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  • Spare Brides

  • By: Adele Parks
  • Narrated by: Tor Leijten
  • Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (11 ratings)

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Spare Brides cover art

Spare Brides

By: Adele Parks
Narrated by: Tor Leijten
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Summary

Hope. Glamour. Independence. A new era has begun… 

With the Great War behind them, four friends are ready to live again.

Lydia, a society beauty, has everything—wealth, status and a husband who survived the War. All she has to do now is provide an heir.

Widowed Sarah cares for her wounded brother, certain that no one will ever replace her brave husband.

Younger sister Beatrice finds it hard to shine, especially when there are so few men left to shine for…

And independent Ava—who can light any room—is determined to seize the freedom of being a single woman.

But when these four meet the irresistible war hero Sergeant Major Edgar Trent, everything changes…

Spare Brides is a glorious novel about love, loss, change and chances from the Number One bestselling author Adele Parks.
©2022 Christina Lamb (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Family Life Friendship World War I 20th Century
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Critic reviews

"You’ll love the drama, the gorgeous dresses, grand houses and in particular, the handsome but damaged love interest." (Good Housekeeping)

"A wonderfully absorbing tale of friendship, rich in period detail." (Stylist)

"A wonderful novel about a group of women struggling to deal with life after World War One… a heady cocktail of love, class and beaded frocks. Her most accomplished novel yet." (Daisy Goodwin)

What listeners say about Spare Brides

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Mrs J Collins

Slow start

Slow to start but got going towards the end. Didn’t some of the pronunciation of some of the English words

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Mrs. M. J. Jones

Romantic but predictable

The narrator has a beautiful voice but it was very irritating that so many words were mispronounced. The story itself was sweet and reminiscent of Georgette Heyer.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Profile Image for mary farnell

Poor narration

I enjoy Adele Parks’ books normally, and wanted to try one of her historical novels. This was overall a bit of a disappointment. The story really had very little plot, no twists or surprises. The characters were rather one dimensional and I didn’t really care about any of them. The biggest irritant, however, was the many, many mispronounced words by the reader. She has a lovely speaking voice but I lost count of the number of words she couldn’t pronounce properly. I even got to the point of just waiting for the next clanger. I understand the reader is half Dutch, but that shouldn’t prevent her from doing some basic research first. Her inflection during sentences became irritating as well, as her voice would drop during sentences containing several adjectives. I found myself thinking she’d come to a full stop rather than a comma. I’m sorry to give a poor review but I hope the feedback will allow the narrator to research any words she’s unsure of, in the future.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Profile Image for Jo Wheeldon

And just like that it ended

Story was building up nicely on some levels but other bits were just left hanging. So much more could have been made of Sarah and a better ending or epilogue could have been made with all the characters but it didn’t. So I was left hanging at the end.

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