Alive
Sharon Bolton
Mar 2018 · Trapeze · Narrated by Nathalie Buscombe
4.2star
411 reviewsreport
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Audiobook
46 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
For fans of Val McDermid, Elly Griffiths and Peter May, prepare to delve into the dark world of The Craftsman with Alive, the ghostly short story thriller by Sunday Times bestseller Sharon Bolton.
A dark moon is rising. A perfect black circle, barely visible in the night sky, the dark moon casts its void over the wind-scorched moor, over the soaring mass of a great limestone hill, and over the town that cowers in its shadow. The dark moon is the absence of moon before the slender silver crescent of the new moon appears again and people can breath a little easier.
The month is March and the night is clear and cold, black as pitch. The full moon in March is known as the Worm Moon, welcome despite its ominous name, marking as it does the end of winter and the emergence of earthworms from the thawing ground. Dark moons have never been named, although they are sometimes called the dead moons. The dark moons reign over nights when people stoke up their fires, draw their curtains tighter and try to think happy thoughts. In the town of Sabden at the foot of Pendle Hill in Lancashire they usually fail.
In Sabden's soot-blackened terraced houses, the sleepers' dreams darken when the moon leaves the sky. Infants wake up cold, mothers tremble with elusive fears for their children and old folks slip a little closer to death. Only the Craftsman welcomes the dark moon. Alone in the town, he is awake, and ready to start work.
Alive is a nail-biting, heart-racing, page-turning thriller that will have you up all night and includes an extract of Sharon's upcoming novel The Craftsman.
Alive is the perfect appetiser to wet your appetite for Sharon's crime-fiction reads - a gripping tale that will leave you terrified to turn the lights off!
Read by Nathalie Buscombe
(p) 2018 Orion Publishing Group
A dark moon is rising. A perfect black circle, barely visible in the night sky, the dark moon casts its void over the wind-scorched moor, over the soaring mass of a great limestone hill, and over the town that cowers in its shadow. The dark moon is the absence of moon before the slender silver crescent of the new moon appears again and people can breath a little easier.
The month is March and the night is clear and cold, black as pitch. The full moon in March is known as the Worm Moon, welcome despite its ominous name, marking as it does the end of winter and the emergence of earthworms from the thawing ground. Dark moons have never been named, although they are sometimes called the dead moons. The dark moons reign over nights when people stoke up their fires, draw their curtains tighter and try to think happy thoughts. In the town of Sabden at the foot of Pendle Hill in Lancashire they usually fail.
In Sabden's soot-blackened terraced houses, the sleepers' dreams darken when the moon leaves the sky. Infants wake up cold, mothers tremble with elusive fears for their children and old folks slip a little closer to death. Only the Craftsman welcomes the dark moon. Alone in the town, he is awake, and ready to start work.
Alive is a nail-biting, heart-racing, page-turning thriller that will have you up all night and includes an extract of Sharon's upcoming novel The Craftsman.
Alive is the perfect appetiser to wet your appetite for Sharon's crime-fiction reads - a gripping tale that will leave you terrified to turn the lights off!
Read by Nathalie Buscombe
(p) 2018 Orion Publishing Group
Ratings and reviews
4.2
411 reviews
Liane Winters
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August 15, 2019
I think it's important to realise that this is a small part of an actual novel. I downloaded it as a free audio book and for that reason I can't be annoyed. Had I paid for it, believing it was a full novel I would have been pissed that it stopped as and when it did, but as a free download I thought it was more than worth it. The narrator was bareable too. I think if the rest of the novel is at the same level it will be an awesome book worth purchasing.
Kris Solberg
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February 18, 2020
The strength of this novella lies in how the author fleshes out the characters. The world feels realistic and I wanted to read more about them. Unfortunately the author moves on to the next character too quickly and never really fleshes out the questions that arise from the story. I get that this is a short teaser for a larger novel, but I would've preferred a completed narrative around one character instead of three incomplete ones.
9 people found this review helpful
Joint TKJman
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November 25, 2020
The audiobook is quite vivid in describing the setting and atmosphere going about in the book. In a way, we are reeled into the thoughts and imaginations of the not-so-perfect characters. Giving the characters real feelings of lust, desire and fear makes the storyline a lot less cliché and removes the expectations of the mind (or rather sets them aside) and allows your thoughts to bask in the thrill of the book than anything else.
About the author
Sharon (formerly S J) Bolton lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband and, occasionally, her grown up son and is working on her eighteenth novel; her eighth with Orion. Her first book, Sacrifice, was voted Best New Read by Amazon.uk, whilst her second, Awakening, won the 2010 Mary Higgins Clark Award (part of the prestigious Edgars) in the US. In 2014, she won the CWA Dagger in the Library. She has been shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger, the CWA Steel Dagger, the Theakston's Prize for Best Thriller, the International Thriller Writers' Best First Novel award, the Prix Du Polar in France and the Martin Beck award in Sweden.
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