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Love Audio Week

This week is Love Audio week and we’ve been celebrating the world of audio books. Team Bookends are huge audio book listeners! They’re perfect listening for your commute, for the multi-tasker who wants to read but has to make dinner and also because you can access them on most devices audio books are one of the most convenient ways to keep up with your reading pile!

Here are our top audio book recommendations to get you started!

Half a World Away by Mike Gayle

Strangers living worlds apart.
Strangers with nothing in common.
But it wasn’t always that way…

Kerry Hayes is a single mum, living on a tough south London estate. She provides for her son by cleaning houses she could never hope to afford. Taken into care as a child, Kerry cannot ever forget her past.

Noah Martineau is a successful barrister with a beautiful wife, daughter and home in fashionable Primrose Hill. Adopted as a child, Noah always looks forward, never back.

When Kerry reaches out to the sibling she lost on the day they were torn apart as children, she sets in motion a chain of events that will have life-changing consequences for them both.

 By turns funny and moving, Half a World Away is a story that will stay with you long after you read its powerfully emotional, heartbreaking final page.

You can download Half a World Away from Audible here.

Till the Cows Come Home by Sara Cox

Till the Cows Come Home is DJ and TV presenter Sara Cox’s wonderfully written, funny coming-of-age memoir of growing up in 1980s Lancashire.

The youngest of five siblings, Sara grew up on her father’s cattle farm surrounded by dogs, cows, horses, fields and lots of ‘cack’. The lanky kid sister – half girl, half forehead – a nuisance to the older kids, the farm was her very own dangerous adventure playground, ‘a Bolton version of Narnia’. 

Her writing conjures up a time of wagon rides and haymaking and agricultural shows,  alongside chain smoking pensioners, cabaret nights at the Conservative club and benign parenting. Sara’s love of family, of the animals and the people around them shines through on every page. Unforgettable characters are lovingly and expertly drawn bringing to life a time and place. 

You can download Till the Cows Come Home from Audible from here and from Apple books here.

Her Husband’s Mistake by Sheila O’Flanagan

Her Husband's Mistake

Should a woman be ready to forgive and forget to save her marriage? Roxy’s not so sure….

The riveting new novel from number one best-selling author Sheila O’Flanagan. Perfect for fans of Marian Keyes and Kerry Fisher.

When Roxy comes home unexpectedly one day to give her husband, Dave, a lovely surprise, it’s Roxy who gets shock of her life. And all she wants to do is run away.

Roxy knows she has to face up to what’s happened and decide: forgive and forget, or bring an end to a decade-long marriage. Surely the right thing is to get over it – that’s what Dave thinks. After all, it’s just one mistake….

But Roxy finds it’s not so simple. Especially when another secret starts to emerge. Her friends and family all know what they’d do – but they’re not Roxy….

https://soundcloud.com/headline-books/sheila-oflanagan-final

Listen to an extract of Her Husband’s Mistake on Soundcloud.

You can download Her Husband’s Mistake from Audible here.

Her Last Promise by Kathryn Hughes

Her Last Promise

A mysterious letter from Spain. A surprising new beginning…

Fall in love this summer with Her Last Promise, a gripping, heart-rending story of how hope can blossom in the ruins of tragedy and of the redeeming power of love. From number one best-selling author Kathryn Hughes.

Tara Richards was just a girl when she lost her mother. Years later, when Tara receives a letter from a London solicitor, its contents shake her to the core. Someone has left her a key to a safe deposit box.

In the box lies an object that will change everything Tara thought she knew and lead her on a journey to deepest Spain in search of the answers that have haunted her for 40 years.  

Violet Skye regrets her decision to travel abroad leaving her young daughter behind. As the sun dips below the mountains, she reminds herself she is doing this for their future. Tonight, 4th June 1978, will be the start of a new life for them. This night will indeed change Violet’s destiny, in the most unexpected of ways….

https://soundcloud.com/headline-books/her-last-promise-by-katheryn-hughes-read-by-rachel-atkins

You can download Her Last Promise from Audible here.

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

The Flatshare

Tiffy and Leon share a flat
Tiffy and Leon share a bed
Tiffy and Leon have never met…

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time. 

But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…

You can download The Flatshare from Audible here.

The Lemon Tree Hotel by Rosanna Ley

A story about love, family secrets, and a little piece of heaven . . .

In the beautiful village of Vernazza, the Mazzone family have transformed an old convent overlooking the glamorous Italian Riviera into the elegant Lemon Tree Hotel. For Chiara, her daughter Elene and her granddaughter Isabella, the running of their hotel is the driving force in their lives. 

One day, two unexpected guests check in. The first, Dante, is a face from Chiara’s past, but what exactly happened between them all those years ago, Elene wonders. Meanwhile, Isabella is preoccupied with the second guest, a mysterious young man who seems to know a lot about the history of the old convent and the people who live there. Isabella is determined to find out his true intentions and discover the secret past of the Lemon Tree Hotel.

https://soundcloud.com/quercusbooks/the-lemon-tree-hotel-by-rosanna-ley-read-by-lucy-price-lewis

You can download The Lemon Tree Hotel from Audible here.