Karin Tanabe has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 7 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 12 ratings. The most-rated is A Hundred Suns.
A Hundred Suns
Summary
"A haunting, evocative tale that left me both richly satisfied and deeply unsettled - yet another Tanabe triumph. Captivating, suspenseful, and full of surprises." (Fiona Davis, national best-selling author of The Masterpiece) A faraway land. A family’s dynasty. A trail of secrets that could shatter their glamorous lifestyle. On a humid afternoon in 1933, American Jessie Lesage steps off a boat from Paris and onto the shores of Vietnam. Accompanying her French husband Victor, an heir to the Michelin rubber fortune, she’s certain that their new life is full of promise, for while the rest of the world is sinking into economic depression, Indochine is gold for the Michelins. Jessie knows that the vast plantations near Saigon are the key to the family’s prosperity, and though they have recently been marred in scandal, she needs them to succeed for her husband’s sake - and to ensure that the life she left behind in America stays buried in the past. Jessie dives into the glamorous colonial world, where money is king and morals are brushed aside, and meets Marcelle de Fabry, a spellbinding expat with a wealthy Indochinese lover, the silk tycoon Khoi Nguyen. Descending on Jessie’s world like a hurricane, Marcelle proves to be an exuberant guide to colonial life. But hidden beneath her vivacious exterior is a fierce desire to put the colony back in the hands of its people - starting with the Michelin plantations. It doesn’t take long for the sun-drenched days and champagne-soaked nights to catch up with Jessie. With an increasingly fractured mind, her affection for Indochine falters. And as a fiery political struggle builds around her, Jessie begins to wonder what’s real in a friendship that she suspects may be nothing but a house of cards. Motivated by love, driven by ambition, and seeking self-preservation at all costs, Jessie and Marcelle each toe the line between friend and foe, ethics and excess. Cast against the stylish backdrop of 1920s Paris and 1930s Indochine, in a time and place defined by contrasts and convictions, Karin Tanabe's A Hundred Suns is historical fiction at its lush, suspenseful best. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press "[A] stirring, elegant romance, richly drawn and complete with multidimensional characters." (Publishers Weekly) “A Hundred Suns has a cinematic quality.... This view of French occupation in Indochina is replete with love affairs, revenge and secrets, not to mention a history lesson about the evils of colonialism.” (Washington Post)
©2020 Karin Tanabe (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
The Diplomat's Daughter
Summary
For fans of All the Light We Cannot See and Orphan Train, the author of the "thought-provoking" (Library Journal) and "must-read" (PopSugar) novel The Gilded Years crafts a captivating tale of three young people divided by the horrors of World War II and their journey back to one another. During the turbulent months following the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, 21-year-old Emi Kato, the daughter of a Japanese diplomat, is locked behind barbed wire in a Texas internment camp. She feels hopeless until she meets handsome young Christian Lange, whose German-born parents were wrongfully arrested for un-American activities. Together they live as prisoners with thousands of other German and Japanese families but discover that love can bloom in even the bleakest circumstances. When Emi and her mother are abruptly sent back to Japan, Christian enlists in the United States Army, with his sights set on the Pacific front - and, he hopes, a reunion with Emi, unaware that her first love, Leo Hartmann, the son of wealthy of Austrian parents and now a Jewish refugee in Shanghai, may still have her heart. Fearful of bombings in Tokyo, Emi's parents send her to a remote resort town in the mountains, where many in the foreign community have fled. Cut off from her family, struggling with growing depression and hunger, Emi repeatedly risks her life to help keep her community safe - all while wondering if the two men she loves are still alive. As Christian Lange struggles to adapt to life as a soldier, his unit pushes its way from the South Pacific to Okinawa, where one of the bloodiest battles of World War II awaits them. Meanwhile, in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, as Leo fights to survive the squalor of the Jewish ghetto, a surprise confrontation with a Nazi officer threatens his life. For both men, Emi Kato is never far from their minds. Flung together by war, passion, and extraordinary acts of selflessness, the paths of these three remarkable young people will collide as the fighting on the Pacific front crescendos. With her "elegant and extremely gratifying" (USA Today) storytelling, Karin Tanabe paints a stunning portrait of a turning point in history.
©2017 Karin Tanabe (P)2017 Simon & Schuster Audio
The Gilded Years
Summary
Passing meets The House of Mirth in this "utterly captivating" (Kathleen Grissom, New York Times best-selling author of The Kitchen House) historical novel based on the true story of Anita Hemmings, the first black student to attend Vassar, who successfully passed as white - until she let herself grow too attached to the wrong person. Since childhood Anita Hemmings has longed to attend the country's most exclusive school for women, Vassar College. Now a bright, beautiful senior in the class of 1897, she is hiding a secret that should have banned her from admission: Anita is the only African American student ever to attend Vassar. With her olive complexion and dark hair, the daughter of a janitor and descendant of slaves has successfully passed as white and now finds herself rooming with Louise "Lottie" Taylor, the scion of one of New York's most prominent families. Though Anita has kept herself at a distance from her classmates, Lottie's sphere of influence is inescapable, her energy irresistible, and the two become fast friends. Pulled into her elite world, Anita learns what it's like to be treated as a wealthy, educated white woman - the person everyone believes her to be - and even finds herself in a heady romance with a moneyed Harvard student. It's only when Lottie becomes infatuated with Anita's brother, Frederick, whose skin is almost as light as his sister's, that the situation becomes particularly perilous. And as Anita's college graduation looms, those closest to her will be the ones to dangerously threaten her secret. Set against the vibrant backdrop of the Gilded Age, an era when old money traditions collided with modern ideas, Tanabe has written a pause-resisting and emotionally compelling story of hope, sacrifice, and betrayal - and a gripping account of how one woman dared to risk everything for the chance at a better life.
©2016 Karin Tanabe. All rights reserved. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Price of Inheritance
Summary
After eight years in the American Furniture department at Christie's, 29-year-old Carolyn Everett is a rising star. But one wrong decision and a scandal leaves her unemployed and broken. Desperate to piece her life back together, Carolyn leaves New York City to work in a tiny antique store in Newport, Rhode Island. At a small county auction, she discovers a piece of Middle Eastern pottery, which she purchases for 20 dollars on a hunch. Curiosity sends her on a mission to find its original owner, and she eventually winds up in the town's United States Navy Base - and in a relationship with notorious womanizer Marine Sergeant Tyler Ford, who claims the relic came to him as a gift from his translator during the early days of the Iraq War. Tyler and Carolyn become obsessed with the mysterious relic - and each other - until the origin of the art comes under intense scrutiny and reveals a darker side of Tyler's past. Carolyn still feels like there's more to the story, but can she risk attaching herself to another scandal - and does she truly know the man she's fallen in love with?
©2014 Karin Tanabe (P)2014 Tantor