childhood in a large and shabby house, where the children were left to fend for themselves within the loose boundaries of their parents' unorthodox values. A chaotic existence peopled by a rich collection of feckless 'guests'.

And into this shambolic world came Donovan - regularly deposited by his unreliable mother - and Penny, Christian's girlfriend and Esther's idol. Until tragedy struck and shattered their joint existence. But now, it seems, their lives are about to become intertwined once more....

©2004 Clare Chambers (P)2021 Penguin Audio Contemporary Contemporary Romance Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Romance Heartfelt

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All stars
Most relevant  
I loved the story (a coming of age tale) but was less keen on the narrator who sounded slightly hesitant all the way through.

Great

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Top tip: I struggled with the narration being slow and haltering - so I adjusted the speed to 1.2 and it was brilliant!

Funny, clever and heartfelt. I absolutely loved this!

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I really enjoyed this book, a lovely story that tied up all the loose ends at the end. I did not like the narrator however, if felt she over did the dramatisation a lot of the time. Do recommend the book tho

Lovely story

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The characters.
The narrative.
The language.
The insight.
The story.
The performance.
All brilliant!
More…..

Brilliant

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I listened to every Claire Chambers book back to back.
Each one I thought, I won't enjoy as much as the last. I was wrong. She writes so well about the complexities of life, the twists and turns. Each character is brought to life through the narration. Though not always perfectly performed, I thoroughly enjoyed them. I struggle with PTSD and fibromyalgia. These books eased me into a feeling of calm 😌

Each book gets better

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The narrator read this like you’d tell a funny bedtime story to a child. For the first two hours I couldn’t hear the story because of the grating intonation. I only endured it because I’d paid for the audiobook.

Abysmal narration that spoilt a good story

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I chose this book because I had read and thoroughly enjoyed “Small Pleasures” by the same author. I quite enjoyed this story but definitely felt it was too long winded in parts, for example the childhood section. The performance in some ways detracted from my enjoyment because the narrator had an annoying way of raising her tone at the end of a sentence, even if it wasn’t a question. She also had a habit of often narrating the dialogue in a staccato fashion which put me off. However she does have a lovely voice and when it was just narrative it was a good performance. I found some of the characters a bit watery and despite the length of the book they didn’t have the depth, I think this was partly due to the jump of 19 years as it left a huge gap in the story. It was tolerable and I was glad the ending had closure.

Coming of age epic

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I eventually got into this and enjoyed it but felt the "childhood" part was overlong and a little repetitive. The narrator grew on me. Hence only 4 stars.

A little overlong

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I loved the setting near where I grew up. I loved the references to the 70s and 80s I remember as a child and the story bounced along cheerfully.

The narration was a great compliment to this book.

I read this after reading Small Pleasures and I was not disappointed.

I loved this book!

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Like its narrator and central character Esther, a young woman who illustrates books for children with beautiful, minutely detailed drawings, this is a book at its best when its focus is tightly held on life’s small moments. Such moments are so often charming, winningly observed and full of life.

However, the book’s forest of a plot, which functions to shoehorn its trees of momentary felicity into line with contrived coincidences, seems both overlong and diminishing.

The warm, amused reading is just what is needed to tip the balance and, above reservations notwithstanding, makes listening to the audio version a pleasure.

The trees, not the forest

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