The Dress Lodger cover art

The Dress Lodger

 Preview

Try for $0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Dress Lodger

Written by: Sheri Holman
Narrated by: Nadia May
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $23.18

Buy Now for $23.18

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

 Fifteen-year-old Gustine is a "dress lodger", a young prostitute who rents a beautiful blue dress from her landlord to attract a higher class of clientele. To make sure she earns her fees and to keep her from running off with his fantastical gown, her pimp has set a malevolent old woman, known only as "the Eye", to follow her through the back alleys of Sunderland. By day a potter's assistant, by night a courtesan of the streets, Gustine works to support her fragile only child, born with a remarkable anatomical defect.

Surgeon Henry Chiver is a prisoner of his own past. Implicated in the Burke and Hare killings in Edinburgh, in which beggars were murdered so the corpses could be sold to medical schools, he has come to Sunderland to start a new life. He has a loving fiance, an influential uncle, and an anatomy school that is chronically short of teaching cadavers.

Doctor and dress lodger come together in the filthy, overgrown East End of Sunderland. Here, during the worst epidemic since the bubonic plague, Gustine secures bodies for the doctor's school, until Henry's greed and his growing obsession with her child challenge her loyalty to him. With cholera bearing down on the city, Gustine must turn to her mortal enemy, the Eye, in her battle for the life and afterlife of her child.

©2000 Sheri Holman (P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks Historical Fiction Thriller & Suspense Fiction

What the critics say

"Narrator Nadia May is at her best as she narrates this bizarre story with appropriate irony and even humor....A stunning experience." (AudioFile)
"With remarkable breadth and depth, the narrative vividly portrays the human suffering spawned by the early Industrial Revolution....This dazzlingly researched epic is an uncommon read." (Publishers Weekly)
"Holman's vivid writing, rife with historical social commentary, renders Sunderland's residents and their sometimes macabre interactions disturbingly real." (Booklist)

What listeners say about The Dress Lodger

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.ca reviews

Amazon Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Mila

Read it for school

I enjoyed the book, but it feels like there was a lot of filler and too many characters. The book feels like a draft, and unfinished. I did not care for the plot line surrounding the “Pa” character. But other than that, it is quite good book. Just needs a little fixing, and editing.

Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!