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    A Single Thread
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    A Single Thread
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    A Single Thread
    Audiobook10 hours

    A Single Thread

    Written by Tracy Chevalier

    Narrated by Fenella Woolgar

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    FROM THE GLOBALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

    ‘Bittersweet … dazzling’ Guardian

    ‘Deeply pleasurable … the ending made me cry’ The Times

    ‘Told with a wealth of detail and narrative intensity’ Penelope Lively

    Violet is 38.

    The First World War took everything from her. Her brother, her fiancé – and her future. She is now considered a ‘surplus woman’.

    But Violet is also fiercely independent and determined. Escaping her suffocating mother, she moves to Winchester to start a new life –a change that will require courage, resilience and acts of quiet rebellion. And when whispers of another world war surface, she must live with a secret that could change everything…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 5, 2019
    ISBN9780008153854
    Unavailable
    A Single Thread
    Author

    Tracy Chevalier

    Tracy Chevalier is the author of eleven novels, including A Single Thread, Remarkable Creatures and Girl with a Pearl Earring, an international bestseller that has sold over five million copies and been made into a film, a play and an opera. Born in Washington DC, she moved to the United Kingdom in 1986. She and her husband divide their time between London and Dorset.

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    Reviews for A Single Thread

    4/5

    339 ratings38 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A simple, sweet story that gently but inexorably draws you into the lives of its protagonists, and surprises you with how invested you are in their joys and sorrows, their little acts of rebellion and hope. Beautiful.
    • 5/5
      The obviously extensive research is a cause for enormous admiration. Tied together with several significant contemporary social issues, it makes this one of chevaliers best works.
    • 5/5
      The a reader was so good she really made me laugh with her characterisations of the older woman - particularly the mother.
      The story flows beautifully and I really felt very much like the voyeur sitting alongside Violet.
      A hugely enjoyable read - I would read more of Tracy Chevalier’s books
    • 5/5
      As always, Tracy Chevalier crafts an engaging tale, full of deeply researched history and fact. Her characters are so life like and both their flaws and their giftings they live on in ones imagination.

      The audio book is beautifully read and moves along at a smooth pace.
    • 2/5
      Could have been a quarter of the length for the amount of story line...
    • 5/5
      Gentle story which flows sturdily along about a womans life inbetween the World Wars.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful story, so very English in its quiet emotion. The historical parts were really interesting. Loved it.
    • 3/5
      Book on CD narrated by Fenella WoolgarFrom the book jacket: 1932. Since the Great War took both her brother and her fiancé, Violet Speedwell has become a “surplus woman,” one of a generation destined to remain unmarried after the war killed so many young men. Yet Violet cannot reconcile herself to a future spent caring for her grieving mother. Setting out for Winchester she finds both a job and a room of her own in a boardinghouse. Violet also falls in with the broderers, a group of women charged with embroidering cushions and kneelers for the grand Winchester Cathedral. She finds friendship in her new circle, fulfillment in the work they create, and love. My reactionsThis is a selection for my F2F book club. I have read and greatly enjoyed other works by Chevalier, so was looking forward to it. But I come away a little disappointed. I suppose if I had read the jacket blurb I’d have known there would be a romance and my expectations would have been different. But I really wanted to know more about the cathedral, its history, and the work of the broderers. Chevalier managed to include issues of the era’s expectations (or lack thereof) of women, and a lesbian couple’s struggles to find acceptance. She also includes the beginnings of the Nazi party with Hitler’s rise to power and hints at what is coming. I really liked Violet, and several of the women she came to know and befriend. Her landlady was a peach, and Miss Pesel was a treasure. I thought she treated Violet’s relationship with Arthur fairly, and realistically. But I wish the author had left out the romance. Fenella Woolgar does a marvelous job narrating the audiobook. There are many women characters and she managed to give them sufficiently unique voices so I was never confused about who was speaking.
    • 5/5
      Enjoyed this more than I expected. The pursuant, Jack Wells, is so contrived and his encounters with the main character Violet Speedwell so unlikely that it showed its flaws starkly, but sometimes I quite like that - as with Ian McEwen's plots. Chevalier's own plot in this book is a bit wayward, but it was a great romp to relax with and read when I was laid up in bed for a day. It's the second book Ipicked up for its embroidery, and I enjoyed learning about Louisa Pesel and the Winchester broderers - the more so because they're real, and I've since discovered that there's an interesting early piece of stumpwork by a fella in the Winchester College archives.I wasn't expecting the solo walking holiday, but that part resonated with me. I walk a lot in the Highlands alone, and I always felt fine there, threatened only by white-outs and crags and dependent on my own navigation skills. But walking in more populated areas like Sussex, I've had some frightening encounters with predatory blokes because footpaths through fields and woods are far too accessible to ne'er-do-wells. Violet's rising terror, and analysis of her situation ("he wasn't a smiler"), part fear, part introspective private humour, sounded very like the voice in my own head. All her thoughts were a pleasure to read: her pathetic need for the broderers' company, her need to produce something bautiful and leave a mark, her romantic interest in kindly older Arthur, her uncertainty about her stance with the gay couple, and her grass-is-greener responses to being anywhere (!) were fun, together with her actual strengths standing up to her employer or knowing when to cut Arthur loose, wrapped in her general feeling of humility. Not a great story, like Girl with a Parl Earring, but a worthwhile novel that made for a fun distraction and a nice bit of textile history.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed A Single Thread and had no knowledge of this group of women and of the work they did. There are around 600 cushions in everyday use in the cathedral today, all done be by these volunteers. The work is of the highest quality as Louisa Pesel, their chief embroiderer, expected and insisted on nothing less. Go Google it, the pictures of the cushions are amazing.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully narrated - I couldn't get enough of this story about a woman in her thirties desperate to forge her own path. At 38 Violet sees her future laid out before her - stuck in her childhood home in a quaint English village, taking care of her mother - it makes her shudder. Her mother is a miserable old wretch and does nothing but complain (seriously she's the worst) so Violet decides to put in a request for a work transfer. She moves out into a small apartment of her own and barely makes ends meet on her small salary, but at least she's free. She happens into an embroidery group which helps make her new friends, gain confidence, and learn a new skill. Since her fiancé died in the great war and the men in England are so scarce, she thought she would just have family - but that changes when she find Arthur. The bell ringer in the cathedral she embroiders at. Violet is coming into her own, slowly but surely forging her own path into the great unknown. Great story, excellent narrator. I love Tracy Chevalier.
    • 4/5
      Tracy Chevalier writes very well and although she writes the kind of books I don't read much, this is actually my third book by her. I enjoyed it although with some caveats. It was also strange to read it so soon after reading "Ann Veronica" because it has the same plot! Woman leaves controlling family to do her own thing, finds some independence, has romance and concludes. I've been to Winchester Cathedral so that was interesting and the background to the embroidery etc. Pretty enjoyable all around.
    • 4/5
      I really love the way Tracy Chevalier writes. She is one of my favorite novelists and this novel, A Single Thread ",does not disappoint. Violet faces the conventions of her day as a "surplus woman", with spunk and with embroidery for a local cathedral. Chevalier takes such a simple thing like needlepoint and makes a compelling and dramatic story from it. I quote another review that says it so well "As always, Chevalier's strengths emerge when she writes about an obscure historical artifact or topic." Well done !!
    • 4/5
      This was an engaging and informative read, as are all of Chevalier's historical fiction. This one takes place in England between the World Wars, and it focuses on the "surplus women" who never married or were widowed/left behind by the men killed in the war. Chevalier shows how women create and form community, as evidenced by any number of relationships and communities that form in the novel. I could have done without the romantic subplot, but that's just me. As always, Chevalier's strengths emerge when she writes about an obscure historical artifact or topic.
    • 1/5
      Could have been an interesting historical novel, but it spent too much time initially sounding like a cozy. Stopped after the first tape.
    • 3/5
      As much as I enjoyed Remarkable Creatures, I never could get in a good rhythm in reading this novel. Having been to Winchester Cathedral I assumed I would have a natural connection with the story, as the backdrop to Violet's story was her becoming one of the broderers who embroidered cushions and kneelers for the Cathedral. Though Chevalier gives strength to Violet in finding her way as a single women between the wars, ultimately the narrative was a bit too dry for me. Still, I am happy to own a signed copy and look forward to her next work.
    • 3/5
      3.25 starsIt’s 1932. Violet is a single woman in her 30s and is living with her complaining oppressive mother. She jumps at the chance to move away, and becomes involved with a group of women who embroider cushions for a church. There, she makes friends and discovers a purpose in life (in addition to the newfound freedom from her mother). While on holidays, she also meets Arthur, who is, unfortunately, married. It’s a slow moving book. I listened to the audio and my mind did wander some. I do suspect it might have rated it slightly higher had I read it. I almost rated it a bit lower, but I was focused enough throughout the end of it, that I wanted to up it just a little (that’s why the 1/4 star). Anyway, it’s also just after WWI, and this is shown to affect many of the characters. It is a time where some things are less accepted, and that is portrayed in the book, as well. It was interesting how the few times Hitler was mentioned, the context reminded me very much of Trump.
    • 4/5
      This was such a comfort read. A lovely quiet story of community and a snapshot in time of what it meant to be a spinster in Britain, between the wars.
    • 4/5
      Chevalier does her usual remarkable job of writing a quietly engaging story.
    • 4/5
      Embroidery and bell ringing.This is my seventh book by Tracy Chevalier and I have enjoyed them all. My favourite is still Fallen Angels, about the Suffragette movement, but I enjoyed learning about the Winchester Broderers and the tradition of bell ringing.I must admit, I did skim some of the detailed descriptions of the embroidery in the cathedral kneelers and cushions, but it was fascinating to learn about the intensive work that went into producing them, back in the 1930s.Violet Speedwell is unmarried, earning her the unenviable title of a 'surplus woman'. She is one of many ladies who lost husbands, lovers and fiances on the battle fields of WW1. The chances of finding a partner now are slim and she spends her days working at a mundane job for an insurance company. She requests a transfer from her home town to Winchester as living with her miserable mother is becoming impossible. Now, however, she must take digs and struggle to make ends meet. It's not a particularly joyful situation but she makes the best of it, until a chance encounter results in her meeting up with the Broderers and she makes new friends and even a potential love interest.This is a slow burning book, but kept my interest to the end. My book group gave it between 3.5 and 4.5 stars and generally enjoyed it. Googling some of the patterns and designs on the cushions was fascinating and was a highlight of our discussion. Images of the cathedral and the shattered stained glass window that was subsequently put back together higglidy piggildy, were also interesting.The narrative highlighted the position of these 'surplus women' and covered the issues of love, loss. and the general position of single women of the era.The narration in the audiobook, by Fenella Woolgar, was excellent and I forgot I was being read to, always a good sign.
    • 4/5
      Embroidery can be mesmerising as bell ringing must be too.
    • 5/5
      Violet Speedwell is a surplus woman, one of the many females unable to find a husband after WWI. After moving out of her overbearing mother's home, Violet is lonely and barely able to make ends meet. After a chance encounter at the cathedral, she takes up with the Broderer's Guild - a group of women embroidering kneelers and cushions for the Cathedral. There, she finds friendship, contentment, and finally settles into herself.This was a very enjoyable read. The characters were extremely dynamic and realistic. I thought it was set in a fascinating time period. I am definitely going to watch out for more books from this author. Overall, highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      This is the first book of Chevalier's I have read, though I meant to read [Girl with a Pearl Earring] even before it was published. Chevalier's stepmother was a member of my Quaker meeting, and I met Tracy several times. Alas! Good intentions.... I did enjoy reading this novel, so I will definitely be reading more!
    • 5/5
      I hope others will understand me when I say this is a very 'English' novel. A woman in her 30s who lost a brother and her fiancee during WWl, she moves from living with her demanding and manipulative mother in Southhampton. Working for a pittance in Winchester, she finds a new life and new friends through joining the Broderers of Winchester Cathedral (google them), and this leads to profound life changes. I loved this quiet, slow-paced book.
    • 4/5
      Violet Speedwell in 1932 at age 38 is one of the "surplus women" who lost a fiance' and a brother in WWI and has little hopes of finding romance, She has left the home of her domineering mother and is living in a women's boarding house in Winchester, doing clerical work in an insurance office with two much younger women.One afternoon she stops into Winchester Cathedral and stumbles upon the knowledge that there are a group of women who are working to provide needlepoint kneelers and seat cushions in the sanctuary. Despite having no knowledge or previous experience with needlepoint embroidery, Violet sees this as a way for her to leave her mark on the world. The narrative takes us through Violet's tutelage by Louisa Pesel (a real life character and embroidery designer). A plot thread the ties Violet to the bell ringers of Winchester Cathedral, and several other plot twists. The author has done thorough research and has a deft understanding of the social and cultural dynamics of the era which she uses to create an engaging and interesting narrative.
    • 3/5
      While I was interested in her historical depth & presentation of the women between the wars and the arts of bell ringing and embroidery in that time period I thought the story was too mundane for the most part. The relationships of Violet with Arthur & was interesting, but something was lacking in the book and I'm not sure what.
    • 5/5
      Didn't want this novel to end. Well written, wonderful characters and a realistic ending.
    • 3/5
      I've turned into a curmudgeon. As much as I enjoy the way in which Chevalier creates character and atmosphere, I simply cannot be happy with the ending of A Single Thread. I don't think it realistic given the cultural mores of 1932 England on so many levels. Yes, Violet sets her path, but it is one which I do not think will lead to happy outcomes, no matter our desire for happy endings.
    • 4/5
      A special thank you to Edelweiss and Viking for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.A Single Thread takes place in 1932. Violet Speedwell is a "surplus woman" after the Great War took both her beloved brother and fiancé. Yet she is struggling with the notion that her life will be spent caring for her grieving, resentful mother.After saving enough money, Violet strikes out on her own and moves to Winchester, which is home to one of England's most impressive cathedrals. She gets a job as a typist and befriends the broderers —women who embroider kneelers for the Cathedral, a tradition that brings comfort to its worshipers. Many in the group are rebelling against society's rules in order to maintain any kind of happiness.There are reports that there is another war on the horizon with the rise of the Naza party in Europe. Violet must continue to fight for her independence and craft a life for herself in a time and place where women aren't expected to thrive.This is a story of love, friendship, and discovering one's identity.I've been enamoured with Chevalier's work since Girl With a Pearl Earring. Recently I had the pleasure of reviewing New Boy which was part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project. She didn't shy away from the huge undertaking/responsibility of retelling Shakespeare's Othello—her compact version delivers a sucker punch and I encourage you to pick it up.A Single Thread is both meticulous in detail and in the telling of the story. It is character-driven, so if you are the type of reader that is more interested in narratives that are plot-driven, than the pacing of this book may be too slow for you.Chevalier's research is impeccable and meticulous. Although the real-life embroidery expert, Louisa Pesel, makes an appearance, Tracy focuses her attention on the thread of fictitious Violet Speedwell. She is an engaging character, but I was frustrated with, and didn't fully understand, her relationship with Arthur, especially after she went to such great lengths to assert her independence.Where this book excels is in the finer writing that carefully details the art of embroidery and the history of the time period. Although this book isn't quite as memorable as her other works, Chevalier delivers a rich and authentic work of literary fiction with an interesting premise.
    • 3/5
      I loved the needlework and bell ringing stories, but the "love" story bored me. It's too bad because the rest of it was great. I loved reading at the end that many of these events were based on real people and their stories. It you like sappy love, you might like this novel more than I.