Mary Alice Monroe has 23 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 5 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 27 ratings. The most-rated is The Book Club.
The Book Club
Summary
New York Times best-selling author Mary Alice Monroe invites you to meet five remarkable characters as she explores the power of friendship with tenderness, honesty, and understanding.
©2010 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Swimming Lessons
Summary
It's been five years since the original turtle lady, old Miss Lovie Rutledge, passed away, but her legacy lives on with some special women, especially Toy and her daughter, young Little Lovie. Toy Sooner kept her graveside vow to her beloved mentor. She left behind an abusive, dysfunctional lifestyle to become a strong single mother and aquarist at the South Carolina Aquarium. But success has taken its toll, leaving Toy fearful of change and risks. Caretta Rutledge, Florence Prescott and Emmaline Baker have all experienced loss. This summer, with each other's friendship and support, they will try to make their dreams a reality. The turtle season begins the day Toy rescues a sick sea turtle on the beach. When Toy brings the loggerhead to the aquarium, she begins a turtle hospital with the help of her boss, Ethan. As the summer progresses and the sea turtles take their measured steps toward healing and freedom Toy, Cara, Flo and Emmi must find their own strength to face their fears and move courageously toward their futures. Mary Alice Monroe delivers another deeply satisfying novel written with an eye to nature and keen insights into the connections between women.
©2007 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Beach House Memories
Summary
Autumn brings its own haunting beauty to the sun-soaked beaches and dunes on Isle of Palms, where Olivia “Lovie” Rutledge lives in her beloved Primrose Cottage with her daughter, Cara. Looking back as summer fades, Lovie can remember many island summers, but especially one. . . . In 1974, America was changing, but Charleston remained eternally the same. Lovie had always done what was expected - marrying the son of a historic Charleston family, Stratton Rutledge, and turning over her fortune and fate to his control. But one thing she steadfastly refuses to relinquish: her family’s old seaside cottage. The precious summers spent on the barrier island are Lovie’s refuge. Here, she can escape with her children from the social expectations of her traditional Southern mother, and her overbearing husband’s ambition and philandering. Here, she indulges her lifelong vocation as a “Turtle Lady”, tending the loggerhead sea turtles that lay their eggs in the warm night sand and then slip back into the sea. This summer, however, is different. Visiting biologist Russell Bennett arrives on the island to research the loggerheads. What begins as a shared passion for the turtles changes to a love far more passionate and profound than Lovie has ever known - but one that forces her to face the most agonizing decision of her life. For Charleston’s elite, divorce is an unforgivable scandal, and Stratton’s influence is far-reaching. If Lovie dares to dream beyond a summer affair, she risks losing everything: her reputation, her wealth, even her precious children. Beach House Memories - a poignant and emotional tale of a strong, passionate woman torn between duty and desire, between the traditions of the old South and the social changes sweeping America - will capture your heart. For Lovie, it is an empowering journey of seasons of self-discovery. Until this autumn, this time of changing tides, of holding on and letting go. . . .
©2011 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Beach House
Summary
Caretta Rutledge thought she’d left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind. But an unusual request from her mother – coming just as her own life is spinning out of control – has Cara heading back to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers.
Before long, the rhythms of the island open her heart in wonderful ways as she repairs the family beach house, becomes a bona fide “turtle lady” and renews old acquaintances long thought lost. But it is in reconnecting with her mother that she will learn life’s most precious lessons – true love involves sacrifice, family is forever and the mistakes of the past can be forgiven.
©2006 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Summer Guests
Summary
This “authentic, generous, and heartfelt” (Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times best-selling author) novel from the New York Times best-selling author of the Beach House series is about the bonds and new beginnings that are born from natural disasters and how, even during the worst of circumstances - or perhaps because of them - you discover what is most important in life. Late August is a beautiful time on the Southern coast - the peach trees are ripe, the ocean is warm, and the sweet tea is icy. It's the perfect time to enjoy the rocking chairs on the porch. But beneath the calm surface bubbles a threat: It’s also the beginning of peak hurricane season. When a sudden storm threatens the coasts of Florida and South Carolina, an eclectic group of evacuees flee for the farm of their friends Grace and Charles Phillips in North Carolina: the Phillips’ daughter, Moira, and her rescue dogs; famed equestrian Javier Angel de la Cruz; makeup artist Hannah McLain; horse breeder Gerda Klug and her daughter, Elise; and island resident Cara Rutledge. They bring with them only the few treasured possessions they can carry. Strangers to all but the Phillips, they must ride out the storm together. During the course of one of the most challenging weeks of their lives, relationships are put to the test as the evacuees are forced to confront the unresolved issues they have with themselves and with each other. But as the storm passes, they realize that what really matters wasn’t what they brought with them to the mountains but what they’ll take with them once they leave. “Fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Wendy Wax will enjoy the picturesque setting and heartwarmingly intertwined character arcs.” (Booklist) “Monroe writes gorgeously, with authority and tenderness, about the natural world and its power to inspire, transport, and to heal.” (Susan Wiggs, number one New York Times best-selling author)
©2019 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2019 Simon & Schuster
On Ocean Boulevard
Summary
Instant New York Times Best Seller The New York Times best-selling author of The Summer Guests returns at long last to her beloved Isle of Palms in this breathtaking novel about one family’s summer of forging new beginnings against the enduring beauty and resilience of the natural world. It’s been 16 years since Caretta "Cara" Rutledge has returned home to the beautiful shores of Charleston, South Carolina. Over those years, she has weathered the tides of deaths and births, struggles and joys. And now, as Cara prepares for her second wedding, her life is about to change yet again. Meanwhile, the rest of the storied Rutledge family is also in flux. Cara’s niece Linnea returns to Sullivan’s Island to begin a new career and an unexpected relationship. Linnea’s parents, having survived bankruptcy, pin their hopes and futures on the construction of a new home on Ocean Boulevard. But as excitement over the house and wedding builds, a devastating illness strikes the family and brings plans to a screeching halt. It is under these trying circumstances that the Rutledge family must come together yet again to discover the enduring strength in love, tradition, and legacy from mother to daughter to granddaughter. Like the sea turtles that come ashore annually on these windswept islands, three generations of the Rutledge family experience a season of return, rebirth, and growth. "Authentic, generous, and heartfelt" (Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times best-selling author), On Ocean Boulevard is Mary Alice Monroe at her very best.
©2020 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio
Beach House Reunion
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author and “skilled storyteller who never lets her readers down” (Huffington Post) returns to her beloved Beach House series with this “authentic, generous, and heartfelt” (Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times best-selling author) tale of new beginnings, resilience, and one family’s enduring love. Cara Rutledge returns to her Southern home on the idyllic Isle of Palms. Everything is comfortingly the same, yet each detail is rife with painful memories. Only through reconnecting with family, friends, and the rhythms of the lowcountry can Cara release the hold of the past and open herself to the possibility of a new love, career, and hope for the future. Meanwhile, her niece Linnea, a recent college graduate who doesn’t know where her life will take her, leaves her historic home in Charleston, with all its entitlement and expectations, and heads to her aunt’s beach house. On the island, she is part of the freer, natural ocean lifestyle she loves, rejoining the turtle team, learning to surf, and falling in love. Remembering the lessons of her beloved grandmother, Lovie, the original “turtle lady”, Linnea rediscovers a meaningful purpose to her life and finds the courage she needs to break from tradition. In this heartwarming novel, three generations of the Rutledge family gather together to find the strength, love, and commitment to break destructive family patterns and to forge new bonds that will endure long beyond one summer reunion.
©2018 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio
The Summer Girls
Summary
Three sisters reunite on Sullivan’s Island off the coast of South Carolina after years of separation in this heartwarming first novel in a new trilogy from a beloved author. 80-year-old Marietta Muir is a dowager of Charleston society who has retired to her historic summer home on Sullivan’s Island. At the onset of summer, Marietta - "Mamaw" - seeks to gather her three granddaughters - Carson, Eudora, and Harper - with the intent to reunite them after years apart.
©2013 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2013 AudioGO
The Long Road Home
Summary
Her husband’s suicide left Nora MacKenzie alone, and his shady Wall Street dealings left the Manhattan socialite penniless. By a miracle, she’s held on to their mountainside farm - and she’ll keep holding on, no matter what. The property is Nora’s one chance to wring some dignity out of the sham she’s been living. The Vermont locals think she’s a city girl on a nature kick, but she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty. Nora’s serious about learning the farming business…if she can figure out where to begin. Against the locals’ skepticism, she has only one ally: Charles “C.W.” Walker. C.W. is hardworking, gentle with the animals and a patient teacher of the hundreds of chores Nora needs to learn. Slowly she starts to believe she’ll survive in her new life, even flourish. She might even be willing to open her heart again. But she won’t return to a life of lies…and the truth about C.W. may be more than Nora’s fragile heart can bear.
©2010 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
A Lowcountry Wedding
Summary
Wedding season has arrived in New York Times best-selling author Mary Alice Monroe's next novel in the "distinct, complex, and endearing" (Charleston Magazine) Lowcountry Summer series, set against the romantic, charming Charleston Lowcountry. Nothing could be more enchanting than a summer wedding - or two! - in Charleston's fabled Lowcountry. A centuries-old church, an avenue of ancient oaks dripping moss, a storied ballroom, a sand dune at sunset.... Yet when a stranger arrives, a long-held family secret could silence the bells ringing for the Muir sisters. Scandals surface, family bonds are questioned, and promises are broken and renewed. In A Lowcountry Wedding, Monroe delves into the heart of marriage, commitment, and family ties. Huffington Post calls the Lowcountry Summer series "the perfect beach read and a whole lot more".
©2016 Mary Alice Monroe, Ltd. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster, Inc.
A Lowcountry Christmas
Summary
A wounded warrior and his younger brother discover the true meaning of Christmas in this timeless story of family bonds. A poignant continuation of the Lowcountry Summer series. As far as 10-year-old Miller McClellan is concerned, it's the worst Christmas ever. His father's shrimp boat is docked, his mother is working two jobs, and with finances strained, Miller is told, they can't afford the dog he desperately wants. "Your brother's return from war is our family's gift," his parents tell him. But when Taylor returns with PTSD, family strains darken the holidays. Then Taylor's service dog arrives - a large black Labrador/Great Dane named Thor. His brother even got the dog! When Miller goes out on Christmas Eve with his father's ax, determined to get his family the tree they can't afford, he takes the dog for company - but accidentally winds up lost in the wild forest. The splintered family must come together to rediscover their strengths, their family bond, and the true meaning of Christmas. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2016 Mary Alice Monroe, Ltd. All rights reserved. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster
Beach House for Rent
Summary
Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times best-selling author of the Lowcountry Summer series, returns to her beloved Beach House series with the highly anticipated follow-up to Beach House Memories and The Beach House!
©2017 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2017 Simon & Schuster Audio
The Summer's End
Summary
In the powerful and heartwarming conclusion to her best-selling Lowcountry Summer trilogy, New York Times best-selling author Mary Alice Monroe brings her listeners back to the charm and sultry beauty of Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, to reveal how the pull of family bonds and true love is as strong and steady as the tides. It is summer's end, and Sea Breeze, the family's beloved estate on Sullivan's Island, must be sold. It is an emotional time of transition as Mamaw and the three sisters each must face loss and find a new place in the world. Harper, the youngest sister, arrives at Sea Breeze intending to stay only a weekend. But a rift with her wealthy, influential mother leaves her without direction or a home. During this remarkable summer, free from her mother's tyranny and with the help of her half sisters, Harper discovers her talents and independent spirit. But summer is ending, and the fate of Sea Breeze hinges on her courage to decide the course of her own life. To do so she must release her insecurities and recognize her newfound strengths. Harper must accept love fully into her life - the love of Mamaw, Carson, and Dora, the love of Sea Breeze and the lowcountry, and most of all the love of a wounded warrior who has claimed her heart.
©2015 Mary Alice Monroe, Ltd. (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Butterfly's Daughter
Summary
The legend of las mariposas — the beautiful monarch butterflies that every year fly more than two thousand miles on fragile wings to return to their winter home in Mexico — is Luz Avila’s birthright. She learned of their ways and their mystical powers from the grandmother who was the only family she ever knew. Now it is her turn, like the butterflies, to make that long, perilous journey. In order to honor a promise to her beloved abuela, Luz must return her grandmother’s ashes to her ancestral village in the mountains of Mexico. But while this ofrenda, a tradition so old its origins are lost in the mists of time, will mean leaving behind a man who loves Luz deeply, the journey promises to bring deep spiritual meaning to the life of a woman who cannot find her way into the future until she comes to terms with the past. As Luz slowly makes her way south from blustery Milwaukee in a VW Bug so ancient it has no business on the highway, a series of seemingly random encounters touches her life: a desperate mother-to-be, even younger than her, fleeing an abusive lover. An anywhere-the-wind-blows free spirit. A lonely career woman who is determined to live, really live, for the first time. It is in San Antonio, however, that a truly startling revelation awaits Luz: a reunion with a shadowy figure from her childhood. Together, they cross the border into Mexico, but they also must somehow cross the border that separates past from present, bitterness from love, and truth from lies. They will honor the memory of another beloved woman by standing in the Sacred Circle to witness the spectacular, glittering river of orange monarchs descend from the sky to return home. If they can share in this age-old ritual, perhaps they will be able to find their way back to love, and take their place in the enduring cycle of life.
©2011 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Summer Wind
Summary
The Summer Wind is the second book in Monroe's Lowcountry Summer trilogy, following the New York Times best seller The Summer Girls. This series is the poignant and heartwarming story of three half-sisters and their grandmother, who is determined to help them rediscover their Southern roots and family bonds. It's midsummer, and Eudora, nicknamed Dora, is staying at Sea Breeze, the family's ancestral home on Sullivan's Island. For years, Dora has played the role of the perfect wife and mother in a loveless marriage. Now her husband has filed for divorce, her child is diagnosed with autism, and her house is on the market. Dora's façade collapses under the weight of her grief, and she suffers "broken heart syndrome." Mamaw and the girls rally around Dora - but it's up to Dora to heal herself as she spends the summer prowling the beach, discovering the secrets of the island and her heart. This is a summer of discovery for all the women of Sea Breeze. Carson returns from Florida to face life-changing decisions, Lucille confronts a health scare, and an unexpected visitor has Harper reconsidering her life's direction. When tropical storm winds batter the island, the women must band together and weather the tempest - both the one outside their windows and the raging sea of emotions within each of them. They must learn again what it means to be a sister. It is up to Mamaw to keep the light burning at Sea Breeze to guide the girls through the lies, the threats, and the rocky waters of indecision to home.
©2014 Blackstone Audio; 2014 Mary Alice Monroe
The Summer of Lost and Found
Summary
The New York Times best-selling Beach House series returns with this tender and compassionate novel following the Rutledge family as they face a summer of upheaval and change with perseverance, unity, and a dose of humor, discovering unexpected joys and lessons that will endure long past the season. The coming of Spring usually means renewal, but for Linnea Rutledge, Spring 2020 threatens stagnation. Linnea faces another layoff, this time from the aquarium she adores. For her — and her family — finances, emotions, and health teeter at the brink. To complicate matters, her new love interest, Gordon, struggles to return to the Isle of Palms from England. Meanwhile, her old flame, John, turns up from California and is quarantining next door. She tries to ignore him, but when he sends her plaintive notes in the form of paper airplanes, old sparks ignite. When Gordon at last reaches the island, Linnea wonders — is it possible to love two men at the same time? Love in the time of the coronavirus proves challenging, at times humorous, and ever changing. Relationships are redefined, friendships made and broken, and marriages tested. As the weeks turn to months, and another sea turtle season comes to a close, Linnea learns there are more meaningful lessons learned during this summer than opportunities lost, that summer is a time of wonder, and that the exotic lives in our own back yards. In The Summer of Lost and Found, Linnea and the Rutledge family continue to face their challenges with the strength, faith, and commitment that has inspired fans for decades. Mary Alice Monroe once again delves into the complexities of family relationships and brings her signature “sensitive and true” (Dorothea Benton Frank, New York Times best-selling author) storytelling to this poignant and timely novel of love, courage, and resilience.
©2021 Mary Alice Monroe. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sweetgrass
Summary
Sweetgrass is a historic tract of land in South Carolina that has been home to the Blakely family for eight generations. But Sweetgrass — named for the indigenous grass that grows in the area — is in trouble. Taxes are skyrocketing. Bulldozers are leveling the surrounding properties. And the Blakelys could be forced to sell the one thing that continues to hold their disintegrating family together.
In this poignant novel of hope, acceptance and the powerful gift of forgiveness, Mary Alice Monroe paints an intimate portrait of a family that must learn to unravel old patterns and weave together a new future.
©2010 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Time Is a River
Summary
With her evocative prose and finely tuned insights into family relationships, Mary Alice Monroe has earned legions of fans and numerous awards. Reminiscent of Anne Rivers Siddons, her writing is a delightful blend of southern authenticity and rich emotional drama, and she delivers an engaging and complex novel with
Time Is a River.
Mia Landon travels to a mountain sanctuary near Asheville, North Carolina, while she begins her recovery from breast cancer. There, in the cabin at Watkins Glenn, Mia discovers the long lost journal of a well-known fly-fisherwoman from the 1920s, Kate Watkins.
Reading Kate's inspiring words recounting her sensational adventures on the river coaxes an otherwise withdrawn Mia from her shell and gives her the desire to reconnect with the world around her. And as she learns to fish, she also uncovers surprising secrets that span generations - and a hidden scandal that has the power to change not only her own life, but also those who live at Watkins Glenn.
Enthralling, heartwarming, and moving, Time Is a River is a novel that wonderfully captures the complexity of human connections - to the natural world, to each other, to one's self, and ultimately to one's soul.
©2008 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2008 Brilliance Audio
Second Star to the Right
Summary
Sometimes fairy tales do come true… As a single mother of two, Faye O'Neill has no time for fairy tales. She's not even certain she believes in luck. Practical, smart, and desperate to escape a shadowy past, Faye takes a job at a top advertising firm in London where she hopes she and her children can find a fresh start. When she finds the beautiful two-story flat for rent in a stately old Victorian complete with a neglected but tumbling English garden, she can scarcely believe her good fortune. But it isn't long before Faye realizes not everything in the old home may be as peaceful as it seems. A strange light begins to appear in her children's rooms at night, and then there's the reclusive elderly tenant, Crazy Wendy, her landlady warned her to steer clear of, the woman who spends her evenings spying on Faye's children from her garret-room window. The woman who believes she is Peter Pan's Wendy. To make matters worse, Faye, who has sworn off men, discovers her downstairs neighbor Jack is a disturbingly handsome professor with a talent for charming women and children alike. Before she knows it, Faye has embarked upon a whole new adventure into a world where anything might be possible, where broken hearts can be healed by a kiss, and where Neverland may not be a place of fables but a forgotten land one can still find if they are only brave enough to follow the second star to the right.
©2015 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Reunion Beach
Summary
In this warm and moving anthology, a group of best-selling authors and writers pay tribute to legendary, larger-than-life New York Times best-selling author Dorothea Benton Frank and her literary legacy. Inspired by the title Dorothea Benton Frank planned for her next book - Reunion Beach - these close friends and colleagues channeled their creativity, admiration, and grief into stories and poems that celebrate this remarkable woman and her abiding love for the Lowcountry of her native South Carolina - a land of beauty, history, charm, and Gullah magic she so brilliantly brought to life in her acclaimed novels. From Elin Hilderbrand, number-one New York Times best-selling author, a sequel to Summer of ’69. From Adriana Trigiani, New York Times best-selling author, comes a heartwarming, humorous interview from the hereafter with Pat Conroy and Dorothea Benton Frank, two beloved icons of Southern literature. From Patti Callahan, best-selling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis and Surviving Savannah, comes The Bridemaids, a story about a trip to the South Carolina beach. From Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times best-selling author, Mother and Child Reunion, a heartwarming story set under the warm South Carolina sun. Reunion Beach also features letters, short stories, poems, and essays from: Mary Norris, New York Times best-selling author and staff writer for The New Yorker Cassandra King Conroy, best-selling and award-winning author of Tell Me A Story Nathalie Dupree, James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Marjory Wentworth, former Poet Laureate of South Carolina Gervais Hagerty, author of In Polite Company Jacqueline Bouvier Lee, Peter Frank, Victoria Peluso, and William Frank Infused with Dorothea Benton Frank’s remarkable spirit, Reunion Beach is a literary homage and beautiful keepsake that keeps this dearly missed writer’s flame burning bright. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
©2021 HarperCollins Publishers (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers