Literary listen: Cynthia Bond

Busy week? Sit back, relax and take ten minutes out for a little bit of literary escapism…

Make yourself a drink (why not a Baileys?), pop in your headphones and listen to Cynthia Bond read from her 2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlisted debut Ruby.

Full of life, exquisitely written, and suffused with the pastoral beauty of the rural South, Ruby is a transcendent novel of passion and courage. This wondrous page-turner rushes through the red dust and gossip of Main Street, to the pit fire where men swill bootleg outside Bloom’s Juke, to Celia Jennings’s kitchen, where a cake is being made, yolk by yolk, that Ephram Jennings will use to try to begin again with Ruby Bell.

Utterly transfixing, with unforgettable characters, riveting suspense, and breathtaking, luminous prose, Ruby offers an unflinching portrait of man’s dark acts and the promise of the redemptive power of love.

Listen in now and lose yourself in Cynthia Bond’s magical world for a few relaxing minutes this afternoon.

℗2014 Random House Audio