Hannah Rothschild has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 21 ratings. The most-rated is The Improbability of Love.
The Improbability of Love
Summary
Annie McDee, alone after the disintegration of her long-term relationship and trapped in a dead-end job, is searching for a present for her unsuitable lover in a neglected secondhand shop. Within the jumble of junk and tack, a grimy painting catches her eye. Leaving the store with the picture after spending her meagre savings, she prepares an elaborate dinner for two - only to be stood up, the gift gathering dust on her mantelpiece. But every painting has a story - and if it could speak, what would it tell us? For Annie has stumbled across The Improbability of Love, a lost masterpiece by Antoine Watteau, one of the most influential French painters of the 18th century. Soon Annie is drawn unwillingly into the art world and finds herself pursued by a host of interested parties that would do anything to possess her picture. For an exiled Russian oligarch, an avaricious Sheika, a desperate auctioneer, an unscrupulous dealer and several others, the painting symbolises their greatest hopes and fears. In her search for the painting's true identity, Annie will uncover the darkest secrets of European history - and in doing so she will learn more about herself, opening up to the possibility of falling in love again. Irreverent, witty and sharply sweet, The Improbability of Love explores the confusion and turmoil of life and the complexities of love, loss and hurt - revealing the lows to which human nature can stoop and the heights to which the soul can soar.
©2015 Hannah Rothschild (P)2016 Audible, Ltd
The Baroness
Summary
She seemed to have it all: children, a handsome husband, and a trust fund. But in the early 1950s, Nica Rotschild heard "Round Midnight" by the jazz legend Thelonious Monk; the music overtook her like a magic spell, and she abandoned her marriage to go and find him. She was shunned by society but the musicians gave her friendship. She gave them material and emotional support. Her convertible Bentley was a familiar sight outside the clubs; her notoriety was sealed when Charlie Parker died in her apartment. But her real love was reserved for Monk, whom she cared for until his death in 1982.
©2012 Hannah Rothschild (P)2012 Audible Ltd
House of Trelawney
Summary
The seat of the Trelawney family for over 700 years, Trelawney Castle was once the jewel of the Cornish coast. Each successive Earl spent with abandon, turning the house and grounds into a sprawling, extravagant palimpsest of wings, turrets, and follies. But as the centuries passed the Earls of Trelawney, their ambition dulled by generations of pampered living, failed to develop other skills. Now in 2008 the house - its paintings and furniture sold off to pay death duties, its grounds diminished, the gardens choked with weeds - has begun to resemble its owners: faded, crumbling, and out-of-date. Jane, the put-upon wife of the current Earl, Kitto, scraping a life for her children and in-laws in a few drafty rooms of the big house, is trapped by Trelawney Castle; while Blaze, Kitto's sister, has made a killing in the City - and a complete turkey of her personal life. Long-estranged, the two women are brought back together when a letter arrives; and soon after it, an unwelcome young guest. Grudgingly reunited, Blaze and Jane must band together to take charge of their new charge - and save the house of Trelawney. With formidable sharpness, delicious irreverence, and a very wicked wit, House of Trelawney is a glorious send-up of recession Britain and its carnival of bastard bankers and down-at-heel toffs.
©2020 Hannah Rothschild (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
The Baroness
Summary
Beautiful, romantic, and spirited, Pannonica, known as Nica, named after her father’s favorite moth, was born in 1913 to extraordinary, eccentric privilege and a storied history. The Rothschild family had, in only five generations, risen from the ghetto in Frankfurt to stately homes in England. As a child, Nica took her daily walks, dressed in white, with her two sisters and governess around the parkland of the vast house at Tring, Hertfordshire, among kangaroos, giant tortoises, emus and zebras, all part of the exotic menagerie collected by her uncle Walter. As a debutante, she was taught to fly by a saxophonist and introduced to jazz by her brother Victor; she married Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, settled in a château in France and had five children. When World War II broke out, Nica and her children narrowly escaped back to England, but soon after, she set out to find her husband, who was fighting with the Free French Army in Africa, where she helped the war effort by being a decoder, a driver, and organizing supplies and equipment. In the early 1950s Nica heard "’Round Midnight" by the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and, as if under a powerful spell, abandoned her marriage and moved to New York to find him. She devoted herself to helping Monk and other musicians: She bailed them out of jail, paid their bills, took them to the hospital, even drove them to their gigs, and her convertible Bentley could always be seen parked outside downtown clubs or up in Harlem. Charlie Parker would notoriously die in her apartment in the Stanhope Hotel. But it was Monk who was the love of her life and whom she cared for until his death in 1982. Hannah Rothschild has drawn on archival material and her own interviews in this quest to find out who her great-aunt really was and how she fit into a family that, although passionate about music and entomology, was reactionary in always favoring men over women. Part musical odyssey, part love story, The Baroness is a fascinating portrait of a modern figure ahead of her time who dared to live as she wanted, finally, at the very center of New York’s jazz scene.
©2013 Hannah Rothschild (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.