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The Beautiful American
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
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Publisher's summary
From Paris in the1920s to London after the Blitz, two women find that a secret from their past reverberates through years of joy and sorrow.
As recovery from World War II begins, expatriate American NoraTours travels from her home in southern France to London in search of her missing 16-year-old daughter. There she unexpectedly meets up with an oldacquaintance, famous model-turned-photographer Lee Miller. Neither has emergedfrom the war unscathed. Nora is racked with the fear that her efforts tosurvive under the Vichy regime may have cost her daughter's life. Lee suffersfrom what she witnessed as a war correspondent photographing the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.
Nora and Lee knew each other in the heady days of late 1920s Paris, when Nora was giddy with love for her childhood sweetheart, Lee became the celebrated mistress of the artist Man Ray, and Lee's magnetic beauty drew them all into the glamorous lives of famous artists and their wealthy patrons.
But Lee fails to realize that her friendship with Nora is even older, that it goes back to their days as children in Poughkeepsie, New York, when a devastating trauma marked Lee forever. Will Nora's reunion with Lee give them achance to forgive past betrayals and break years of silence to forge a meaningful connection as women who have shared the best and the worst that life can offer?
A novel of freedom and frailty, desire and daring, The Beautiful American portrays the extraordinary relationship between two passionate, unconventional women.
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Story
England, 1967. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London. When she starts working at the prestigious Skelton Institute of Art, she discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. The excitement over the painting is matched by the intrigue around the conflicting stories of its discovery.
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Mixed narration
- By Amy Fleury on 08-05-16
By: Jessie Burton
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Silver Wattle
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In fear for their lives after the sudden death of their mother, Adéla and Klára must flee Prague to find refuge with their uncle in Australia. Later, Adéla becomes a film director at a time when the local industry is starting to feel the competition from Hollywood. But even while success is imminent, the issues of family and an impossible love are never far away.
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Groan, Snore and Wince!
- By OrangeWisteria on 02-12-12
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Claude & Camille
- A Novel of Monet
- By: Stephanie Cowell
- Narrated by: Christopher Cazenove
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the mid-19th century, a young man named Claude Monet decided that he would rather endure a difficult life painting landscapes than take over his fathers nautical supplies business in a French seaside town. Against his fathers will, and with nothing but a dream and an insatiable urge to create a new style of art that repudiated the Classical Realism of the time, he set off for Paris.
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As a painter
- By janice hedwall on 03-08-16
By: Stephanie Cowell
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Moonlight over Paris
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Robson
- Narrated by: Jane Copland
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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It's the spring of 1924, and Lady Helena Montagu-Douglas-Parr has just arrived in France. On the mend after a near-fatal illness, she is ready to embrace the restless, heady allure of the City of Lights. Her parents have given her one year to live with her eccentric aunt in Paris, and Helena means to make the most of her time. She's quickly drawn into the world of the Lost Generation and its circle of American expatriates, and, with their encouragement, she finds the courage to pursue her dream of becoming an artist.
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A pleasant trip to 1924 Paris
- By RueRue on 05-09-16
By: Jennifer Robson
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Everlasting
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Thayer
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Catherine Eliot was born to a world of privilege and prestige, with a family whose last name and vast fortune provide her with access to almost anything she could wish for. But what Catherine craves most is independence. So while her friends settle into comfortable lives financed by doting parents and indulgent husbands, she moves to New York City, determined to make it on her own. Taking a demanding job in a bustling flower shop, she works hard and learns the trade until, with courage and determination, she’s able to open Blooms, an exclusive floral boutique on the Upper East Side.
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decent book
- By Amazon Customer on 10-10-20
By: Nancy Thayer
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East of the Sun
- By: Julia Gregson
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.
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Indian history takes a back seat to 3 young women
- By Richard on 05-24-16
By: Julia Gregson
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Before I Met You
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Jewell
- Narrated by: Helen Duff
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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After her grandmother Arlette's death, Betty is finally ready to begin her life. She had forfeited university, parties, boyfriends, summer jobs in order to care for Arlette. Now she's ready for whatever life throws at her, and, since the will included a beneficiary unknown to her who lives in the city, she heads there to find the mysterious woman. In 1920s London, Arlette is starting her new life in a time of postwar change. Beautiful and charismatic, she's drawn into a hedonistic world, but then tragedy strikes, and she flees back to her childhood home....
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Awful
- By cristina on 08-13-18
By: Lisa Jewell
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The Lost Carousel of Provence
- By: Juliet Blackwell
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Long, lonely years have passed for the crumbling Château Clement, nestled well beyond the rolling lavender fields and popular tourist attractions of Provence. Once a bustling and dignified ancestral estate, now all that remains is the château's gruff, elderly owner and the softly whispered secrets of generations buried and forgotten. But time has a way of exposing history's dark stains, and when American photographer Cady Drake finds herself drawn to the château and its antique carousel, she longs to explore the relic's shadowy origins.
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Loved It!
- By T Heskett on 09-23-18
By: Juliet Blackwell
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Mata Hari's Last Dance
- A Novel
- By: Michelle Moran
- Narrated by: Zara Ramm
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Paris, 1917. The notorious dancer Mata Hari sits in a cold cell awaiting freedom...or death. Alone and despondent, she is as confused as the rest of the world about the charges she's been arrested on: treason leading to the deaths of thousands of French soldiers. As she waits for her fate to be decided, she relays the story of her life to a reporter who is allowed to visit her in prison.
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Throughly enjoyable
- By scalante on 09-07-16
By: Michelle Moran
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Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
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Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
What listeners say about The Beautiful American
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Laura
- 04-16-17
Difficult to review
I found this book difficult to review because there were aspects that I loved and others that were plain annoying.
The good: an interesting view into pre war France with true to life characters who mingled with the fame of the day.
The not terrible but certainly not so good: the focus was so narrowly directed on the narrating protagonists it lost the opportunity to develop some very interesting support characters.
The biggest negative: the performance kept an unfaltering cadence with each sentence dropping to a droll. This is a technique that would have been very effective had it not been a drip drip drip The affect became just plain annoying.
All and all I enjoy the book but would not go out of my way to recommend it.
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- Deborah Thurston
- 01-10-15
Beautiful story, beautifully read
This heartfelt novel of love, loss and the resilience of the soul had me from the first words. There is a missing daughter, romance in Paris, tragedy, death, war, remembrance and love regained. Underlying it all is the fragrance of perfume, unusual in a book, but there it is. Kate Reading is, as always, impeccible. The only thing I did not like about this book was that it had to end.
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- PVS
- 05-11-22
Decent
It took a long while to figure out what the plot was, like more than half the book. Then it got interesting. I would say this was a little better than average. it was really hard to tell who the protagonist was.
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- Paula Moneymaker
- 03-23-22
So beautiful
Intense, intimate, interesting. It’s been a long time since I’ve read such a well written novel in a modern work. It piqued my desire to delve into that history. How fascinating.
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- Kathleen Yarrington
- 03-19-16
great story of World War II
the principal of this story gives great insight into the pre world war II Paris as expat Americans
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- Sherry
- 06-16-18
Insightful food for thought
Wonderful insight on coping after tragedy from historical fiction . It's long so try to put yourself in both characters place and think about the time and social norms in America and Europe between 1929 and 1949.
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- Sally Maxwell
- 09-22-22
Bereft
It has been a while since I felt bereft at the end of a book, but that’s exactly how I felt upon finishing “The Beautiful American.” I won’t get over this story and the characters for some time—and I don’t want to. I will carry them with me.
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- Diana Lyons Specht
- 01-04-15
Excellent Story -- Narrator Okay
This story passes my personal "good book" test because I miss some of the characters now that I'm finished with it. The time period and geographical area covered is different from most books involving WWII, so that was also nice. The limited amount about the perfume trade was also interesting.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Sima
- 05-06-21
Wonderful Story
A very pleasant and engaging read. Loved the setting around World War II Paris involving the social life of the Expat artists. Good performance also.
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- Mama D
- 05-24-15
Beautiful, enchanting
Loved it-took me away!
Sentimental and sometimes predictable, but the characters and history was pleasing and I found myself caring for the Nora.
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