Details:
- author: Joanne Harris
- full title: A Narrow Door
- series: Malbry #3
- narrators: Alex Kingston, Steven Pacey
- genre: mystery
- topics: #boardingschool #childhoodmemories
- publisher: OrangeSky Audio
- publish date: 04.01.2022
- timing: 12:52:54
My Rating of the Audiobook:
- content: 💙💙💙💙
- narration: 💙💙💙💙💙
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| Goodreads |
Excerpt from the Book:
I often find that men like you underestimate women like me. You think we must be damaged, somehow. That we seek power to compensate for some real or imagined injustice. That we must hate men, for the way they have excluded women from their boys’ clubs, holding them back, abusing them, exploiting them, for centuries. Well, yes, you may have a point. Some things make a woman fight back. And some things, though they challenge us, only make us stronger.
A woman Headmaster. To you it must seem a reversal of everything you believe. How did we come to this, you ask? How has the world been so overturned? Women like me, you tell yourself, should be this way for a reason. Our drive to succeed comes from weakness, you think. Rage, or hate, or fear, or insecurity. And that’s why I’ll win. Because you believe in the essential weakness of women in authority.
My Thoughts:
A Narrow Door is a third book in the Malbry series, but you can easily read it as a standalone. It is a medium-paced psychological mystery that has some slower parts. If you’re looking for an action-packed, fast-paced, and gripping thriller, you might not like it.Rebecca Buckfast is a new headmistress, the first woman headmaster of St. Oswald’s school. Until now, this was a school for boys only. But not anymore. Now for the first year, girls attend it too. Although Buckfast wasn’t a student here, a history ties her to this place. She tells her story to a teacher Roy Straitley.
Two POVs: headmistress Buckfast and teacher Straitley. Both characters were presented very well, and they felt very real. There were two narrators for two POVs. I liked both, and their voices suited the characters. Steven Pacey’s voice reminded me of Anthony Hopkins. :)
The writing is very good, which I don’t expect from every mystery/thriller. This novel also touches quite a few sensitive themes along the way, like inequality, feminism, racism, and mental health.
About the Author:
Joanne Harris is the internationally renowned and award-winning author of eighteen novels, plus novellas, scripts, short stories, libretti, lyrics, articles, and most recently, a self-help book for writers, TEN THINGS ABOUT WRITING. In 2000, her 1999 novel CHOCOLAT was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and is Chair of the Society of Authors.
Her hobbies are listed in Who's Who as 'mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion'. She is active on Twitter, where she writes stories and gives writing tips as @joannechocolat; she posts weekly writing seminars on YouTube; she performs in a live music and storytelling show with the #Storytime Band; and she works from a shed in her garden at her home in Yorkshire.
She also has a form of synaesthesia which enables her to smell colours. Red, she says, smells of chocolate.
