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    Blythewood
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    Blythewood
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    Blythewood
    Audiobook12 hours

    Blythewood

    Written by Carol Goodman

    Narrated by Leslie Bellair

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Welcome to Blythewood.

    At seventeen, Avaline Hall has already buried her mother, survived a horrific factory fire, and escaped from an insane asylum. Now she's on her way to Blythewood Academy, the elite boarding school in New York's mist-shrouded Hudson Valley that her mother attended-and was expelled from. Though she's afraid her high society classmates won't accept a factory girl in their midst, Ava is desperate to unravel her family's murky past, discover the identity of the father she's never known, and perhaps finally understand her mother's abrupt suicide. She's also on the hunt for the identity of the mysterious boy who rescued her from the fire. And she suspects the answers she seeks lie at Blythewood.

    But nothing could have prepared her for the dark secret of what Blythewood is, and what its students are being trained to do. Haunted by dreams of a winged boy and pursued by visions of a sinister man who breathes smoke, Ava isn't sure if she's losing her mind or getting closer to the truth. And the more rigorously Ava digs into the past, the more dangerous her present becomes.

    Vivid and atmospheric, full of mystery and magic, this romantic audiobook by bestselling author Carol Goodman tells the story of a world on the brink of change and the girl who is the catalyst for it all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 8, 2013
    ISBN9781101631249
    Unavailable
    Blythewood
    Author

    Carol Goodman

    Carol Goodman’s rich and prolific career includes novels such as The Widow’s House and The Night Visitor, winners of the 2018 and 2020 Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in the Hudson Valley, NY.

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    Reviews for Blythewood

    3.5/5

    65 ratings12 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Really enjoyed this one. It took a while to get going but ran like a freight train once it did. Looking forward to the next one.
    • 5/5
      Can't wait to read Ravencliffe!!
    • 3/5
      Interesting story tagging onto the current supernatural craze. Not my favorite Goodman.
    • 4/5
      Bonus points for tying the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire to the Titanic. And then adding a faerie twist.
    • 4/5
      Blythewood by Carol Goodman introduces us to Avaline Hall, a young, new orphan working in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York, who finds a mysterious stranger trying to protect her from a evil man who seems to be stalking her.Avaline's mother committed suicide leaving Ava alone to find her own way. After the famous tragedy at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, Ava is committed to an institution because she's able to tell the authorities what really happened, but it makes her sound crazy. When her grandmother finds her, Ava is surprised to discover she has family and is happy to attend the boarding school her mother attended, Blythewood. Blythewood has existed for generations and is very selective in their students. Ava soon learns that there are many mysteries and truths that her mother and grandmother kept from her. She must now listen to the bells to save herself and the others.I found this novel to be very entertaining. It's fanciful yet seems realistic and the characters are interesting. I would say this novel falls under the genre of supernatural more than fantasy. Enjoy!
    • 3/5
      Blythewood was disappointing. I adored the first few chapters, but after a while the book became repetitive, predictable, and a bit of a slog. It didn't help that the book had a very similar premise and setting to The Sweetest Dark, which I really enjoyed. Lots of bells, lots of secrets, lots of Victoria sponge cake. Though not terrible by any means, the book did not live up to the promise of the early chapters.
    • 3/5
      Slow in parts, and entirely bloated, love triangle entirely unnecessary. But I was engaged by the end. Would have liked to see a better emotional component. Liked it fine just not a favorite
    • 4/5
      A fascinating magic system and interesting world, only low tension and the black and white morality really hindered this book.
    • 4/5
      I alternately couldn't put it down and wanted to savor every minute of this richly portrayed world.

      Avaline Hall survives. I was going to say what she survives, but there are so many things: grief, the mystery of her mother's past, hard work and humiliation and the terrors of the Triangle Factory fire. By the time I got to that point in the book, I already admired her strong spirit and intelligence, and the story had barely begun. Blythewood is a wonder; the school, the book, the new mythologies within. There are weak points, but I frankly don't care. It's a ripping good story: well set, well told, and I look forward to more.
    • 4/5
      Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales. Quick & Dirty: Great YA paranormal filled with mystery, romance, and magic. It had a slow start but once it gripped me I couldn’t put it down.Opening Sentence: I heard the bells that morning as I was entering Washington Square Park.The Review: Avaline Hall is 17 years old and getting ready to attend Blythewood, a very elite boarding school. Ava’s mother attended Blythewood as a girl, but she was expelled her senior year for getting pregnant out of wedlock. Ava was raised by just her mother and she has never known the identity of her father. She grew up poor, but she was very happy. Then suddenly her mother started to drink heavily, and eventually it killed her. Ava was forced to find work in a factory so she could survive on her own. She was a seamstress, it was hard work but it paid the bills. Shortly after Ava started her new job a stranger seeks her out, and starts a terrible fire that kills almost all of the people she works with. Ava was rescued by a mysterious person with wings. Afterward she was taken to a hospital and deemed insane because of what she claimed had happened during the fire and her escape.Ava is released from the asylum by her grandmother. Ava has never met her grandmother. Her grandmother disowned her mother when she got pregnant and has not spoken to her since. Ava’s mother came from a very rich family and now that she is an orphan her grandmother feels an obligation to help take care of her. She decides to send her to Blythewood and hopes that she can become a well breed member of society. Upon arriving at Blythewood Ava realizes that it isn’t just a school. It is full of secrets and magic. Ava has so many unanswered questions about her past and she hopes that within the walls of Blythewood she can find some of those answers. But the more she digs the more dangerous her situation becomes.Ava was a fun character to get to know. She has a lot of determination. Much of her past is a mystery to her and she won’t stop until she finds some answers. While at Blythewood she learns a lot about herself as a person. She makes some new friends that really help her get through some of the tough times. She also meets some boys that pull at her heart in ways that she has never felt before. Overall, as a character I found her interesting and very likeable. She has a strong voice throughout and I can’t wait to read what happens next in her story.There are a lot of secondary characters that play an integral part in the story. Ava’s roommate Daisy and Helen become her good friends. Daisy comes from a poor family and she was lucky to get a scholarship to Blythewood. She is a sweet and very caring person. Helen on the other hand comes from a very wealthy family from New York. She has lived a very privileged life, but she is a very loyal friend. Nathan is the son of the Headmistress and the only boy attending Blythewood. He was kicked out of the boarding school he was attending and got special permission to attend Blythewood. He is a mysterious boy that seems to care about Ava. She has a hard time reading him, but she feels a connection with him. Last but not least we have Raven. He is the mystery boy that saved Ava’s life in the fire. I don’t want to spoil anything so I’m not going to go into detail about his story, but I have to say he is a total hottie. I love him and Ava together and I am totally cheering for him. These are just a few of the characters and there are many more that I didn’t mention.This was a fun read for me. I really enjoyed the magical setting and mystery. The characters were very engaging and easy to connect with. There isn’t a lot of romance but it was sweet and a great setup for the next book. There were some good plot twists and once I got into the book it was hard to put down. My biggest complaint was that this book was 500 pages and there were times when it felt like it. There were moments that really dragged and I had a hard time getting into the story. It took me about half the book to really get into the story which was a little hard for me. The ending was a little abrupt and left you wanting more. Overall, this was a great read for me and I would highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys YA Paranormal with a wonderful magical setting.Notable Scene:“Ava!”I heard Tillie’s voice and looked back to see her on the edge of the roof reaching for me…and someone emerging from the smoke behind her. It was the man in the Inverness cape. He was looking up at me, but he had his hand on Tillie’s back. His lips parted and a wisp of smoke curled out of his mouth. He smiled wider, revealing a gullet of full of smoke and flames, and then he pushed Tillie off the roof.I screamed and reached for Tillie. The ladder cracked beneath my feet. I was falling. I felt the air billowing around me, tugging at my clothes, my shoulder blades tingling as if they wanted to break through my skin, as if I’d already hit the pavement and all my bones had shattered. The sky stretched out above me.And then I felt those strong hands around my waist again, and instead of sky I was looking into dark eyes flecked with gold and, beyond those eyes, black wings spreading over us like a mantle. Like the blessed oblivion of sleep. I closed my eyes to fall into that darkness and was instead lifted into a blinding light.FTC Advisory: Viking Juvenile/Penguin provided me with a copy of Blythewood. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
    • 4/5
      I have had this book on my shelf for quite a while to read. I really enjoyed Goodman’s adult Demon Lover series, written under the name Juliet Dark, and was excited to read a YA novel by her. While there were parts of the book I really enjoyed, mostly the book just felt really long and slow moving.Avaline (Ava) Hall has had a rough life. Her mother is dead and she’s been forced to work in a clothing factory to make ends meet. When the factory catches on fire, Avaline is saved by a winged boy and put into an asylum because of her ravings. Things take a turn for the better when Avaline’s mysterious grandmother rescues her from the asylum and Avaline ends up attending the mysterious boarding school that her mother went to, Blythewood. Blythewood is not even close to being a normal girls’ school. It has many dark secrets of its own and its students are trained in dark arts that aid them in a war Avaline (and the rest of humanity) didn’t even know was happening.This is mostly a historical fantasy/paranormal read, the story is set in the early 1900’s. There were a lot of things I liked about this story. I enjoyed reading about Avaline’s struggles as a working girl in that time period and about the horrible working conditions the girls faced. This is something that is still going on in parts of the world and it was good to read about it and get some insight into it.I also enjoyed the mysterious Blythewood school and the creepy woods that surrounded it. I love the mixture of mythology and faerie throughout the story. Ava is an interesting character. She is definitely a survivor and seems much older than her classmates because of everything she has gone through. She makes a couple very good friends at Blythewood and as the book progresses she really starts to enjoy and depend on her friends. Ava doesn’t know a lot about her mother’s past or her father, she spends the majority of the book trying to unravel these mysteries.There are a lot of important side characters in this book. Helen and Daisy are Ava’s roommates and they play a large role in the story. Nathan is the son of the headmistress and his younger sister was lost to the woods. Nathan drives a lot of the story in his search for his sister. Lastly there is Raven, the mysterious not-so-human boy who saved Ava during the factory fire.Of course woven into all the above is a battle between light and dark that is threatening all of humanity. As Ava learns more about this she finds that things are not as black and white as they first seem.Unfortunately despite my excitement to read this book there were a number of things I didn’t like about the story. The largest one is the pacing. There are vast portions of the book that just move very slowly, where our characters seem to be biding their time and just waiting for the next shoe to drop. These parts felt very long. I really think that this book could have been much more engaging if it had been tightened up some.I also felt that while some parts of the story were very creative (the era it was set in, Ava’s background as a factory worker) some of it was very predictable and typical of YA paranormal literature. I was looking forward to something as beautiful and magical as Goodman’s Demon Lover series; and there is some of that here...but again there were parts that were very slow and very predictable.Overall this ended up being an okay historical paranormal read. I wanted to love it but I didn’t, the book was just too cumbersome and moved too slow at parts. That being said I did love the era the story was set in and enjoyed some of the mythology and elements of faerie throughout. The characters were fairly engaging and fun to read about. I would tentatively recommend if you enjoy historical paranormal reads that focus on fae mythology.
    • 4/5
      Embarking on Blythewood, I was hesitant. I read the first few pages on Amazon preview before I accepted the review copy, mostly because of an ambivalence to paranormal stories, particularly those about angels. I really liked the writing and the sample and decided it was worth a try. I should probably make use of this sampling technique more often, since I often DNF within the first twenty pages. My instincts on Blythewood were correct: the writing is beautiful, the world building compelling, and it was indeed worth my time.Carol Goodman, Goodreads informs me, has written adult fiction with much success for years. Blythewood is her debut young adult novel. Though I’ve not read any of her adult novels, I suspect that the writing is similar. Personally, I think it’s beautiful. However, Blythewood‘s got a slower, more measured pace than most young adult novels. I suspect Blythewood will have the most appeal for YA readers who also enjoy adult fiction and aren’t as driven by action and quick pacing. I realize it sounds like I’m saying this is a flaw, but I honestly don’t think it is; I just want you guys to know what to expect.The setting of Blythewood delighted me. Set in the 1910s, Goodman blends history with the paranormal. There are paranormal explanations for big events of the time and I just love the way that she did that. The history nerd in me was overjoyed at these moments when the historical elements came to the surface. On top of the actual events, there’s some great stuff about votes for women and unions. Plus, there’s a brief foray into Bellevue.Added to the historical elements is a complex and fascinating fantasy world. There’s a lot going on in the world building, but I think it all comes together pretty well. At the end, I was still left with some questions, but it feels like Goodman has a plan. There are a bunch of creatures, most of whom I’ve met before in lore and some which I have not. It took me a while to stop rolling my eyes at the Darklings, because, hey, you’re supposed to be singular and in Leigh Bardugo’s novels, but I came around.What I like best about Goodman’s world is that it’s not black and white. Initially, it appears like there’s good and evil, as taught at Blythewood, the boarding school Ava goes to where girls are taught to fight faerie creatures. Ultimately, nobody’s really entirely evil, at least not always. I like that the villains have pasts and motivations, and the parallels between racism and the treatment of the faerie creatures are strong. The struggles inside Blythewood, though fantastical in nature, mirror the struggles taking place outside in ordinary human lives.The characters are not perhaps the most lively and lifelike, but I do think they’re interesting. I’m not emotionally attached, but I’m enjoying their arcs thus far. Much like the creatures, the humans initially seem easy to categorize, but Ava keeps learning that there’s much more to her classmates and teachers. Sometimes I’m ready to dismiss someone and write them off as one thing and then they would develop in new unexpected ways. For this reason, I have hope that I’ll come to care for these characters along their journey.The weakest part of Blythewood by far is the romance, which follows the traditional paranormal romance tropes. If those work for you, then obviously the romance here will, but they don’t work for me. Ava is entranced by visions of the boy who saved her from the Triangle Shirt Waist fire. He’s compelling and magical. They instalove all over each other. Though they don’t actually declare their feelings, there’s a bit of world building that explains that they two are in love. On the plus side, though, there’s not really that much time spent on the romance, so it wasn’t a huge detraction.I’ve got Ravencliffe coming up next on my reading list and I’m looking forward to more of Ava’s journey. There’s a lot more that I want to know. I only hope that Goodman can convince me to care about this romance in the next book.