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Sheer Folly
- A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery
- Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
- Series: Daisy Dalrymple, Book 18
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Mystery
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Publisher's Summary
In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator, Lady Lucy Gerald, head off for several days to a stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of architectural follies, they plan to research and photograph it.
Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple.
At the home, they find themselves faced with a curious assortment of people, including the abominable, tactless Lord Rydal, who is rumored to be having an affair with one of the guests while in ardent and artless pursuit of the hand in marriage of another. When the grotto explodes with Lord Rydal in it, it's not a question of who would do it―as most who've met him would be sorely tempted―but who actually did do it.
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What listeners say about Sheer Folly
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Performance
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- MaJo
- 12-07-17
Great Story
This story reminded me of why I enjoy Daisy. The last few books were disappointing, but Ms Dunn is back in form. The killer was fairly obvious, but the characters were well drawn and Lucy Rayner’s narration was flawless.
3 people found this helpful
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- Rebuttal to your rebuttal
- 01-20-18
Set my teeth on edge
The high pitched voices of the narrator gave me a headache. Excruciating! I could only stand a few minutes of it. I almost never don’t finish an audio book but just couldn’t stand this one.
5 people found this helpful
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- brains on fire
- 01-07-22
unengaging
I've now made it through 8 chapters and I find I don't care enough to go any further. the characters are not well developed and the storyline is weak. the narrator's voice is grating most of the time. I won't be completing this book.
1 person found this helpful
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- Liz
- 08-29-21
Shallow Story, Awful Voice
I couldn’t even listen to this. I didn’t like the main characters. They were shallow and caddy. Clearly even the narrator thought so, because the voices she gave the women were grading, like fingernails on a chalkboard. I gave up after an hour.
1 person found this helpful
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- Holly B Prague
- 07-06-21
Worst reading I ever heard
The narrator of the first few books with so much better than this one it makes Detective Fletcher sound like he’s a snob
1 person found this helpful
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- susan
- 06-27-21
Terrible narrator!
I couldn’t get through the first five minutes before having to stop listening. Will not got back to this book —very grating, sing-song-y voice. Terrible!
1 person found this helpful
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- Holly
- 06-04-21
Terrible Narrator
I usually try to finish every book that I start. However, I could not bear to listen to this woman one more minute. I wasted an hour listening. Also, the plot had not grabbed may after 1 hour. So, I quit.
1 person found this helpful
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- ArtC
- 03-27-21
Too shrill to finish
As much as their genre is my vibe, this narrator is a bit out of her range. One of the voices she delivers is so shrill, I couldn’t finish the book. I even tried listening at a slower speed. The story wasn’t gripping enough for me to grin and bear it. If it hadn’t been free, I’d have asked for a refund.
1 person found this helpful
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- Beth Dunn
- 03-06-21
Fun Read
Another fun read. Just what was needed for long drives and longer walks. To Audible-It's really annoying to have to keep writing to meet your review length requirements. I'd be happy to review all the books if it weren't for your "15 word" minimum prompt.
1 person found this helpful
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- mysteryreader4
- 11-01-20
Not one of her besr
I have enjoyed this series so far but this book was excessively long and did not hold my attention well. I did change the narration speed to 1.1 to get the right pace of narration.
1 person found this helpful
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- Jill Goodman
- 12-27-17
Sheer Folly
A good story let down by poor reading. The Narrator was rather flat and didn’t seem to be aware of the flow of the language.
6 people found this helpful
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- barbara suttar
- 05-28-21
Good story...shame about the narrator
As usual Dunn writes a highly entertaining tale. Sadly Rayner is a fairly dire narrator who manages to mispronounce basic English words and names in the weirdest way: e.g. "inveeaigal" for "inveigle". Makes one wonder what her first language is.
3 people found this helpful
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- alan hunt
- 01-27-18
Drivel;
Would you try another book written by Carola Dunn or narrated by Lucy Rayner?
Too long and tedious for a senseless story with an even sillier denouement. Don't waste your money. I'm sorry I did.
Since writing the previous sentence I have struggled through the novel again to see if it was any better second time around. It wasn't. One plus for the author.."Sheer Folly" was certainly an apt title.
4 people found this helpful
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- Steph H
- 12-17-21
Excellent Storytelling
A lot of the story in this Daisy Dalrymple installment takes place before the actual death, it's unusual for a "murder mystery" genre book but very well done. We get a lot more of the individual characters and so are given the opportunity to become invested before the fact rather than solely after.
A book with a wonderfully happy ending.
1 person found this helpful
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- J. Lynch
- 04-27-22
Brilliant
Great story and well worth listening to. Look forward to listening to more by the same author
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- Fothergill
- 03-31-22
Dreadful
The voice is like bluebottles in a jar- irritating to the point of splatting the life out of it- yes that bad!
I really cant comment on the plot and story , the narrator seeming to think she was more important than both,
except, that it was cliched and ..well.. predictable, but I could not get past ‘the voice’ so really only listened to two hours and twelve very long minutes of it !
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- NellMcMH
- 03-09-22
I ended feeling rather fond of this despite...
...the rather low key story and the quality of the reading. it's surprisingly hard to do posh and for me this was a fail - she was described as tactless, but why did Lucy have to shriek all the time? When people spoke the tone was off more often than not; regional accents seemed to be chosen arbitrarily and some pronunciations clanked horribly - ie what sort of car is a Dimelar?! In a funny way, though, that somehow added to my enjoyment when it was all over and oddly I'll probably download others in the series - even the ones read by LR!
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- Talbot
- 01-16-22
Unconvincing Protagonist
Not Great. A rambling and overly long plot with an unconvincing protagonist and other insubstantial characters.
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- Claire Kendall-Price
- 10-07-21
One of the Better Daisy Stories
Could have been a number of people. The first half was rather depressing as full of unpleasant characters. Once one of them was 'dispatched' it became much more fun with an OH! right at the end.
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- butler-Whittakers
- 10-06-21
Enjoyable
Well written but audible version too fast. Easily solved by speeding up. Not my favourite DD novel but still good fun.
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- Beth
- 01-19-22
Beautifully read
A great story that mixes history, Murder and clever characters, all bought to life by an exceptional reader.