Adenrele Ojo has narrated 152 audiobooks on Listento.it by 137 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 2,729 ratings. The most-rated is Sword of Destiny.
Let's Talk About Love
Summary
Striking a perfect balance between heartfelt emotions and spot-on humor, this debut features a pop-culture enthusiast protagonist with an unforgettable voice sure to resonate with listeners. Alice had her whole summer planned. Nonstop all-you-can-eat buffets while marathoning her favorite TV shows (best friends totally included) with the smallest dash of adulting - working at the library to pay her share of the rent. The only thing missing from her perfect plan? Her girlfriend (who ended things when Alice confessed she's asexual). Alice is done with dating - no thank you, do not pass go, stick a fork in her, done. But then Alice meets Takumi and she can't stop thinking about him or the rom com-grade romance feels she did not ask for (uncertainty, butterflies, and swoons, oh my!). When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library-employee badge (close enough), Alice has to decide if she's willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated - or understood.
©2018 Annie Camill Clark (P)2018 Tantor
A Love Hate Thing
Summary
"If you love a good enemies-to-lovers trope, run - don't walk - to the nearest bookstore or library near you." (Buzzfeed) "A Love Hate Thing is an irresistible romance that you'll gobble up whole." (Popsugar) When they're stuck under one roof, the house may not be big enough for their hate...or their love. Despite having been shot, Tyson Trice has survived the mean streets of Lindenwood, so nothing can faze him - not even being tossed into the affluent coastal community of Pacific Hills. Nandy Smith, the golden girl of Pacific Hills, is not pleased when she hears her parents are taking in a troubled teen boy. Nandy suddenly fears her summer plans, as well as her reputation, will go up in flames. The wall between Trice and Nandy's bedrooms feels as thin as the line between love and hate. Through time, Trice brings Nandy out of her shell, and Nandy attempts to melt the ice that's taken over Trice's heart. Only, with the ever-present pull back to the Lindenwood streets, it'll be a wonder if Trice makes it through this summer at all. "Emotional, gripping love story! I couldn't put it down!" (New York Times best-selling author Simone Elkeles)
©2020 Whitney D. Grandison (P)2020 HarperAudio
Rest in Power
Summary
Trayvon Martin’s parents take listeners beyond the news cycle with an account only they could give: the intimate story of a tragically foreshortened life and the rise of a movement. “A reminder - not only of Trayvon’s life and death but of the vulnerability of black lives in a country that still needs to be reminded they matter.” (USA Today) Now a docuseries on the Paramount Network produced by Shawn Carter Years after his tragic death, Trayvon Martin’s name is still evoked every day. He has become a symbol of social justice activism, as has his hauntingly familiar image: the photo of a child still in the process of becoming a young man, wearing a hoodie and gazing silently at the camera. But who was Trayvon Martin, before he became, in death, an icon? And how did one Black child’s death on a dark, rainy street in a small Florida town become the match that lit a civil rights crusade? Rest in Power, told through the compelling alternating narratives of his parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, answers those questions from the most intimate of sources. The book takes us beyond the news cycle and familiar images to give the account that only his parents can offer: the story of the beautiful and complex child they lost, the cruel unresponsiveness of the police and the hostility of the legal system, and an inspiring journey from grief and pain to power, and from tragedy and senselessness to purpose.
©2017 Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin (P)2017 Random House Audio
Getting Schooled
Summary
When 26-year-old Reese accepts a position as a grad assistant, she has no idea an unpleasant encounter with a student will lead to the discovery of what she calls "the trifecta": fine, intellectual, and a little bit rude - three qualities she finds irresistible in a man. She has no intention of doing anything with that discovery - nothing long term, at least. But everybody knows what happens to best laid plans. Jason is a grown man. Twenty-eight years old, seasoned, and scarred by his real-life experience in the world, he's at Blakewood State University to finish his degree and move on. The last thing he's interested in is the female population on campus...but sexy, infuriating Reese might be a notable exception. This isn't a story of opposites attract. More like counterparts clash. Neither of them is afraid to do battle, and neither is willing to back down. Love and war, win or lose...somebody's gonna end up getting schooled. Contains mature themes.
©2016 Christina C. Jones (P)2019 Tantor
The Gilda Stories
Summary
"The Gilda Stories is groundbreaking not just for the wild lives it portrays, but for how it portrays them - communally, unapologetically, roaming fiercely over space and time." (Emma Donoghue, author of Room) "Jewelle Gomez sees right into the heart. This is a book to give to those you want most to find their own strength." (Dorothy Allison) This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who "shares the blood" by two women there, Gilda spends the next 200 years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story.
©1991, 2016 Jewelle Gomez (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
Let Me Free You
Summary
Neil McClain is the screw-up, the one everyone hopes will win but expects to lose. He wants to live a better life, one that his late mother would be proud of, but his belief in himself is weak. Sage Moniba is in need of a major miracle, or she'll be forced to give up the only life she's known. Neil is searching for freedom from the demons of his past. Sage is in desperate need of help. Could it be that what each one needs resides in the other? Contains mature themes.
©2018 Alexandria House (P)2019 Tantor
Let Me Hear a Rhyme
Summary
In this striking new novel by the critically acclaimed author of Allegedly and Monday’s Not Coming, Tiffany D. Jackson tells the story of three Brooklyn teens who plot to turn their murdered friend into a major rap star by pretending he's still alive. Brooklyn, 1998. Biggie Smalls was right: Things done changed. But that doesn’t mean Quadir and Jarrell are cool letting their best friend Steph’s music lie forgotten under his bed after he’s murdered - not when his rhymes could turn any Bed-Stuy corner into a party. With the help of Steph’s younger sister, Jasmine, they come up with a plan to promote Steph’s music under a new rap name: the Architect. Soon, everyone wants a piece of him. When his demo catches the attention of a hotheaded music label rep, the trio must prove Steph’s talent from beyond the grave. As the pressure of keeping their secret grows, Quadir, Jarrell, and Jasmine are forced to confront the truth about what happened to Steph. Only, each has something to hide. With everything riding on Steph’s fame, they need to decide what they stand for or lose all they’ve worked so hard to hold on to - including each other.
©2019 Tiffany D. Jackson (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers
Let Me Please You: A McClain Family Novella
Summary
She's the only sister in a family of alpha males. Loved, treasured, and sheltered by her brothers, Kat McClain is working to heal the pain of a failed marriage to a man she loved from her teenage years and move on with her life, but she's a woman, she has needs, and she is understandably lonely. Tommy Kirby has protected her brother since he was barely a man and has been a silent staple in the McClain family for just as long. He loves his job and his life, is loyal to his employer, but more than anything, he wants a family of his own. Perhaps these two are exactly what the other desires. Contains mature themes.
©2019 Alexandria House (P)2019 Tantor
The Farming of Bones
Summary
It is 1937 and Amabelle Desir, a young Haitian woman living in the Dominican Republic, has built herself a life as the servant and companion of the wife of a wealthy colonel. She and Sebastien, a cane worker, are deeply in love and plan to marry. But Amabelle's world collapses when a wave of genocidal violence, driven by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, leads to the slaughter of Haitian workers. Amabelle and Sebastien are separated, and she desperately flees the tide of violence for a Haiti she barely remembers. Already acknowledged as a classic, this harrowing story of love and survival - from one of the most important voices of her generation - is an unforgettable memorial to the victims of the Parsley Massacre and a testimony to the power of human memory.
©1998 Edwidge Danticat (P)2018 Tantor
A Kind of Freedom
Summary
Evelyn is a Creole woman who comes of age in New Orleans at the height of World War II. Her family inhabits the upper echelon of black society, and when she falls for no-name Renard, she is forced to choose between her life of privilege and the man she loves. In 1982, Evelyn's daughter Jackie is a frazzled single mother grappling with her absent husband's drug addiction. Just as she comes to terms with his abandoning the family, he returns, ready to resume their old life. Jackie must decide if the promise of her husband is worth the near certainty that he will leave again. Jackie's son T. C. loves the creative process of growing marijuana more than the weed itself. He finds something hypnotic about training the seedlings, testing the levels, trimming the leaves, and drying the buds. He was a square before Hurricane Katrina, but the New Orleans he knew didn't survive the storm, and in its wake he was changed too. Now, fresh out of a four-month stint for possession with the intent to distribute, he decides to start over - until an old friend convinces him to stake his new beginning on one last deal. For Evelyn, Jim Crow is an ongoing reality, and in its wake, new threats spring up to haunt her descendants. A Kind of Freedom is an urgent novel that explores the legacy of racial disparity in the South through a poignant and redemptive family history.
©2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2017 Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
What Can I Do?
Summary
A call to action from Jane Fonda, one of the most inspiring activists of our time, urging us to wake up to the looming disaster of climate change and equipping us with the tools we need to join her in protest. "This is the last possible moment in history when changing course can mean saving lives and species on an unimaginable scale. It's too late for moderation." In the fall of 2019, frustrated with the obvious inaction of politicians and inspired by Greta Thunberg, Naomi Klein, and student climate strikers, Jane Fonda moved to Washington, DC, to lead weekly climate change demonstrations on Capitol Hill. On October 11, she launched Fire Drill Fridays and has since led thousands of people in nonviolent civil disobedience, risking arrest to protest for action. In What Can I Do?, Fonda weaves her deeply personal journey as an activist alongside conversations with and speeches by leading climate scientists and inspiring community organizers, and she dives deep into the issues, such as water, migration, and human rights, to emphasize what is at stake. Most significantly, Fonda equips us all with the tools we need to join her in protest so that everyone can work to combat the climate crisis. No stranger to protest, Fonda's life has been famously shaped by activism. And now she is once again galvanizing the public to take to the streets. Many are already aware of the looming disaster of climate change and realize that a moral responsibility rests on our shoulders. In 2019, we saw atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases hit the highest level ever recorded in human history, and our window of opportunity to act is quickly closing. We are facing a climate crisis, but we're also facing an empathy crisis and an inequality crisis; the surge of protests over police violence against Black Americans has once again highlighted the links between racism and environmental degradation in our country. It isn't only earth's life-support systems that are unraveling. So too is our social fabric. This is going to take an all-out war on drilling, fracking, deregulation, racism, misogyny, colonialism, and despair all at the same time. As Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA and Fonda's partner in developing Fire Drill Fridays, has declared, "Change is inevitable; by design, or by disaster." Together, we can commandeer change for the positive - but it will require collective actions taken by social movements on an unprecedented scale. The problems we face now require every one of us to join the fight. The fight for not only our immediate future, but for the future of generations to come. One hundred percent of the author's net proceeds from What Can I Do? will go to Greenpeace This audiobook program includes a PDF of photographs and graphs. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Jane Fonda (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Who Was Rosa Parks?
Summary
In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. This seemingly small act triggered civil rights protests across America and earned Rosa Parks the title "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement".
©2010 Yona Zeldis McDonough (P)2016 Listening Library
Just As I Am
Summary
E. Lynn Harris' blend of rich, romantic storytelling and controversial contemporary issues like race and bisexuality have found an enthusiastic and diverse audience across America. His second novel, Just As I Am, picks up where Invisible Life left off, introducing Harris' appealing and authentic characters to a new set of joys, conflicts, and choices. Raymond, a young black lawyer from the South, struggles to come to terms with his sexuality and with the grim reality of AIDS. Nicole, an aspiring singer/actress, experiences frustration in both her career and in her attempts to find a genuine love relationship. Both characters share an eclectic group of friends who challenge them, and the listener, to look at themselves and the world around them through different eyes. By portraying Nicole's and Raymond's joys as well as their pain, Harris never ceases to remind us that life, like love, is about self-acceptance. In this vivid portrait of contemporary black life, with all its pressures and the complications of bisexuality, AIDS, and racism, Harris confirms a faith in the power of love - love of all kinds - to thrill and to heal, which will warm the hearts of listeners everywhere.
©2000 E. Lynn Harris (P)2010 Random House
Promise
Summary
In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel. A few minutes after 9 p.m. on Palm Sunday, April 5, 1936, a massive funnel cloud flashing a giant fireball and roaring like a runaway train careened into the thriving cotton-mill town of Tupelo, Mississippi, killing more than 200 people, not counting an unknown number of Black citizens, one-third of Tupelo's population, who were not included in the official casualty figures. When the tornado hits, Dovey, a local laundress, is flung by the terrifying winds into a nearby lake. Bruised and nearly drowned, she makes her way across Tupelo to find her small family - her hardworking husband, Virgil, her clever 16-year-old granddaughter, Dreama, and Promise, Dreama's beautiful light-skinned three-month-old son. Slowly navigating the broken streets of Tupelo, Dovey stops at the house of the despised McNabb family. Inside, she discovers that the tornado has spared no one, including Jo, the McNabbs' dutiful teenage daughter, who has suffered a terrible head wound. When Jo later discovers a baby in the wreckage, she is certain that she's found her baby brother, Tommy, and vows to protect him. During the harrowing hours and days of the chaos that follows, Jo and Dovey will struggle to navigate a landscape of disaster and to battle both the demons and the history that link and haunt them. Drawing on historical events, Minrose Gwin beautifully imagines natural and human destruction in the deep South of the 1930s through the experiences of two remarkable women whose lives are indelibly connected by forces beyond their control. A story of loss, hope, despair, grit, courage, and race, Promise reminds us of the transformative power and promise that come from confronting our most troubled relations with one another.
©2018 Minrose Gwin (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
Escaping Exodus
Summary
"Don't be alarmed - that dizzy pleasurable sensation you're experiencing is just your brain slowly exploding from all the wild magnificent worldbuilding in Nicky Drayden's Escaping Exodus. I loved these characters and this story, and so will you." (Sam J. Miller, Nebula-Award-winning author of The Art of Starving and Blackfish City) The Compton Crook award-winning author of The Prey of Gods and Temper returns with a dazzling stand-alone novel, set in deep space, in which the fate of humanity rests on the slender shoulders of an idealistic and untested young woman - a blend of science fiction, dark humor, and magical realism that will appeal to fans of Charlie Jane Anders, Jeff VanderMeer, and Nnedi Okorafor. Earth is a distant memory. Habitable extrasolar planets are still out of reach. For generations, humanity has been clinging to survival by establishing colonies within enormous vacuum-breathing space beasts and mining their resources to the point of depletion. Rash, dreamy, and unconventional, Seske Kaleigh should be preparing for her future role as clan leader, but her people have just culled their latest beast, and she’s eager to find the cause of the violent tremors plaguing their new home. Defying social barriers, Seske teams up with her best friend, a beast worker, and ventures into restricted areas for answers to end the mounting fear and rumors. Instead, they discover grim truths about the price of life in the void. Then, Seske is unexpectedly thrust into the role of clan matriarch, responsible for thousands of lives in a harsh universe where a single mistake can be fatal. Her claim to the throne is challenged by a rival determined to overthrow her and take control - her intelligent, cunning, and confident sister. Seske may not be a born leader like her sister, yet her unorthodox outlook and incorruptible idealism may be what the clan needs to save themselves and their world.
©2019 Nicky Drayden (P)2019 HarperAudio
Improvement
Summary
One of our most gifted writers of fiction returns with a bold and piercing novel about a young single mother living in New York, her eccentric aunt, and the decisions they make that have unexpected implications for the world around them. Reyna knows her relationship with Boyd isn't perfect; yet she sees him through a three-month stint at Riker's Island, their bond growing tighter. Kiki, now settled in the East Village after a youth that took her to Turkey and other far-off places - and loves - around the world, admires her niece's spirit but worries that motherhood to four-year-old Oliver might complicate a difficult situation. Little does she know that Boyd is pulling Reyna into a smuggling scheme across state lines, violating his probation. When Reyna takes a step back, her small act of resistance sets into motion a tapestry of events that affect the lives of loved ones and strangers around them. A novel that examines conviction, connection, repayment, and the possibility of generosity in the face of loss, Improvement is as intricately woven together as Kiki's beloved Turkish rugs, as colorful as the tattoos decorating Reyna's body, with narrative twists and turns as surprising and unexpected as the lives all around us.
©2017 Joan Silber (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Outcast Girls
Summary
An utterly heartbreaking tale of two young girls, worlds apart, who are thrown together when they have lost everything. Fans of Wives of War, Before We Were Yours, and Diney Costeloe will absolutely love this poignant and moving World War Two novel. England, 1937: After a devastating childhood at Blakely Hall Orphanage, 15-year-old Sandra is released. She finds work as a housemaid, finally able to put her past behind her. But the start of World War Two throws the country into turmoil, and her brother, Alf, is sent away to fight, leaving her completely alone. Germany, 1939: Eleven-year-old Frieda is about to board a ship bound for England with her brother, Kurt. Life at home is perilous, with synagogues set alight and innocent lives lost to the Nazis. They have no choice but to flee, with only their identity cards and a small suitcase. But at the last moment, as Frieda stands on the deck crammed with frightened children, she spots her brother jumping off, back to land. England, 1943: Joining the Land Army, Sandra is sent to a farm in the remote countryside where she meets evacuee Frieda. The girls are grappling with their own tragedies - Sandra fretting over whether Alf, flying a bomber in the heavens, will see tomorrow, and Frieda distraught that Kurt abandoned her, uncertain whether he is alive. Sandra and Frieda form a friendship that sees them through the darkest of days, but in times of war, heartbreak is always just around the corner. Will the girls ever be reunited with their loved ones? And will the relationships they have fostered amidst the terror of war survive?
©2020 Shirley Dickson (P)2020 Bookouture
Lust
Summary
From the NAACP Image award winner and national best-selling author Victoria Christopher Murray comes a novel inspired by the seven deadly sins about a woman caught between an entertainment mogul with a shady past and his childhood friend who is out for revenge. Is lust a sin? Tiffanie has lived a sheltered life in a very strict household with her pastor grandfather and her grandmother in Washington, DC. But when she meets Damon, she falls for the successful entertainment businessman despite his history as a drug dealer. Everyone sees a bright future for the couple - yet when Tiffanie meets Trey, her lustful feelings leave her confused just days before her wedding. Trey is Damon's childhood best friend with whom he built a successful drug business. But when the game got hot, and Damon decided to leave, Trey stayed and continued to sell drugs until he was arrested and spent seven years in prison. Now he's out and able to attend the wedding. While Damon is thrilled to have Trey back and hopes to bring his best friend into his business, Trey has other plans. And in the end, there will only be one man standing.... Contains mature themes.
©2017 Victoria Christopher Murray (P)2018 Tantor
My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life
Summary
"I'm here to take you to live with your father. In Tokyo, Japan! Happy birthday! In the Land of the Rising Sun, where high culture meets high kitsch, and fashion and technology are at the forefront of the First World's future, the foreign-born teen elite attend ICS - the International Collegiate School of Tokyo. Their accents are fluid. Their homes are ridiculously posh. Their sports games often involve a (private) plane trip to another country. They miss school because of jet lag and visa issues. When they get in trouble, they seek diplomatic immunity. Enter foster-kid-out-of-water Elle Zoellner, who, on her 16th birthday discovers that her long-lost father, Kenji Takahara, is actually a Japanese hotel mogul and wants her to come live with him. Um, yes, please! Elle jets off first class from Washington, DC, to Tokyo, which seems like a dream come true. Until she meets her enigmatic father, her way-too-fab aunt, and her hypercritical grandmother, who seems to wish Elle didn't exist. In an effort to please her new family, Elle falls in with the Ex-Brats, a troupe of ubercool international kids who spend money like it's air. But when she starts to crush on a boy named Ryuu, who's frozen out by the Brats and despised by her new family, her already tenuous living situation just might implode. My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life is about learning what it is to be a family and finding the inner strength to be yourself, even in the most extreme circumstances.
©2018 Rachel Cohn (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Honor Among Thieves
Summary
Meet your new favorite kickass heroine in this daring YA series by New York Times best-selling authors Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre, a thrilling yet romantic futuristic adventure perfect for fans of Claudia Gray's A Thousand Pieces of You. Petty criminal Zara Cole has a painful past that's made her stronger than most, which is why she chose life in New Detroit instead of moving with her family to Mars. In her eyes, living inside a dome isn't much better than a prison cell. Still, when Zara commits a crime that has her running scared, jail might be exactly where she's headed. Instead Zara is recruited into the Honors, an elite team of humans selected by the Leviathan - a race of sentient alien ships - to explore the outer reaches of the universe as their passengers. Zara seizes the chance to flee Earth's dangers, but when she meets Nadim, the alien ship she's assigned, Zara starts to feel at home for the first time. But nothing could have prepared her for the dark, ominous truths that lurk behind the alluring glitter of starlight.
©2018 Rachel Caine LLC and Ann Aguirre (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers