The Beloved Girls, Harriet Evans
The Beloved Girls, Harriet Evans
List: $38.99 | Sale: $27.30
Club: $19.49

The Beloved Girls

Author: Harriet Evans

Narrator: Siobhan Redmond

Unabridged: 18 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/10/2022


Synopsis

"It's a funny old house. They have this ceremony every summer . . . There's an old chapel, in the grounds of the house. It's half-derelict. The Hunters keep bees in there. Every year, on the same day, the family processes to the chapel. They open the combs, taste the honey. Take it back to the house. Half for them -" my father winced, as though he had bitten down on a sore tooth. "And half for us."

Catherine, a successful barrister, vanishes from a train station on the eve of her anniversary. Is it because she saw a figure - someone she believed long dead? Or was it a shadow cast by her troubled, fractured mind?
The answer lies buried in the past. It lies in the events of the hot, seismic summer of 1989, at Vanes - a mysterious West Country manor house - where a young girl, Jane Lestrange, arrives to stay with the gilded, grand Hunter family, and where a devastating tragedy will unfold. Over the summer, as an ancient family ritual looms closer, Janey falls for each member of the family in turn. She and Kitty, the eldest daughter of the house, will forge a bond that decades later, is still shaping the present . . .

'We need the bees to survive, and they need us to survive. Once you understand that, you understand the history of Vanes, you understand our family.'
 

About Harriet Evans

Harriet Evans has sold over a million copies of her books. She is the author of thirteen bestselling novels, most recently The Beloved Girls, a Richard and Judy Book Club Selection and the Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller The Garden of Lost and Found, which won Good Housekeeping's Book of the Year. She used to work in publishing and now writes full time, when not distracted by her children, other books, gardening, her jumpsuit collection and now star-gazing, having acquired a telescope whilst researching The Stargazers. She volunteers with Inspiring the Future, is an ambassador for the London Library and last year was elected to the Management Committee of the Society of Authors. She lives in the greatest city in the world (Bath) with her family.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Miriam on August 30, 2021

Harriet Evans is the Sunday Times top five bestselling author of many popular novels including the successful ‘The Garden of the Lost and Found’. “The Beloved Girls” is her latest remarkable historical novel that predominantly focuses on an old family home and an ancient ritual ceremony with bees an......more

Goodreads review by Emeyté on February 16, 2023

Muchísimo ruido pa mu poquitas nueces. Uf, qué cabreo tengo. This was SO promising and had me SO hooked during its first three quarters. It is VERY well-written and the different sub-plots were extremely intriguing. Such a pity that the author decided to give the dullest possible explanation to each......more

Goodreads review by Emma on August 26, 2022

My first read by Harriet Evans and I must admit I was not overly enthralled by this novel. Split over 3 time periods the tale unfolds with Janey taking refuge with the Hunter family whom she met earlier on in life. The Hunters are not a particularly pleasant bunch I must say, and I found myself stru......more

Goodreads review by Zoe on May 15, 2022

Complex, mysterious, and dark! The Beloved Girls transports you to England between 1959 and 2018 and immerses you into the ongoing, entangled, multi-generational relationships between the entitled, dysfunctional Hunter family and the sweet, reliable Lestrange family, complete with all the powerful em......more

Goodreads review by StrictlySue on May 10, 2022

This is the sort of book you need to give plenty of time to read - it is not a ‘few chapters at bedtime’ book - it’s an up all night til you’ve finished it, book…… the story weaves through the 1950’s, 1980’s and 2018, following the interwoven lives of Sylvia, Simon, Kitty, Janey and their families.......more


Quotes

"A gorgeous epic... Wholly absorbing. I adored it."—Marian Keyes, bestselling author