Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

Palace of the Drowned

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"Emily Pennant-Rea delivers a first-rate narration of Mangan's intense novel...Pennant-Rea's subtlety and nuance keep the suspense high and the mystery edgy." — AudioFile Magazine

From the bestselling author of Tangerine, a "taut and mesmerizing follow up...voluptuously atmospheric and surefooted at every turn" (Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife and When the Stars Go Dark).
It's 1966 and Frankie Croy retreats to her friend's vacant palazzo in Venice. Years have passed since the initial success of Frankie's debut novel and she has spent her career trying to live up to the expectations. Now, after a particularly scathing review of her most recent work, alongside a very public breakdown, she needs to recharge and get re-inspired.
Then Gilly appears. A precocious young admirer eager to make friends, Gilly seems determined to insinuate herself into Frankie's solitary life. But there's something about the young woman that gives Frankie pause. How much of what Gilly tells her is the truth? As a series of lies and revelations emerge, the lives of these two women will be tragically altered as the catastrophic 1966 flooding of Venice ravages the city.
Suspenseful and transporting, Christine Mangan's Palace of the Drowned brings the mystery of Venice to life while delivering a twisted tale of ambition and human nature.
A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books
"In her taut and mesmerizing follow up to Tangerine, the preternaturally gifted Christine Mangan plunges us into another exotic and bewitchingly rendered locale...Voluptuously atmospheric and surefooted at every turn, Palace of the Drowned more than delivers on the promise of Mangan's debut, and firmly establishes her as a writer of consequence." — Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife and When the Stars Go Dark
"If you like your psychological suspense stories awash in atmosphere, drenched in dread, positively soaked through with sinisterness, 'Palace of the Drowned,' by Christine Mangan is for you." Washington Post

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 12, 2021
      Mangan follows her well-received debut, 2018's Tangerine, with an elegantly elegiac thriller. On the heels of a headline-grabbing drunken meltdown at a London publishing gala, British novelist Frankie Croy accepts best friend Jack's offer to lay low in Jack's family's vacant palazzo in Venice. But unmoored in the exotic surroundings as she waits for Jack to join her, the emotionally vulnerable loner, who has never managed to match her star-making first novel two decades earlier, worries whether at 42 she's suffering a mid-life crisis or some deeper sort of breakdown—which makes encountering a vivacious young admirer who claims to have met her previously, Gilly Larson, a not entirely unwelcome distraction. However, the more Frankie sees of this persistent new acquaintance, who eventually admits to being an aspiring writer herself, the greater her conviction that Gilly has been lying to her. Unraveling answers will lead the increasingly unsettled Frankie into deep waters and some treacherous situations. Though not all the Highsmithian deceptions come off as equally convincing, Mangan, unlike Frankie, more than lives up to the promise of her debut.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Emily Pennant-Rea delivers a first-rate narration of Mangan's intense novel. After a scandalous public breakdown, middle-aged British author Frankie Croy flees to Venice to lick her wounds. Pennant-Rea's voice adds credibility to Frankie's paranoia when she meets 26-year-old Gilly, a bubbly fangirl who appears to be stalking her. At first, Frankie is flattered by Gilly's enthusiastic responses to her writing; then she starts to feel there's something "off" about the girl. But without the reassurance of her agent, Harold, or her husband, Leonard, she doesn't trust her instincts. As Gilly's stories keep changing, Frankie grows increasingly suspicious. When listeners learn Gilly is an aspiring writer, thoughts of ALL ABOUT EVE are inevitable. Pennant-Rea's subtlety and nuance keep the suspense high and the mystery edgy. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Loading