The Scarlet Sisters
My nanna's story of secrets and heartache on the banks of the River Thames
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Narrated by:
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Annie Aldington
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By:
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Helen Batten
About this listen
‘Oh my goodness - another girl, Mrs Swain!'
Clara's normal iron composure broke, and she screamed, ‘No! That's not the bloody deal!' And that was how my nanna, Bertha Swain, entered the world.
When Helen Batten's marriage breaks down, she starts on a journey of discovery into her family's past and the mysteries surrounding her enigmatic nanna's early life.
What she unearths is a tale of five feisty redheads struggling to climb out of poverty and find love through two world wars. It's a story full of surprises and scandal - a death in a workhouse, a son kept in a box, a shameful war record, a clandestine marriage and children taken far too soon. It's as if there is a family curse.
But Helen also finds love, resilience and hope - crazy wagers, late-night Charlestons and stolen kisses. As she unravels the story of nanna and her scarlet sisters, Helen starts to break the spell of the past and sees a way she might herself find love again.
©2015 Helen Batten (P)2015 Random House AudioBooksListeners also enjoyed...
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A Look at the Role of the District Nurse
- By Jean on 04-30-19
By: Annie Groves
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An Orphan’s War
- By: Molly Green
- Narrated by: Julie Masey
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Liverpool, 1940. When her childhood sweetheart, Johnny, is killed in action, Maxine Grey loses more than her husband - she loses her best friend. Desperate to make a difference in this awful war, Maxine takes a nursing job at London’s St Thomas’ hospital. She takes comfort in the attentions of a handsome surgeon, but Edwin Blake isn’t all he seems. And as the Blitz descends on the capital, Maxine faces more heartache. When she returns to Liverpool, she harbours a secret.
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An Orphan's War by Molly Green
- By customers coins on 05-04-19
By: Molly Green
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The Nightingale Girls
- By: Donna Douglas
- Narrated by: Penelope Freeman
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Three very different girls sign up as trainee nurses at a big London teaching hospital in 1934. Dora leaves her overcrowded, squalid working-class home for a better life. But has she got what it takes to keep up with other, better-educated girls? And will her hated stepfather ever let her go? Helen is born for the job; her brother is a doctor, her all-powerful mother a hospital trustee. But will Helen’s secret misery be her downfall? An aristocratic rebel, Millie’s carefree attitude will find her up in front of Matron again and again. Will she ever care enough to make a nurse? Or will she go back to the glamorous life she was born to?
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For young girls
- By deborah jernigan on 12-31-16
By: Donna Douglas
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An Orphan in the Snow
- By: Molly Green
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Liverpool, 1941. Troubled by a dark family history and the pain of seeing her country torn apart by war, young June Lavender finds new hope when she takes a job at the Dr Barnardo's children's home. There she meets Lizzie McRae, a little girl who is the spitting image of June's sister, who died tragically years before. Against the matron's wishes, the two girls form an unexpected bond as June tries to get the traumatised orphan to speak.
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The title doesn't fit the story
- By mrsmlbj on 11-23-22
By: Molly Green
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Mosaic
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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>i>Mosaic is compelling storytelling at its best - from the fascinating details of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this an extraordinary true story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
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Absolutely excellent!
- By Roberta on 09-22-11
By: Diane Armstrong
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The Little Orphan Girl
- By: Sandy Taylor
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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When Cissy Ryan’s real mother comes to claim her from the workhouse, it’s not how she imagined. Her family’s tumbledown cottage has ice on the inside of its windows and is in an isolated, poverty-stricken village in the muddy Irish countryside. But when Cissy is allowed to help neighbour Colm Doyle and his horse named Blue on their milk round one morning, Cissy starts to feel as though friendship could get her through anything.
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Beautiful heart breaking story.
- By kanga2012 on 07-08-20
By: Sandy Taylor
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Call the Midwife
- A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
- By: Jennifer Worth
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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At the age of 22, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London’s East End slums. The colorful characters she met while delivering babies all over London - from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lived to the woman with 24 children who couldn't speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city’s seedier side - illuminate a fascinating time in history.
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The best book I've listened to this year
- By Richard on 06-12-13
By: Jennifer Worth
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The Tea Rose
- By: Jennifer Donnelly
- Narrated by: Jill Tanner
- Length: 28 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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East London, 1888 - a city apart. A place of shadow and light where thieves, whores, and dreamers mingle, where children play in the cobbled streets by day and a killer stalks at night, where bright hopes meet the darkest truths. Here, by the whispering waters of the Thames, Fiona Finnegan, a worker in a tea factory, hopes to own a shop one day, together with her lifelong love, Joe Bristow, a costermonger's son. With nothing but their faith in each other to spur them on, Fiona and Joe struggle, save, and sacrifice to achieve their dreams.
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Wow. Wow wow wow!
- By I like to shop on 04-26-16
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There'll Be Blue Skies
- By: Ellie Dean
- Narrated by: Annie Aldington
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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When sixteen-year-old Sally is evacuated to the English south coast, she is terrified by what lies ahead of her. All she knows are the sights and sounds of London's East End – but Sally swallows her tears as they leave the familiar landmarks behind, knowing that she has to be a Grown-Up Girl and play mother to her six-year-old brother Ernie. Playing mother is nothing new for Sally – their real mother Florrie, a good-time girl, hasn't even come to the station to wave them off and Ernie, crippled at an early age by polio, is used to depending on his older sister.
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The audible reading was poor
- By Connie Palla on 03-02-19
By: Ellie Dean
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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
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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
What listeners say about The Scarlet Sisters
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Christine Pusateri
- 08-17-19
when a book finds you
Sometimes a book finds you when you're least expecting it. I needed this book about strong females who overcome life's challenges, love, lost, and multiple generations rolled into one. I love the prospective of the characters as well makes you feel like your in their kitchen having tea and learning their secrets.
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- loriann
- 12-29-23
The story of, if families, history and love
This by far is the best book I’ve ever listened to. I absolutely did not want it, and as I felt grief coming in for the characters, I would lose when the book ended. 
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- J. Hill
- 06-18-22
Excellent Read, well worth the credit!
Well read, well said, thought provoking. Kept my attention. Great reader! Hope this author continues to write.
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- Elana L.
- 07-23-23
not what I expected
couldn't even finish it, wasted credit. I wish I could exchange it for something else.
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