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Start giftingThe Death of the Heart
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreThe Death of the Heart is perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's best-known book. As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen reveals herself as a masterful novelist who combines a sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations.
In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal—and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.
Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899, the only child of an Irish lawyer and land-owner. She travelled a great deal, dividing most of her time between London and Bowen's Court, the family house in County Cork which she inherited. Her first book, a collection of shorts stories, Encounters, was published in 1923. The Hotel (1926) was her first novel. She was awarded the CBE in 1948, and received honorary degrees from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1949, and from Oxford University in 1956. The Royal Society of Literature made her a Companion of Literature in 1965. Elizabeth Bowen died in 1973.
Originally from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in Northeast England, audiobook narrator Pearl Hewitt currently lives with her husband and two children in Houston, Texas. Over the years she has worked as a customer service rep, a teaching assistant, and a teacher, but deep down there was always a performer wanting to get out. In 2007 her twelve-year-old son told her that he believed she was so good at reading stories out loud that she should do that as a job. That was her defining, eureka! moment, and she's never looked back. Pearl discovered the world of voice-overs and pursued a career in voice acting. She attended workshops, training seminars, and conferences, and began volunteering as the resident mystery and suspense narrator for Houston Sight-Into-Sound Radio, where her work earned numerous IAAIS awards for narration and production. In 2012 Pearl decided to focus on audiobooks, and her professional career blossomed while working directly with authors and narrating for a number of major publishers. Pearl's voice is perfectly suited to British Regency romance and cozy murder mysteries, but her personal favorites are the classics, especially children's literature.