Deborah Lawrenson has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 2 ratings. The most-rated is 300 Days of Sun.
300 Days of Sun
Summary
Combining the atmosphere of Jess Walters' Beautiful Ruins with the intriguing historical backstory of Christina Baker Kline's The Orphan Train, Deborah Lawrenson's mesmerizing novel transports listeners to a sunny Portuguese town with a shadowy past - where two women, decades apart, are drawn into a dark game of truth and lies that still haunts the shifting sea marshes. Traveling to Faro, Portugal, journalist Joanna Millard hopes to escape an unsatisfying relationship and a stalled career. Faro is an enchanting town, and the seaside views are enhanced by the company of Nathan Emberlin, a charismatic younger man. But behind the crumbling facades of its Moorish buildings, Joanna soon realizes, Faro has a seedy underbelly, its economy compromised by corruption and wartime spoils. And Nathan has an ulterior motive for seeking her company: He is determined to discover the truth involving a child's kidnapping that may have taken place on this dramatic coastline over two decades ago. Joanna's subsequent search leads her to Ian Rylands, an English expat who cryptically insists she will find answers in The Alliance, a novel written by American Esta Hartford. The book recounts an American couple's experience in Portugal during World War II and their entanglements both personal and professional with their German enemies. Only Rylands insists the book isn't fiction, and as Joanna reads deeper into The Alliance, she begins to suspect that Esta Hartford's story and Nathan Emberlin's may indeed converge in Faro - where the past not only casts a long shadow but still exerts a very present danger.
©2016 Deborah Lawrenson (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
The Lantern
Summary
A modern gothic novel of love, secrets, and murder - set against thelush backdrop of Provence. Meeting Dom was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to me. When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom in Switzerland, their whirlwind relationship leads them to Les GenÉvriers, an abandoned house set among the fragrant lavender fields of the South of France. Each enchanting day delivers happy discoveries: hidden chambers, secret vaults, a beautiful wrought-iron lantern. Deeply in love and surrounded by music, books, and the heady summer scents of the French countryside, Eve has never felt more alive. But with autumn’s arrival the days begin to cool, and so, too, does Dom. Though Eve knows he bears the emotional scars of a failed marriage - one he refuses to talk about - his silence arouses suspicion and uncertainty. The more reticent Dom is to explain, the more Eve becomes obsessed with finding answers - and with unraveling the mystery of his absent, beautiful ex-wife, Rachel. Like its owner, Les GenÉvriers is also changing. Bright, warm rooms have turned cold and uninviting; shadows now fall unexpectedly; and Eve senses a presence moving through the garden. Is it a ghost from the past or a manifestation of her current troubles with Dom? Can she trust Dom, or could her life be in danger? Eve does not know that Les GenÉvriers has been haunted before. BÉnÉdicte Lincel, the house’s former owner, thrived as a young girl within the rich elements of the landscape: the violets hidden in the woodland, the warm wind through the almond trees. She knew the bitter taste of heartbreak and tragedy - long-buried family secrets and evil deeds that, once unearthed, will hold shocking and unexpected consequences for Eve.
©2011 Deborah Lawrenson (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers
Songs of Blue and Gold
Summary
Melissa's life is in disarray. There are cracks in her marriage, and her mother, Elizabeth, is losing her memory. Elizabeth presents her daughter with a gift that suggests a very secret history - one that leads Melissa to Kalami, where Julian Adie, poet, traveller and novelist, once lived. But what is the connection between the hedonistic Adie and Melissa's mother? As Melissa chases Adie's shadow across the places he loved, she finds her mother may not have been the person she thought. Forced to question loyalty and her own unwillingness to let love in, Melissa is gradually led to a re-evaluation of her own life...
©2008 Deborah Lawrenson (P)2009 Isis Publishing Ltd
The Art of Falling
Summary
In 1944 Tom Wainwright, a British soldier, arrives in the small Italian town of Petriano. He forges a friendship with the Parini family - and in particular with the eldest daughter, Giuliana. When the war ends he chooses to stay in Italy, planning to build a life with the woman he loves, but his hopes are dashed. Fifty years later Isabel Wainwright, Tom's daughter, sets off for Petriano herself. Isabel's aim is to find her father, who walked out of her life nearly 20 years earlier. She doesn't even know whether her father is alive, but hopes that by discovering something of his past, she can build a picture of the man she hardly knew.
©2003 Deborah Lawrenson (P)2009 Isis Publishing Ltd