The Five of Us, Sian Gilbert
The Five of Us, Sian Gilbert
List: $24.95 | Sale: $17.47
Club: $12.47

The Five of Us

Author: Sian Gilbert

Narrator: Kate Walsh, Lucy Rayner, Imogen Church, Marisa Calin, Billie Fulford-Brown, Ella Lynch

Unabridged: 10 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/27/2026

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of She Started It comes an unsettling, propulsive thriller where home is not a sanctuary, isolation looms, and the future has evaporated. All that’s left is fear, frustration, and an anger that won’t go away.Meet Crow, Goldfinch, Starling, Wren, and Cuckoo—five girls who will never tell you their real names. They’re the brightest students at an underfunded, inner-city Bristol school, pushing toward opportunity despite the odds stacked against them. They believe they’re on the cusp of something better … until the world abruptly shuts down. Exams are cancelled, their plans collapse, and the future dissolves into a fog of uncertainty.With long nights, a city under curfew, and nothing left to lose, the girls slip into a world of dark possibility. Each illicit outing becomes its own kind of dangerous magic. Their choices spiral—from reckless to ruthless—and by the end of a strange, suspended summer, more than one person will be dead.Seven years later, the survivors have not spoken since. But someone knows what happened. Someone who has been watching. Hunting. Taunting. As they stumble through an adulthood they were never prepared for—and reckon with all the wounds of a generation left behind—the rage that bound them together in the past resurfaces with lethal force.They broke the rules. And now the rules may end up breaking them.

About Sian Gilbert

Sian Gilbert is the author of She Started It. She was born in Bristol, UK, and studied history at the University of Warwick, before teaching at a comprehensive school in Birmingham for almost five years. She now lives in Cambridge with her partner.

About Kate Walsh

Kate Walsh is a British narrator with a rich velvet voice and an excellent ear for accents. She has been a professional voice artist for over thirty years, having started her performing life as a lead singer and session vocalist, gigging in and around London. She then moved into stage acting after taking acting classes at the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed Off West End in many plays, including Shakespeare, Pinter, and Shaw. Her natural accent is warm northern, though she most often narrates in standard British (RP). Genres that Kate enjoys working in include psychological thrillers, crime, cozy crime and mystery, romance, and sci-fi. In addition to audiobook narration, Kate is a live announcer for the BBC and also voices many video game characters. This, alongside her honors degree in psychology, enables Kate to create authentic, relatable characters in every audiobook she takes on. Kate now lives in London with her wife and two cats. Hobbies include cycling, running, and hiking. She is a keen baker, DIY tinkerer, camper, and avid reader. Past jobs include welder, cleaner, telesales, tutor, dog walker, and bar maid.

About Lucy Rayner

Lucy Rayner is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and award-winning British actress. She has starred in numerous short and feature-length films, including English20 and Total Retribution. For her performance in Bolero, she was named Best Supporting Actress at the 2013 Madrid International Film Festival. She has worked on both sides of the Atlantic in a number of theater productions and films, many of which have screened at festivals around the world. She has a master’s degree in history from the University of Edinburgh and is a graduate of the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York City.

About Imogen Church

Imogen Church, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, trained as an actress at the Drama Centre London, under Christopher Fettes, Yat Malmgren, and Reuven Adiv. Since graduating, she has worked extensively in theater, film, commercials, and comedy sketch work, and she also works regularly as a voice artist. As a screenwriter, her first screenplay won the 2009 award for Best Feature Screenplay at the Reel Women Film Festival in Los Angeles.

About Marisa Calin

Marisa Calin is an actress, novelist, and multiple Earphones Award–winning narrator born in England and educated in New York at the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts. An artist with a flair for everything literary, she has written a young adult novel, You & Me, which received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews.

About Billie Fulford-Brown

Billie Fulford-Brown is a London-based actress, voice-over artist, and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator.

About Ella Lynch

Ella Lynch is a talented British actress and audiobook narrator who works out of her home studio in Exeter, England.

Reviews

There are currently no user reviews for this audiobook.

Quotes

“The Five of Us is at once a story of vengeance, a coming-of-age novel, and an exploration of how seductive power can be once you realize you have it. A tense, dark gem of a thriller.” Tracy Sierra, author of Nightwatching

“The suspense burns like a slow fuse until it explodes with one shocking twist after another.” Brian Freeman, New York Times bestselling author of Photograph

“The Five of Us is a brilliantly conceived story of rivalry, vengeance, and the terrible secrets that can lurk within even the closest of friendships. With gripping suspense, Gilbert imagines the lockdown world of Cuckoo, Wren, Goldie, Starling, and Crow with great imagination and twists galore. An unputdownable parable for our hypervigilant age.” Bruce Holsinger, author of The Gifted School and Culpability 

“Wildly original and deliciously dark.” Elka Ray, author of A Friend Indeed

“Eerie, eye-opening, and simmering with tension, The Five of Us is The Secret History for the lockdown generation. It’s Sian Gilbert’s most compelling novel yet—a haunting, unforgettable read.” Kelly and Kristina Mancaruso, authors of Rumoured

“Gilbert’s coming-of-age tale with deeply explored themes of friendship takes a deadly twist.” Booklist

“At last: dark academia for the rest of us. Gilbert brilliantly reimagines The Secret History if the murderers lived in council flats instead of ivy-covered dormitories. Moody, poetic, and impossibly clever, The Five of Us is exactly the kind of novel we need right now—a thrilling feast for anyone who longs to devour the rich.” V. A. Vazquez, author of The Death Row Club

Pre-Order
Add to Wish List