Kitty Neale Audiobooks

A Family Secret: a Battersea Tavern story, read by Annie Aldington

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.6/5 average

2 listener ratings

Who is Kitty Neale?

Battersea has a particular place in the London imagination: south of the river, working, unglamorous, and close enough to the water to have always had somewhere to drink. Kitty Neale sets A Family Secret under the Battersea Tavern banner, and the pairing of place and pub does most of the scene-setting before anything else happens.

The title names its engine plainly. A secret held inside a family is among the oldest devices there is, because it works: it puts pressure on every conversation and hands the listener something to hold that the characters cannot yet say aloud. At nearly ten hours this is full-length storytelling, with the room to let that pressure build slowly.

Kitty Neale in audiobooks

Annie Aldington narrates, and nine hours and three quarters allows the unhurried approach that this kind of storytelling needs: space to hold a cast steady, and to let the setting and the era do their own work rather than being explained at you.

This one is scheduled rather than available, so it is worth setting a reminder rather than a shopping list. Only a scattering of verdicts has been logged so far, far too few to average into anything meaningful, and we would rather admit that than quote a figure at you. Keep an eye on what is listed below.