Maddie Dawson has 6 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 9 ratings. The most-rated is Matchmaking for Beginners.
Matchmaking for Beginners
Summary
A Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestseller. “A delightful, light-as-air romance that successfully straddles the line between sweet and smart without ever being silly…The novel is simply captivating from beginning to end.” - Associated Press Marnie MacGraw wants an ordinary life - a husband, kids, and a minivan in the suburbs. Now that she’s marrying the man of her dreams, she’s sure this is the life she’ll get. Then Marnie meets Blix Holliday, her fiancé’s irascible matchmaking great-aunt who’s dying, and everything changes - just as Blix told her it would. When her marriage ends after two miserable weeks, Marnie is understandably shocked. She’s even more astonished to find that she’s inherited Blix’s Brooklyn brownstone along with all of Blix’s unfinished “projects”: the heartbroken, oddball friends and neighbors running from happiness. Marnie doesn’t believe she’s anything special, but Blix somehow knew she was the perfect person to follow in her matchmaker footsteps. And Blix was also right about some things Marnie must learn the hard way: love is hard to recognize, and the ones who push love away often are the ones who need it most.
©2018 Maddie Dawson (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
A Piece of Normal
Summary
“Quite wonderful... Like Anne Tyler, Shelton seems to possess a nearly boundless capacity for empathy. She has the ability to make us love her characters for their faults, not in spite of them.” (Connecticut Post) Warmhearted, insightful, funny, and poignant, best-selling author Maddie Dawson takes the unfathomable ways of love and family, and celebrates [the joys of] the ordinary craziness of being human. “You know what people really need? Somebody who will listen hard and then find a way to tell them, ‘It’s not all your fault. It’s going to work out fine. Don’t give up.’” So advice columnist ‘Dear Lily’ Brown deeply believes. But Lily could write a letter to herself, asking what to do about an ex-husband who still wants her dating advice, how to redecorate the family home she’s kept exactly the same since her parents died tragically young, and how to move on with her strangely becalmed life…And oh, yes, what to do when your wild-child estranged sister storms back into town, blowing your nicely arranged life into disarray. “As her protagonist tries to learn that she cannot and does not have to control everyone around her and tries to enjoy the "fun" of a dysfunctional family life, Dawson delves into family relationships with humor and empathy, making this a pleasurable read.” (Booklist) “Shelton’s greatest talent is a gift for juxtaposing comedy and tragedy to the pulsing beat of the modern-day mating dance.” (BookPage)
©2006 Sandi Kahn Shelton (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
The Stuff that Never Happened
Summary
What if you were married to someone for 28 years but in love with another? What if you were in love with them both?
Annabelle McKay knows she shouldn’t have any complaints. She’s been in a stable marriage that’s lasted almost three decades and has provided her with two wonderful children, thousands of family dinners around a sturdy oak table, and a husband so devoted that he schedules lovemaking into his calendar every Wednesday morning. Other wives envy the fact that Grant is not the type of man who would ever cheat on her or leave her for a younger woman. The trouble is Annabelle isn’t sure she wants to be married to Grant anymore. The trouble is she’s still in love with someone else.
In the early tumultuous years of her marriage, Annabelle carried on a clandestine affair with the one person whose betrayal would hurt her husband the most. When it ended, she and Grant found their way back together and made a pact that they would never speak of that time again. But now years later, with her children grown and gone, and an ominous distance opening between them, she can’t help but remember those glorious, passionate days and wonder if she chose the right man.
Then, when called to New York City to help care for her pregnant daughter, Annabelle bumps into her old lover. Offered a second chance at an unforgettable love, she must decide between the man who possesses her heart and the husband who has stood squarely by her side.
©2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC
The Survivor's Guide to Family Happiness
Summary
Three women, three lives, and one chance to become a family...whether they want to or not. Newly orphaned, recently divorced, and semiadrift, Nina Popkin is on a search for her birth mother. She's spent her life looking into strangers' faces, fantasizing they're related to her, and now, at thirty-five, she's ready for answers. Meanwhile, the last thing Lindy McIntyre wants is someone like Nina bursting into her life, announcing that they're sisters and campaigning to track down their mother. She's too busy with her successful salon, three children, beautiful home, and...oh yes, some pesky little anxiety attacks. But Nina is determined to reassemble her birth family. Her search turns up Phoebe Mullen, a guarded, hard-talking woman convinced she has nothing to offer. Gradually sharing stories and secrets, the three women make for a messy, unpredictable family that looks nothing like Nina pictured...but may be exactly what she needs. Nina's moving, ridiculous, tragic, and transcendent journey becomes a love story proving that real family has nothing to do with DNA.
©2016 Maddie Dawson. (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
The Opposite of Maybe
Summary
A heartfelt and exceptionally human novel about the best mistakes a person can make. Jonathan and Rosie have been together so long they finish each other's sentences - so when he (finally) proposes and asks her to move across the country with him, everyone is happily surprised. But when things suddenly unravel, Rosie sends Jonathan packing and moves back home with Soapie, the irascible, opinionated grandmother who raised her. Now she has to figure out how to fire Soapie's very unsuitable caregiver, a gardener named Tony who lets her drink martinis, smoke, and cheat at Scrabble. It's meant to be a temporary break, of course - until Rosie realizes she's accidentally pregnant at 44, completely unequipped for motherhood, and, worse, may be falling in love with Tony, whose life is even more muddled than hers. When Soapie reveals a long-hidden secret, Rosie wonders if she has to let go of her fears and trust that the big-hearted, messy life that awaits her just may be the one she was meant to live.
©2014 Maddie Dawson (P)2015 Ideal Audiobooks
A Happy Catastrophe
Summary
From the bestselling author of Matchmaking for Beginners comes a novel about love, loss, and the beautiful mess of family. Marnie MacGraw and Patrick Delaney have been in love for a few years now, enough to realize that they are imperfectly perfect together. Still, there are some things that maybe need a little attention. Marnie’s ebullient; he’s brooding. She thrives on change; he prefers stability. She sees marriage and parenthood in their future, but he can’t see beyond the shadow of an earlier tragedy. Then an eight-year-old surprise from Patrick’s past shows up on their doorstep, cartwheeling into their lives and spinning things in all directions. While it’s not exactly the change she envisioned, it looks like instant family to Marnie. But Patrick, afraid of being hurt again, retreats further into himself. Suddenly, two very different pieces of a beautiful puzzle find it harder and harder to fit. How can Marnie trust in the magic of the universe when it seems to be doing its best to knock her off her feet? But some love stories are worth waiting for. And what’s love without a little chaos anyway?
©2020 Maddie Dawson. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.