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The Absolute Book

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The Absolute Book

By: Elizabeth Knox
Narrated by: Anne-Marie Duff
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Taryn Cornick believes her sister, Bea, was deliberately run down and killed. She believes it so hard she allows a man called the Muleskinner to exact the justice Bea was denied. An eye for an eye.

Which is when Taryn's problems really begin.

Because the police suspect Taryn's involvement in the death.

Worse, others have their eyes on Taryn - those in a faraway place who know what Taryn's family have been carefully hiding in their vast library. The Absolute Book.

They want it - and they want Taryn to help find it.

For the lives of those in more than one world depend upon it....

©2021 Elizabeth Knox (P)2021 Penguin Audio Dragons & Mythical Creatures Fantasy Fiction Mythology Paranormal

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Critic reviews

"Mind-blowing." (laini Taylor)

"Astounding." (Francis Spufford)

"Intricately plotted and gorgeously written, The Absolute Book has something for everyone: the search for a mysterious book, talking ravens, police detectives and academics, gods and demons, a giant saltwater crocodile, the bucolic English countryside and magical gates to hidden worlds. Here is a cinematic tale that is by turns dark and dreamlike, yet ultimately hopeful." (Deborah Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches)
All stars
Most relevant  
Interesting, but I got quite lost in places and wasn’t entirely sure what was going on.

Longwinded

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a long and tangled tale moving from one world to another effortlessly
well written and well read
very enjoyable

absolutely great

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A glowing review in The Guardian Weekly first put me onto this. A brilliantly crafted new world. Superbly narrated. Grippingly mysterious, and with a severe punch to the values we live by in “our” world. It’s excellent. (Michael).

A brilliantly crafted new world.

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I love this book - and am now going to buy a physical copy! Beautiful, exciting, and magical. And a fantastic spoken performance by Anne-Marie Duff - an ideal reader with the gift of creating the voices of each disparate character.

Wonderful!

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Loved the plot loved the narration loved it’s complexity and solution finding to humanity compelling and optimistic

One of the best books read this year

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Super story, great narration I'll be checking out other books read by Anne- Marie Duff! Riveting. Beautiful words in abundance!

A womans journey of discovery

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Unusual start but great once it gets going, good exploration of the Shay and fairy mythology

Be patient- it's a great story

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I enjoyed listening to the narrators voice and she is exceptional actress with believable accents. The story is easy to fall into and took me away which is a great thing during the pandemics restrictions here in the UK.

Highly reccomended !! A fantastic story.

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Anne-Marie Duff's narration is excellent, however the book is long, and the plot seems to move along to quite different scenarios every couple of hours, which makes it confusing and made me disengage a bit with the characters and their stories. There are some interesting scenarios and concepts which do stand out, though and it definitely was good to have on in the background.

I also needed to go back and re-listen to bits, but the book was so long that I didn't have the motivation to do this in the way that I would go back and skim read with an actual book.

Might be better as a real book

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Loved this book, It completely captured me the story and the reader were spellbinding. Many long journeys made short! Thank you

Wowza

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