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The Sky Beneath Us

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The Sky Beneath Us

By: Fiona Valpy
Narrated by: Bronwen Price, Mhairi Morrison
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About this listen

An inspiring, uplifting story of love and loss, courage and adventure, from the bestselling author of The Skylark’s Secret.

1927. Violet Mackenzie-Grant is embarking on her dream of studying at the Edinburgh School of Gardening for Women. She doesn’t yet know that it’s a journey that will take her to Kathmandu and beyond, deep into captivating landscapes and cultures that are worlds away from everything and everyone she’s left behind in Scotland.

2020. Daisy Laverock has dreamed of retracing the footsteps of her great-great-aunt Violet ever since discovering her long-lost journals, whose accounts of plant hunting in the 1930s inspired Daisy’s own career. Divorced, and facing an empty nest, Daisy decides to embark on the trip of a lifetime. She arrives in Nepal, ready to start trekking in the shadow of Everest. But fate, and the pandemic, have other plans.

Stranded and alone, Daisy must fall back on the kindness of strangers, taking inspiration from Violet’s determination and resilience to keep going in the darkest of times. As she gradually pieces together the fragments of Violet’s story and uncovers long-held secrets, can Daisy finally reveal a path forward to her own future?

©2024 by Fiona Valpy. (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Family Life Genre Fiction Women's Fiction Nepal Feel-Good Resilience

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Critic reviews

“A gifted storyteller with a unique voice. This is a beautifully written, uplifting, moving and evocative story that will stay with you! I loved it so much, I didn’t want it to end!” —Santa Montefiore

“An immersive and moving story which will stay with me for a long time. Such a compelling sense of place and beautifully drawn characters, I savored every moment.” —Freya North

“What an exquisite and unforgettable journey! I loved every shaky step, breathtaking vista, minute discovery and unexpected adventure in Katmandu, Edinburgh, Phortse and the north-west Highlands of Scotland with Daisy and her great-great-aunt Violet. Theirs are inspirational stories of love and hope lost and found as they courageously ascend paths unknown and welcome the unexpected. Meticulously researched and beautifully written with fascinating detail about botany, the Sherpa people and Nepal. As deeply satisfying as a clear view of a flower-filled valley from a mountain top.” —Penny Haw, author of Follow Me to Africa
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Personally I have been wondering what books set around the pandemic would be like, and this one was OK I guess. No more drama than the real events. But the book isn’t about the pandemic as such, it very interestingly about botanists travelling to Nepal in the 1920s as well about a relatives of them, nearly 100 years later.
The story was not bad, but I am afraid the narrator of Daisy was not great in my view. A narrator can make or break a book, and I was close to give up, more than once.

A botanical journey and a pandemic

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It took a lot of effort to finish the audio version, the narrator who plays the Sherpa part was impossible to listen to, very odd accent and stilted delivery. Spoiled the book for me

The sky beneath us

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Good story completely ruined by ghastly narration of Daisy character . Read the book don’t listen to the audio .

Dreadful narration !

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Beautiful, heartwarming and tear jerking story. I really enjoyed it and it was a wonderful story. Daisy’s narrator was a bit flat and slow but once I put the speed up to 1.2 it was okay. Would really recommend this book though.

Beautiful story

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well written characters were interesting family relationships seemed real. good pace to the story. really enjoyed the journey in this book

brilliant story telling

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I continued to listen to this because it was a great story - it was difficult to listen too though because it had two narrators one of which was terrible. The ‘Daisy’ narration sounded like a robot with a Scottish accent - it was so slow with a strange inflections. Annoyingly I had to keep changing the speed depending on who was narrating. The other narrator of Violet was excellent.

Great story let down by poor narration

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I love all of Fiona Valpy's books and was really looking forward to this one. I'm wishing I had read the book rather than buying the audio version. The story is fantastic, as expected, but the narrator who narrates the Daisy sections has a very strange and annoying style - very halting - her narration doesn't flow at all and is quite jarring and it's even worse when she narrates the Sherpa parts. There were times when I was tempted to abandon the audio altogether. The narrator who narrates the Violet sections is really good though and that persuaded me to persevere.

Wonderful story let down by some bad narration

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Fantastic story, which transports you to the Khumbu but the narration is awful - as though they're speaking to a toddler from a foreign country.

Lovely story, annoying narration!

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I really enjoyed this story but nearly stopped it so many times and gave up on it because the narration of the Daisy character is horrific. It sounds so patronising, as if they're talking to a small child, and practically spelling out each word; it was so slow and irritating, it didn't flow at all with pauses in strange places where there clearly wouldn't have been commas in the writing. In contrast the Violet character flowed really well and was at a better speed and pitch. Please re-record this book with a less irritating voice for Daisy.

Awful narration of Daisy

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Two parallel stories beautiful entwined, both equally enthralling, both with sympathetic characters, I was sad to have finished it.

beautiful prose

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