Loved every minute

Beautifully written, excellently narrated.
I love how Tracey Chevalier's characters are so real and flawed, but you love each one of them, in a way.
If you love historical fiction and the middle ages especially, this book is for you

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Dazzling

I listened to this twice over 2 days. The story was brilliant as I expected and the performance was sublime. To have so many characters brought to life here in my sitting room was enchanting, the richness of the voices, the tone, the variety, it was an absolute feast. I also learnt a lot about weaving and the trials and tribulations of the craftsmen and Guild members of the time.

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Elegant, sensitive and vivid

A story that weaves a delicate way through the life of the tapestry and the times. The rôle of women is starkly thrown into relief, whether things are any better nowadays is open to debate. A tale to savour and delight in.

The Narrator : His voice was too old for the young artist and his other accents came across as caricatures.

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1 person found this helpful

Spoiled by narration

Tracy Chevalier gives a lot of interesting insight into the Unicorn tapestries and how they were designed and created. The story itself is rather thin . The artist Nicolas is a contemptible character . The characters are very one dimensional and serve to add a fictional element to the historical content .
The whole thing was spoiled by the narration. Some of the characters sounded like the old women in Monty Python sketches and Nicolas a revolting old roué. It really detracted from the story for me. It's a tribute to the author that I listened to the end .

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3 people found this helpful

Absorbing

In truth I was not expecting greatness from this novel but I was pleasantly surprised. I discovered that very quickly the storey entwined itself delicately; I had finished listening in two days.
The narration is excellent, the storey is told from each character's perspective and it's very easy to discern which character we are listening to, we are gently drawn in to the goings on around the making of the tapestry.
It is a 'light' listen set in France, I thoroughly recomend.

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2 people found this helpful

No as good as the others

Not her best work
A little disappointing
The performance was excellent
It was okay
I may return it

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1 person found this helpful

well researched - I'm a tapestry weaver myself!

What did you like most about The Lady and the Unicorn?

I have been meaning to read this book for quite some time - I am a tapestry weaver myself and at the moment I am part of a team of weavers weaving 'The hunt of the Unicorn' at Stirling Castle Scotland - We are weaving an interpretation of the medieval set of tapestries that are in New York.
We are weaving the last tapestry to be woven which is 'Mystic' and that portrays the lady and the unicorn - so it seemed the perfect time to read / listen to the book 'Lady and the Unicorn'! - even though this story is based around the red set 'The Lady and the Unicorn ' in Paris France.
I found it to be very well researched and the story certainly fitted nicely around the history of the tapestries

What did you like best about this story?

I particularly loved the descriptions of the tapestry studio - the looms and the way they wove - I took notes of several of the parts I found particularly interesting about the way they wove and using herbs such as Rosemary to keep moths at bay!

What does Cornelius Garrett bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

I fwelt that the varying accents used very good and often bought amusement and great intonation to the story.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Yes the describing how the blind girl did her sewing work

Any additional comments?

I would thoroughly reccommend this book to everyone and particularly anyone with an interest in tapestries! I would also reccommend that if you want to see a medieval tapestry being woven - hurry along to Stirling Castle in Scotland and come and watch us weave! We'll be finished in December 2014 !

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9 people found this helpful

Truly awful narration, couldn’t listen

The male narrator is truly awful at reading passages from the perspective of non-male characters. He sounds like a pantomime dame, or someone from a Carry On film. All oo-er missus-y when describing how a young woman reacts to the male lead. It was truly cringe worthy and I couldn’t finish the book. I may try reading it as the story itself was engaging, just couldn’t get past the narrator. Ugh.

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5 people found this helpful

Poor narration

I love Tracey Chevalier novels but I struggled a bit with this one. in part it may have been because so few of the characters were likable but mainly I think it was the narration. As one of the other reviews here has said, some of the characters sounded like pantomime dames. I nearly stopped because of this. I certainly wouldn't ever listen to it again.

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