Anne Cleeland has 13 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 7 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 39 ratings. The most-rated is Shanghai Girls.
Shanghai Girls
Summary
Number-one New York Times best-seller. “A gifted writer...explores the bonds of sisterhood while powerfully evoking the often nightmarish American immigrant experience.” (USA Today) In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, 21-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree...until the day their father tells them he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts, he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides. As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles, they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s old ways and rules. At its heart, Shanghai Girls is a story of sisters: Pearl and May are inseparable best friends who share hopes, dreams, and a deep connection, but like sisters everywhere, they also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. They love each other, but each knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt the other the most. Along the way, they face terrible sacrifices, make impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are: Shanghai girls. Praise for Shanghai Girls: “A buoyant and lustrous paean to the bonds of sisterhood.” (Booklist) “A rich work...as compulsively readable as it is an enlightening journey.” (Denver Post)
©2009 Random House (P)2009 Random House
Murder in Hindsight
Summary
Chief Inspector Acton and Detective Sergeant Kathleen Doyle know firsthand how the administration of justice can often follow a labyrinthine path. As they pursue a self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner, Acton's own questionable methods may prove his undoing. The notoriety of being married to the enigmatically brilliant Lord Acton presents its own challenges as newly promoted Detective Sergeant Doyle contends with a series of homicides that seem to point to a vigilante killer. The victims are all criminals who eluded justice - until they ran afoul of an avenger whose modus operandi is a bullet to the back of the head. The key to the vigilante's identity lies in connecting the cold cases and searching for an event that may have triggered retribution after all these years - a daunting task. Meanwhile Doyle finds herself shadowed by a mysterious figure. After the man steps forward to rescue her from harm, she wonders why he is invested in protecting her. But when she learns he's in contact with Acton's nemesis, she fears she's being used in a plot against her husband, whose personal code of justice has the potential to put his reputation - and his life - at risk. For his own part, Acton must outmaneuver an unscrupulous reporter being fed information from someone within the ranks of Scotland Yard. The stakes are high, and both Doyle and Acton must work independently to outwit the players before their lives are brought crashing down like a house of cards.
©2015 Anne Cleeland (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Yorkshire Shepherdess
Summary
Amanda Owen has been seen by millions on ITV's The Dales, living a life that has almost gone in today's modern world, a life ruled by the seasons and her animals. She is a farmer's wife and shepherdess, living alongside her husband, Clive, and seven children at Ravenseat, a 2,000 acre sheep hill farm at the head of Swaledale in North Yorkshire. It's a challenging life but one she loves. In The Yorkshire Shepherdess, she describes how the rebellious girl from Huddersfield, who always wanted to be a shepherdess, achieved her dreams. Full of amusing anecdotes and unforgettable characters, the book takes us from fitting in with the locals to fitting in motherhood, from the demands of the livestock to the demands of raising a large family in such a rural backwater. Amanda also evokes the peace of winter, when they can be cut off by snow without electricity or running water, the happiness of spring and the lambing season, and the backbreaking tasks of summertime - haymaking and sheepshearing - inspiring us all to look at the countryside and those who work there with new appreciation.
©2017 Amanda Owen (P)2017 Macmillan Digital Audio
Murder in Thrall
Summary
From Anne Cleeland comes a captivating new mystery series following the perilous exploits of two Scotland Yard detectives as they track down London's most elusive killers. First-year detective Kathleen Doyle is a plucky Irish redhead of humble origins and modest means. Chief Inspector Michael Acton is her antithesis: a British lord turned cop. He's tall, handsome, and enigmatic - to a fault. He also has a knack for solving London's most high-profile crimes. Acton selects Doyle out of the newbie squad to partner with him on a series of investigations because she always knows when someone is lying - a trait that comes in handy when interviewing suspects and witnesses. Acton and Doyle are sent to investigate the murder of a trainer at a racetrack, and soon new killings related to the first start unfolding, dragging the two investigators into ever more perilous situations. But the real danger is the unlikely attachment that develops between the ultra-reserved, aristocratic chief inspector and his spirited, working-class sidekick... a relationship that will raise plenty of eyebrows - and hackles - among their colleagues at the Yard.
©2013 Anne Cleeland (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Murder in Retribution
Summary
Despite their investigative prowess, Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Michael Sinclair, Lord Acton, and rookie detective Kathleen Doyle stir more than a few feathers at CID Headquarters when their relationship comes to light. But office politics quickly become trivial when a rash of underworld murders shatters London's normally austere façade. With a growing list of successfully solved cases to her name, the ever-dauntless Doyle shakes off the gossip and sets out to investigate the escalating turf war. As the body count climbs, Doyle uncovers a seedy world where fractious members of the Russian Mafia and an Irish terrorist group are fighting for control of a lucrative underground business. But their crooked deals and volleying acts of revenge are almost too much for Scotland Yard to keep up with, and when Doyle notices that Acton seems unusually troubled by the crimes, she begins to wonder what sparked the conflict in the first place. Perhaps there's nothing more to the murders than under-the-table business dealings gone awry. Or perhaps a single act of vigilante justice fanned the flames that ignited a vicious turf war. As Doyle and Acton fight to not become the next victims, they'll find that the truth may be best left unspoken and retribution may be best left to fate.
©2014 Anne Cleeland (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Murder in Misdirection
Summary
It was a bit puzzling, that Chief Inspector Acton hadn’t mentioned the body they’d discovered in the burnt-out church, even though he must have known that Doyle would find it of great interest. Was the arsonist caught up in her own fire, or was there a deeper, more sinister tale told by the blackened rubble? Although she was sidelined on maternity leave, Detective Sergeant Kathleen Doyle was fast coming to the realization that her husband hadn’t told her, because he was masterminding some scheme - a scheme that may-or-may-not involve arson, blood money, and the ducks of St. Petersburg.
©2018 Anne Cleeland (P)2019 Anne Cleeland
Murder in Shadow
Summary
It seemed a little strange that Detective Sergeant Kathleen Doyle wound up being the ranking officer on this particular homicide scene. It was true that DCI Acton was off somewhere, testifying, and DI Williams was chasing down witnesses on the latest Santeria murder, but Doyle couldn't shake the feeling that she was being manipulated by one or both of them. But to what end? The unidentified victim was a wealthy man who shouldn't have been mucking about in a Lambeth alley in the first place. Who was he? And why were Acton and Williams staying well-away with only Doyle left to sort it out? It was almost as though they didn't want the case to be resolved too quickly...
©2017 Anne Cleeland (P)2018 Anne Cleeland
Pamphlet contre un vampire
Summary
S'il y a bien un truc qui m'agace, ce sont les romans à l'eau de rose sauce vampire. Mais qu'ont-elles, à la fin, ces amoureuses de Dracula d'opérette ? Ça ne tourne vraiment pas rond chez elles et ça commence à bien faire ; il est grand temps de rétablir la vérité : les vampires n'existent pas. Comment ça, "et s'ils existent ?" ? Eh bien, s'ils existent, je vais m'occuper de leur refaire le portrait, ça changera ! Je vais publier sur mon blog un pamphlet ; un pamphlet contre les vampires. Et si, par le plus grand des hasards, un certain Hugo Rivoire - un garçon aussi mignon qu'effrayant - décide de me faire fermer mon clapet, il trouvera à qui parler ! Parfaitement ! Sauf que mon petit doigt me dit que je risque de le regretter...
©2019 Les éditions J'ai lu (P)2020 Audible Studios
Murder in Just Cause
Summary
Doyle was back at Scotland Yard after taking maternity leave, and the powers-that-be had decided they’d ease her way by assigning her to assist DS Isabella Munoz, which was a fate only slightly worse than death. Annoying, it was, that she had to answer to Munoz; not to mention that Munoz wasn’t given many high-quality homicide assignments in the first place. As a case in point, the first assignment out of the box was a possible suicide at the housing projects, something that happened with such regularity that it was a wonder the responding officer had even thought it worthy of a detective’s notice....
©2019 Anne Cleeland (P)2021 Anne Cleeland
Murder in Containment
Summary
In this, the fourth installment of the Doyle and Acton mystery series, Detective Sergeant Doyle realizes that several apparently unrelated murders are actually "containment" murders - murders to contain an ominous scandal that could reach into the highest levels of Scotland Yard's CID. In the process of tracking down the killers, however, she comes to the unsettling conclusion that Chief Inspector Acton has committed a containment murder or two of his own.
©2016 Anne Cleeland (P)2017 Anne Cleeland
Murder in Spite
Summary
This holiday trip to Dublin had been very hard on Doyle’s husband - although he was making a monumental effort to disguise this fact - and unless she very much missed her guess, it was all somehow connected to the grisly murder on the station house steps. That, and an African cabdriver who wore a jaunty tam-o’-shanter.
©2018 Anne Cleeland (P)2020 Anne Cleeland
Murder in All Honour
Summary
Things are a bit grim at Scotland Yard this Christmas. On the heels of a nasty corruption scandal, the CID must now contend with a killer who is murdering pregnant women, so as to steal their babies. Chief Inspector Acton doesn't want Doyle anywhere near this case, of course, but she can't shake the feeling that there is more to his concern than his usual over-protectiveness - and more to this case than the usual psycho-killer.
©2017 Anne Cleeland (P)2018 Anne Cleeland
Murder in the Blood: A Doyle & Acton Mystery
Summary
This homicide case featured aristocrats as far as the eye could see, between the Russians and the Spaniards, and Acton, of course, who was supposedly investigating the others, but seemed a little too deferential for Doyle's taste. Why wasn't her husband moving in on the killer? And why did she have the sense that she was standing on the outside, peering into a world where there were no laws and no explanations - only birthrights, forged in ancient blood.
©2019 Anne Cleeland (P)2021 Anne Cleeland