Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.
Title: A Dark Devotion
Author: Clare Francis
Narrator: Lindsay Duncan
Format: Abridged
Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-31-07
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Suspense
Publisher's Summary:
Alexandra O'Neill, lawyer to petty criminals, is drawn back to the village where she grew up to help Will Dearden find his paragon of a wife.
But can any wife be so perfect that she doesn't have secrets? And can a devoted husband have failed to see the truth?
Critic Reviews:
"Evocative....The plot turns gracefully on domestic issues." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Immensely pleasurable....Francis is a British treasure and deserves to be equally appreciated here." (Chicago Tribune)
"A chilling and contemporary look at marriage, money, and ambition, and at a life in an English small town and many of the small-minded people who live there." (<>Dallas Morning News)
Members Reviews:
Easy read with good ending...
Not the best of Clare Francis' work in my opinion, but still a good read and thoroughly enjoyable book to take on holiday. Good characterisations with build to conclusion and a choice of bad guy through to the final pages.
A beautiful woman disappears without a trace.
Clare Francis specializes in dysfunctional families with disturbing secrets. In "A Dark Devotion," Grace Dearden, a young wife and mother who lives in Norfolk, England, suddenly disappears. Alex O'Neill, an attorney and an old friend of Grace's husband, Will, steps in to help. Alex's services are needed, since the police suspect that Will may have had something to do with Grace's disappearance. Alex begins an investigation of her own, hoping to find out what really happened to Grace.
Alex's interest in the case is not entirely professional. Her marriage is shaky, since her husband, Paul, is a drunk who is deeply involved with some disreputable characters. Alex still has feelings for Will, whom she loved when she was a young girl. As she delves into the complexities of this case, Alex begins to uncover the truth behind the Dearden family faade.
Frances sets up her story well, and she populates "A Dark Devotion" with intriguing characters. Alex is a smart, compassionate and tenacious lawyer, whose experience with the criminal justice system makes her a valuable ally. Although Alex cares for Will, she tries not to allow her emotions to color her perceptions. Other notable characters are Alex's weak-willed and shallow brother, Edward, Will's fragile mother, Maggie, and his vulnerable little boy, Charlie. Francis makes us care about these people and we are eager to find out how things went so dreadfully wrong for this "picture perfect" family.
The book is weakest at the end, when startling revelations come one after another. Francis, like so many authors in this genre, wants to surprise the reader with twists and turns, but she lays on the contrivances and the melodrama too thickly.