A Prayer for Travelers: A Novel
Kindle
$4.99
Available instantly
Audible Logo Audiobook
$0.00
with membership trial
Hardcover
$8.00
Paperback
$17.00
Audible Logo Your audiobook is waiting!
Enjoy a free trial on us
$0.00
  • Click above for unlimited listening to select audiobooks, Audible Originals, and podcasts.
  • One credit a month to pick any title from our entire premium selection — yours to keep (you'll use your first credit now).
  • You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
  • $14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel online anytime.
Learn more about membership
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
List Price: $18.00
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible’s Conditions Of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

A Prayer for Travelers: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Ruchika Tomar (Author), Sophie Amoss (Narrator), Penguin Audio (Publisher)
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 99 ratings
See all formats and editions

"Sometimes, characters come along that demand a new kind of novel. The young women at the center of Ruchika Tomar's A Prayer for Travelers - elusive Penny and wounded Cale - are two spirits hitchhiking through geographies of dislocation and desire. The human collisions in Tomar's novel are emotionally seismic, and they leave us haunted and unsettled." (Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master's Son)

Cale Lambert, a bookish loner of mysterious parentage, lives in a dusty town near the California-Nevada border, a place where coyotes scavenge for backyard dogs and long-haul truckers scavenge for pills and girls. Cale was raised by her grandfather in a loving, if codependent, household, but as soon as she's left high school his health begins an agonizing decline. Set adrift for the first time, Cale starts waitressing at the local diner, where she reconnects with Penélope Reyes, a charismatic former classmate running mysterious side-hustles to fund her dreams. Penny exposes Cale to the reality that exists beyond their small town, and the girls become inseparable - until one terrifying act of violence shatters their world. When Penny vanishes without a trace, Cale must set off on a dangerous quest across the desert to find her friend, and discover herself.

An audacious debut, told in deftly interwoven chapters, A Prayer for Travelers explores the complicated legacy of the American West and the trauma of female experience.

*Includes a PDF of art from the book.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Previous page
  1. Listening Length
    10 hours and 51 minutes
  2. Author
    Ruchika Tomar
  3. Narrator
    Sophie Amoss
  4. Audible release date
    July 9, 2019
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Penguin Audio
  7. ASIN
    B07TV8VGLF
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
Next page

Read & Listen

Switch between reading the Kindle book & listening to the Audible audiobook with Whispersync for Voice.
Get the Audible audiobook for the reduced price of $8.99 after you buy the Kindle book.

Product details

Listening Length 10 hours and 51 minutes
Author Ruchika Tomar
Narrator Sophie Amoss
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date July 09, 2019
Publisher Penguin Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B07TV8VGLF
Best Sellers Rank #330,613 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#1,100 in Friendship Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)
#2,208 in Psychological Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)
#4,304 in Friendship Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
99 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Kirk Michie
4.0 out of 5 stars Would be a 4.5 if I could rate with 1/2 points
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2022
Verified Purchase
Really unusual and compelling book style, with chapters out of order and converging, and a sprinkling of Fight Club intrigue as well. Solid mystery novel.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
YC
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful! A spectacular read!
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2021
Verified Purchase
"A Prayer for Travelers" has everything. It is at once a page-turner, filled with characters you care about, cinematic landscapes, and a mastery of narrative suspense, and a deeply meaningful work of art, which investigates the nature of friendship, violence, belonging, identity, and even our assumptions about storytelling. This is not to suggest that the book is difficult or self-referential. Instead, I think the triumph of this book is that it manages to be brilliantly original and just a huge pleasure to read.

"Prayer" won PEN/Hemingway in a year filled with worthy competitors. It deserved to win.
Helpful
 Report
Bonnie Brody
3.0 out of 5 stars A Portent of Danger and the Unknown
Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2019
Verified Purchase
While I found the writing quite compelling and poetic at times, this novel just didn't come together for me. This had nothing to do with the unique way that the chapters were not non-linearly laid out. For instance, the novel opens up with Chapter 31 and the next chapter is 2, and so forth. I was able to follow the story line but I just didn't find it all that interesting. It dragged out for too long with nothing much at all happening that held my interest.

Cale, the novel's protagonist, was left by her mother when she was an infant to be raised by her grandfather, Lamb. Lamb is dying of cancer though it is an unspoken secret. Cale grows up a bookish loner wanting very much to be part of a certain group of girls, the ones she thinks are edgy and cool, those who have knowledge of a life she's never participated in. Living in a small California dessert town, Cale is naive to the workings that go on behind the scenes, at least until she becomes friends with Penny.

Cale works in a diner with Penny, and one day Penny doesn't show up for work. This is so unlike her that Cale goes to Penny's trailer to investigate. There she finds Penny's cell phone and a hint of something dangerous that Penny may be into. She knows that Penny is in trouble and is determined to find her. What is interesting, is that when the novel opens, Cale's face is mysteriously black and blue and she has nothing to say about this, even when she takes Penny's cell phone to the police and they are very curious about Cale's injuries.

The response I had to this book may just be me. I tried very hard to like it and was so excited when it arrived in the mail. Sometimes, a particular book just doesn't speak to you, and that was my case with A Prayer for Travelers.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Kim
4.0 out of 5 stars great story but hated the format
Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2019
Verified Purchase
This book told a compelling story and I really liked the character development but the author deliberately put the chapters in the wrong order as a plot device and it just made the book more confusing to me.
7 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Sherrie Miranda
2.0 out of 5 stars I was deceived
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2021
Verified Purchase
I really wanted to like this novel. It had some interesting characters, but I kept getting lost.
I read here that the chapters were purposely placed out of order. Now, I feel like a fool. I kept thinking that I was having some problem: maybe I was too sleepy & just not able to follow the story.
Plus, the ending made no sense, Cale calls Penny's friend to go find Penny while she hitches a ride to California.
I feel terribly deceived.
Helpful
 Report
Hanh Lam
5.0 out of 5 stars Come for the adventure, stay for the artistry!
Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2019
Verified Purchase
I thoroughly enjoyed this book from cover to cover. I literally love the cover with the author’s initial debossed in the front! The writing is very descriptive and emotional. The suspense slowly grips one in and makes one want to race to the next page; I had to force myself to slow down to enjoy all the nuance in the book.

This story of female friendship is very relatable and called to my mind the relationships I had with my friends in our early twenties. I appreciated how the author portrayed the struggle between being honest and supportive, and the journey to love and accept your friends when you all are still discovering yourselves.

I enjoyed the ordering of the chapters, which reflects how we all naturally tell stories when we are in the company of friends. Moreover, the format made it more exciting of a ride leading up to the reveal.
6 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
JennyLibrarian
4.0 out of 5 stars 3.5 stars rounded up
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2019
I finished this one a while ago but am having trouble deciding how I feel about it. Writers today often write a narrative that jumps around in time, and Ruchika Tomar also employs this method. Some authors do this better than others. For the first third of the book I had trouble keeping up and if asked to rate the book at that time I would have given it three stars. The middle third of the book was gripping and at one point (can't remember when exactly) I felt this was a great book and that it deserved 4 stars. By the end of the book I was back to 3 stars. The plot and characters were well done and in general I'm glad I read the book. Somehow I felt that it could still be better.
4 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
You Don't Know Me But
3.0 out of 5 stars Good writing - story was not my thing
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2019
Verified Purchase
I have no idea as to why the book was named "A Prayer for Travelers". It is something of a coming of age story about two girls living in a small desert town and finding their way through the next phase of their lives. The writing was colorful and descriptive. The characters seemed real and relatable. But the story line was not particularly entertaining - maybe realistic but not entertaining. Exciting things happened, but they weren't the focus of the writing. Additionally for some reason the author presented the sections in a non-sequential order. I had trouble keeping up with where I was in the timeline of events when given just a chapter number.

You might enjoy it. For me it was just okay.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

valentina nazarova
5.0 out of 5 stars Fire Walk With Me meets Eileen.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 30, 2019
Verified Purchase
Thoroughly enjoyed this mystery/coming of age novel! It's beautifully written, touching, dreamy and just simply good.
Report