Play Audiobook Sample
Dream Girl: A Novel Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
“My dream novel. I devoured this in three days. The sharpest, clearest-eyed take on our #MeToo reckoning yet. Plus: enthralling."" —Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me and The Fever
Following up on her acclaimed and wildly successful New York Times bestseller Lady in the Lake, Laura Lippman returns with a dark, complex tale of psychological suspense with echoes of Misery involving a novelist, incapacitated by injury, who is plagued by mysterious phone calls.
In the end, has anyone really led a blameless life?
Injured in a freak fall, novelist Gerry Andersen is confined to a hospital bed in his glamorous high-rise apartment, dependent on two women he barely knows: his incurious young assistant, and a dull, slow-witted night nurse.
Then late one night, the phone rings. The caller claims to be the “real” Aubrey, the alluring title character from his most successful novel, Dream Girl. But there is no real Aubrey. She’s a figment born of a writer’s imagination, despite what many believe or claim to know. Could the cryptic caller be one of his three ex-wives playing a vindictive trick after all these years? Or is she Margot, an ex-girlfriend who keeps trying to insinuate her way back into Gerry’s life?
And why does no one believe that the call even happened?
Isolated from the world, drowsy from medication, Gerry slips between reality and a dreamlike state in which he is haunted by his own past: his faithless father, his devoted mother; the women who loved him, the women he loved.
And now here is Aubrey, threatening to visit him, suggesting that she is owed something. Is the threat real or is it a sign of dementia? Which scenario would he prefer? Gerry has never been so alone, so confused – and so terrified.
Chilling and compulsively readable, touching on timely issues that include power, agency, appropriation, and creation, Dream Girl is a superb blend of psychological suspense and horror that reveals the mind and soul of a writer.
Download and start listening now!
“A massively entertaining audiobook…Narrator Jason Culp creates vivid characters and delivers emotion, color, humor, and momentum with skill and verve.”
— AudioFile
Quotes
-
“Shifts between passages hard-boiled and satirical. Dream Girl offers a healthy dose of suspense and wittily skewers literary life.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“Dream Girl is the darkly comic thriller of the season.”
— Irish Times (Dublin) -
“Perceptive, often amusing insights into a writer’s mind make this a standout…[an] enticingly witty, multilayered guessing game.”
— Publisher Weekly (starred review) -
“This is both a beguiling look at the mysteries of authorship and a powerful #MeToo novel, but that’s only the tip of a devilishly jagged iceberg.”
— Booklist (starred review)
Awards
-
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021
-
A South Florida Sun Sentinel Pick of 2021's Best Books
-
A NPR Best Book of 2021
-
A Crime Reads Pick of Best Crime Books of the Year
-
A Library Journal Best Book of 2021
-
Shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller
Dream Girl Listener Reviews
Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
About Laura Lippman
Laura Lippman is the award–winning author of mystery novels, including twelve in the Tess Monaghan series, fourteen stand-alone novels, and sixteen novellas and short story collections. Her books have won many awards, including the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, Barry Macavity, and Crime-Fest awards. In 2025, she was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.
About Jason Culp
Jason Culp, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, has been acting since the age of ten, and his credits include a variety of television, theater, and film roles. He is best known for his role as Julian Jerome on General Hospital. In addition to audiobooks and voice-over work in national commercials, he has also narrated documentaries for National Geographic and the History Channel.