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Necessary Lies

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Necessary Lies

By: Diane Chamberlain
Narrated by: Alison Elliott
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About this listen

The best intentions expose the darkest secrets....

If you're a fan of Jodie Picoult, you'll love Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain, best-selling author of The Midwife's Confession.

North Carolina, 1960. Newlywed Jane Forrester, fresh out of university, is seeking what most other women have shunned: a career. But life as a social worker is far from what she expected. Out amongst the rural tobacco fields of Grace County, Jane encounters a world of extreme poverty that is far removed from the middle-class life she has grown up with. But worse is still to come.

Working with the Hart family and their 15-year-old daughter, Ivy, it's not long before Jane uncovers a shocking secret and is thrust into a moral dilemma that puts her career on the line, threatens to dissolve her marriage, and ultimately determines the fate of Ivy and her family forever. Soon Jane is forced to take drastic action, and before long there is no turning back.

©2013 Diane Chamberlain (P)2015 Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
20th Century Family Life Fiction Historical Fiction Romance Women's Fiction North Carolina
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What listeners say about Necessary Lies

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Excellent

A fantastic story with brilliant narration. I was hooked right from the start and riveted until the very end.

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Amazing!

I loved this book. It was a fascinating story (even more so because it's based on truth), great characters and an amazing narrator.

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A very good listen

I thought the story was extremely interesting. I have visited North Carolina many times and did not realise that a eugenics programme had been practiced until comparatively recently. It was a well constructed story with sympathetic characters and the narrator was excellent. I will listen to more Diane Chamberlain on the basis of this book.

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Touching and thought provoking

I thoroughly recommend this audiobook. It touched my heart as I listened to the injustice experienced by those who were vulnerable. Thank you Diane for your writing.

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necessary lies

i loved everything about this book, it's so well narrated , definitely will recommend

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A fabulous and compelling story with outstanding narration

This is my first Diane Chamberlain book but definitely not my last. A brilliant story based on a subject I knew very little about. I am grateful to have been enlightened by this beautiful book and I thought that it was completely brought to like by the equally beautiful narration, thank you.

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Good story

A good story and well worth listening to. I liked the plot and the characters, they were well-portrayed and very believable.

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quality audiobook

This is a story of a woman who works as a social worker at at time when women didnt work. she tries to help families in extreme poverty and their are stresses on her marriage and friends. she is a strong character driven by the right intentions but things go wrong. another theme is the well intentioned but misused eugenics programme in operation then. it aimed to help poor women better themselves by not being permanently pregnant and child raising but it got misunderstood and misused. the story doesnt really make any points, just presents the for and against. it was very well narrated and was exciting as we were with jane every step of the way in her personal development and learning to be her own person and not just go along with the mores of the day.
well worth a credit.

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A sad indictment of institutional abuse

I’m a very new reader/listener of Diane Chamberlain’s books and this compares very favourably to others. Other than the sadness engendered when I came to realise the extent of forced sterilisations, my biggest gripe was the huge gap in the book between Jane leaving her house and the party at the coffee shop (being deliberately vague so as not to reveal too much). Was this section omitted from my version or did the author not have the time or word count to make even a token effort to include part of this huge gap, in a chapter? Some fairly fundamental questions could have been answered, in particular regarding Ivy’s experiences in the very early days of Jane’s departure.

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Lies that had to be told to protect the Victims

A heart warming story of a young Social Worker that fought for the rights of the people she worked with. A lovely story that is well written and must touch the feelings of everyone who reads it.

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