The Amusements

· Penguin · Narrated by Dónall Ó Héallai and Clara Harte
Audiobook
5 hr 19 min
Unabridged
Eligible
Ratings and reviews aren’t verified  Learn More
Want a 10 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline. 
Add

About this audiobook

Brought to you by Penguin.

In the resort town of Tramore, County Waterford, visitors arrive in waves with the tourist season, reliving the best days of their childhoods at the seaside amusements. Local teenager Helen Grant is indifferent to the charm of her surroundings; infatuated with her glamorous classmate Stella Swaine, she yearns to escape with her to art college, and from there, the world. But leaving Tramore is easier said than done. With an alcoholic father and an unsympathetic mother, Helen's family life may shatter her dream, just when it seems to be within reach . . .

Following the Grant and Swaine families and their neighbours over three decades, The Amusements is an unforgettable story about roads taken and not taken. It is a brilliantly observed portrait of life in a small town.

'THIS BOOK is EVERYTHING. The characters are painfully, beautifully real, the writing is IMPECCABLE . . . I LOVED it' Marian Keyes

'Unputdownable . . . one of the best novels of the year' Sunday Independent

'Flannery's flawed, hopeful characters live and grow on the page' ANNE ENRIGHT

© Aingeala Flannery 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

About the author

Aingeala Flannery is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. She has completed an MFA in Creative Writing at University College Dublin. Her short story 'Visiting Hours' was the winner of the 2019 Harper's Bazaar Short Story Competition. In 2020 and 2021, she was awarded a Literature Bursary by the Arts Council of Ireland. Her work has appeared in The Bath Anthology and has been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One as part of the Francis MacManus Short Story Competition. She lives in Dublin. The Amusements, her first book, is shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in association with Listowel Writers' Week

Rate this audiobook

Tell us what you think.

Listening information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.