The Chaperone
-
-
5.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $17.99
Publisher Description
The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone, read by the actress Elizabeth McGovern, best-known for her role as Cora, Countess of Grantham in the hit TV series Downton Abbey.
On a summer's day in 1922 Cora Carlisle boards a train from Wichita, Kansas, to New York City, leaving behind a marriage that's not as perfect as it seems and a past that she buried long ago. She is charged with the care of a stunning young girl with a jet-black fringe and eyes wild and wise beyond her fifteen years. This girl is hungry for stardom and Cora for something she doesn't yet know. Cora will be many things in her lifetime - an orphan, a mother, a wife, a mistress - but in New York she is a chaperone and her life is about to change.
It is here under the bright lights of Broadway, in a time when prohibition reigns and speakeasies with their forbidden whispers behind closed doors thrive, that Cora finds what she has been searching for. It is here, in a time when illicit thrills and daring glamour sizzle beneath the laws of propriety that her life truly begins. It is here that Cora and her charge, Louise Brooks, take their first steps towards their dreams.
Customer Reviews
Great story that spans generations
I was keen to read this book after seeing the trailer for the movie version of The Chaperone. I discovered that Elizabeth McGovern who stars in the movie was also the narrator of the audiobook version of this book so I elected to listen rather than read it.
What a wonderful book!! It covers Cora's life between childhood and her eventual passing and is a fascinating story. Cora is married to Alan and has twin boys who have now grown up, she reluctantly decides to accompany 15 yo Louise Brooks to New York where she has a place in a prestigious performing arts school. Whilst there Cora discovers details about her own past, where she was given up for adoption and lived in a convent where she eventually was adopted by a farming couple in america's Midwest. Cora is determined to discover her roots and this story alone was heartbreaking.
Meanwhile, being chaperone to Louise who is a talented dancer but very promiscuous is quite a job in itself.
This story spans from the 1920's through to the 1980's and was just a delight the whole way through. Elizabeth McGovern does an excellent job of narration and I am so looking forward to seeing the movie. I hope they don't spoil it!!