Alana Kerr Collins has narrated 48 audiobooks on Listento.it by 40 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 332 ratings. The most-rated is The Forgotten Home Child.
The Forgotten Home Child
Summary
The Home for Unwanted Girls meets Orphan Train in this unforgettable novel about a young girl caught in a scheme to rid England’s streets of destitute children, and the lengths she will go to find her way home - based on the true story of the British Home Children. 2018 At 97 years old, Winnifred Ellis knows she doesn’t have much time left, and it is almost a relief to realize that once she is gone, the truth about her shameful past will die with her. But when her great-grandson Jamie, the spitting image of her dear late husband, asks about his family tree, Winnifred can’t lie any longer, even if it means breaking a promise she made so long ago... 1936 Fifteen-year-old Winny has never known a real home. After running away from an abusive stepfather, she falls in with Mary, Jack, and their ragtag group of friends roaming the streets of Liverpool. When the children are caught stealing food, Winny and Mary are left in Dr. Barnardo’s Barkingside Home for Girls, a local home for orphans and forgotten children found in the city’s slums. At Barkingside, Winny learns she will soon join other boys and girls in a faraway place called Canada, where families and better lives await them. But Winny’s hopes are dashed when she is separated from her friends and sent to live with a family that has no use for another daughter. Instead, they have paid for an indentured servant to work on their farm. Faced with this harsh new reality, Winny clings to the belief that she will someday find her friends again. Inspired by true events, The Forgotten Home Child is a moving and heartbreaking novel about place, belonging, and family - the one we make for ourselves and its enduring power to draw us home.
©2020 Genevieve Graham (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio
Sleep Over
Summary
For fans of the oral history genre phenomenon World War Z, a worldwide plague of insomnia creates a devastating new apocalypse. Remember what it's like to last an entire night without sleep? That dull but constant headache. The feeling of your brain on edge. How easily irritated you were. How difficult it was to concentrate, even on seemingly menial tasks. It was just a single restless night, but everything felt just a little bit harder to do, and the only real comfort was knowing your head would finally hit the pillow at the end of the day, and when you awoke the next morning everything would return to normal. But what if sleep didn't come the next night? Or the night after? What might happen if you, your friends and family, your coworkers, the strangers you pass on the street, all slowly began to realize that rest might not ever come again? How slowly might the world fall apart? How long would it take for a society without sleep to descend into chaos? Sleep Over is collection of waking nightmares, a scrapbook of the haunting and poignant stories from those trapped in a world where the pillars of society are crumbling, and madness is slowly descending on a planet without rest. Online vigilantism turns social media into a deadly gamble. A freelance journalist grapples with the ethics of turning in footage of mass suicide. A kidnapped hypnotist is held hostage by those at wit's end for a cure. In Sleep Over, these stories are just the beginning. Before the Longest Day, the world record was eleven days without sleep. It turns out most of us can go much longer. Full cast of narrators includes Neil Shah, Susan Ericksen, Prentice Onayemi, Andrea Emmes, and Braden Wright.
©2017 H. G. Bells (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
WWW: Wake
Summary
Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math - and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex paths clearly in her mind.But Caitlin's brain long ago co-opted her primary visual cortex to help her navigate online. So when she receives an implant to restore her sight, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes.While exploring this amazing realm, she discovers something - some other - lurking in the background. And it's getting more and more intelligent with each passing day.BONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction written and read by author Robert J. Sawyer.
©2009 Ace (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
The Bone Season
Summary
The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials, employed by a man named Jaxon Hall. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant, and in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing. It is raining the day her life changes forever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford - a city kept secret for 200 years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom, she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die. The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine and also an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.
©2013 Samantha Shannon-Jones (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Girl Who Came Home
Summary
A voyage across the ocean becomes the odyssey of a lifetime for a young Irish woman…. Ireland, 1912… Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For 17-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with Samus, the sweetheart she left behind. When disaster strikes, Maggie is one of the few passengers in steerage to survive. Waking up alone in a New York hospital, she vows never to speak of the terror and panic of that fateful night again. Chicago, 1982… Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her great-grandmother Maggie shares the painful secret about Titanic that she's harbored for almost a lifetime, the revelation gives Grace new direction and leads both her and Maggie to unexpected reunions with those they thought lost long ago. Inspired by true events, The Girl Who Came Home poignantly blends fact and fiction to explore the Titanic tragedy's impact and its lasting repercussions on survivors and their descendants.
©2014 Hazel Gaynor (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers
Secrets of a Charmed Life
Summary
The author of A Fall of Marigolds journeys from the present day to World War II England, as two sisters are separated by the chaos of wartime. She stood at a crossroads, half-aware that her choice would send her down a path from which there could be no turning back. But instead of two choices, she saw only one—because it was all she really wanted to see Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades...beginning with who she really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden--one that will test her convictions and her heart. 1940s, England. As Hitler wages an unprecedented war against London’s civilian population, hundreds of thousands of children are evacuated to foster homes in the rural countryside. But even as fifteen-year-old, Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister, Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage. Emmy’s burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia’s profound need for her sister’s presence. Acting at cross purposes just as the Luftwaffe rains down its terrible destruction, the sisters are cruelly separated, and their lives are transformed.
©2015 eChristian (P)2015 eChristian
The Mime Order
Summary
In the internationally best-selling The Bone Season, Paige Mahoney escaped the brutal penal colony of Sheol I, but now her problems have only just begun: many of the fugitives are still missing and she is the most wanted person in London. As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on Paige, the mime-lords and mime-queens of the city's gangs are invited to a rare meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare to take center stage, but there are bitter fault lines running through the clairvoyant community and dark secrets around every corner. Then the Rephaim begin crawling out from the shadows. But where is Warden? Paige must keep moving, from Seven Dials to Grub Street to the secret catacombs of Camden, until the fate of the underworld can be decided. Will Paige know who to trust? The hunt for the dreamwalker is on. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2015 Samantha Shannon-Jones (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Carnegie's Maid
Summary
From the author of The Other Einstein, the mesmerizing tale of what kind of woman could have inspired an American dynasty. Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home. If she can keep up the ruse, that is. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie requires skills she doesn't have, answering to an icy mistress who rules her sons and her domain with an iron fist. What Clara does have is a resolve as strong as the steel Pittsburgh is becoming famous for, coupled with an uncanny understanding of business, and Andrew begins to rely on her. But Clara can't let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer. Revealing her past might ruin her future - and her family's. With captivating insight and heart, Carnegie's Maid tells the story of one brilliant woman who may have spurred Andrew Carnegie's transformation from ruthless industrialist into the world's first true philanthropist.
©2018 Marie Benedict (P)2018 Random House Audio
Dracul
Summary
The prequel to Dracula, inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a supernatural thriller that reveals not only Dracula's true origins but Bram Stoker's - and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them. It is 1868, and a 21-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here.... A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen - a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen - and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning. A riveting novel of Gothic suspense, Dracul reveals not only Dracula's true origin, but Bram Stoker's - and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them. Read by a full cast: Pete Bradbury, Narrator Vikas Adam, as Bram Stoker Saskia Maarleveld, as Matilda Stoker Raphael Corkhill, as Thornley Stoker Alana Kerr Collins, as Ellen Allan Corduner, as Arminius Vambéry
©2018 Dacre Stoker and JD Barker (P)2018 Penguin Audio
The Song Rising
Summary
The hotly anticipated third audiobook in the best-selling Bone Season series - a groundbreaking dystopian fantasy of extraordinary imagination. Following a bloody battle against foes on every side, Paige Mahoney has risen to the dangerous position of Underqueen, ruling over London's criminal population. But having turned her back on Jaxon Hall, and with vengeful enemies still at large, the task of stabilising the fractured underworld has never seemed so challenging. Little does Paige know that her reign may be cut short by the introduction of Senshield, a deadly technology that spells doom for the clairvoyant community and the world as they know it.
©2017 Samantha Shannon (P)2017 Audible, Ltd
The Nature of Fragile Things
Summary
April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed. Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right. Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved. The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear. From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War and As Bright as Heaven comes a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity. Praise for The Nature of Fragile Things “A mysterious web of lies, love, and loss that accelerates toward the inevitable: the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906." (Kristin Harmel, author of The Book of Lost Names) “A riveting tale set in 1906 San Francisco. These fascinating characters' hidden pasts and dark secrets collide, entwine, and explode - and that's before the earthquake hits." (Greer Macallister, author of The Magician's Lie and The Arctic Fury) “In the ashes of San Francisco's greatest tragedy, one remarkable woman finds love, friendship, and the means to rebuild. Historical fiction that reads with the urgency and suspense of a thriller.” (Lauren Willig, New York Times best-selling author of The Summer Country) “Driven by the unstoppable force of the three intriguing women at its heart, this is a novel to savor, and one to share with all the women in your life whom you admire." (Hazel Gaynor, New York Times best-selling author of When We Were Young & Brave)
©2021 Susan Meissner (P)2021 Penguin Audio
Beyond a Darkened Shore
Summary
Vikings meets Frostblood in this romantic historical fantasy stand-alone from author Jessica Leake. The ancient land of Eirinn is mired in war. Ciara, princess of Mide, has never known a time when Eirinn's kingdoms were not battling for power or Northmen were not plundering their shores. The people of Mide have always been safe because of Ciara's unearthly ability to control her enemies' minds and actions. But lately a mysterious crow has been appearing to Ciara, whispering warnings of an even darker threat. Although her clansmen dismiss her visions as pagan nonsense, Ciara fears this coming evil will destroy not just Eirinn but the entire world. Then the crow leads Ciara to Leif, a young Northman leader. Leif should be Ciara's enemy, but when Ciara discovers that he too shares her prophetic visions, she knows he's something more. Leif is mounting an impressive army, and with Ciara's strength in battle, the two might have a chance to save their world. With evil rising around them, they'll do what it takes to defend the land they love - even if it means making the greatest sacrifice of all.
©2018 Jessica Leake (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing
The Nothing Man
Summary
I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man. Now I am the woman who is going to catch him.... You've just read the opening lines of The Nothing Man, the true-crime memoir Eve Black has written about her obsessive search for the man who killed her family nearly two decades ago. Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle is reading it too, and with each turn of the page his rage grows. Because Jim was - is - the Nothing Man. The more Jim reads, the more he realises how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won't give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first....
©2020 Catherine Ryan Howard (P)2020 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
The Liar's Girl
Summary
Will Hurley was an attractive, charming, and impressive student at Dublin's elite St. John's College - and Ireland's most prolific serial killer. Having stalked his five young victims, he drowned them in the muddy waters of the Grand Canal. Sentenced to life imprisonment when he was just 19, Will is locked away in the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital. Freshman Alison Smith moved to the Big Smoke to enroll in St. John's and soon fell hard for Will Hurley. Her world bloomed...and then imploded when Liz, her best friend, became the latest victim of the Canal Killer - and the Canal Killer turned out to be the boy who'd been sleeping in her bed. Alison fled to the Netherlands and, in 10 years, has never once looked back. When a young woman's body is found in the Grand Canal, Garda detectives visit Will to see if he can assist them in solving what looks like a copycat killing. Instead, Will tells them he has something new to confess - but there's only one person he's prepared to confess it to.The last thing Alison wants is to be pulled back into the past she's worked so hard to leave behind. Reluctantly, she returns to the city she hasn't set foot in for more than a decade to face the man who murdered the woman she was supposed to become. Only to discover that, until now, Will has left out the worst part of all.
©2018 Catherine Ryan Howard (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Girls of Ennismore
Summary
Set in Ireland during the turbulent early 20th century, Patricia Falvey's sweeping novel explores an unlikely friendship between two girls of vastly different backgrounds, as each tries to overcome the barriers set by class and birthright... On a June morning in 1900, Rosie Killeen crosses the road that divides her family's County Mayo farm from the estate of Lord and Lady Ennis, and makes her way to the "big house" for the first time. Barely eight years old, Rosie joins the throng of servants preparing for the arrival of Queen Victoria. But while the royal visit is a coup for Ennismore, a chance meeting on the grounds proves even more momentous for Rosie. Victoria Bell, Lord and Lady Ennis's young daughter, is desperately lonely. Though the children of the gentry seldom fraternize with locals, Lord Ennis arranges for Rosie to join in Victoria's school lessons. For Rosie, the opportunity is exhilarating yet isolating. Victoria's governess and aunt, Lady Louisa, objects to teaching a peasant girl. The other servants resent Rosie's escape from the drudgery of life below stairs. Bright, strong-willed Rosie finds herself caught between her own people and the rarefied air of Ennismore - especially as she grows closer to Victoria's older brother, Valentine. As they near womanhood, the girls' friendship is interrupted. Victoria is bound for a coming out season in Dublin, and Rosie must find a way to support her family. But Ireland is changing too. The country's struggle for Home Rule, the outbreak of the Great War, and a looming Easter rebellion in Dublin all herald a new era. Not even Ennismore can escape unscathed. And for Rosie, family loyalty, love, friendship and patriotism will collide in life-changing ways, leading her through heartbreak and loss in search of her own triumphant independence.
©2017 Patricia Falvey (P)2017 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
The Woman Outside My Door
Summary
An unforgettable new voice in suspense fiction, Rachel Ryan weaves a thrilling pause-resister about a young mother who can’t shake the feeling that her son’s "imaginary" friend is putting him in danger and who will stop at nothing to keep him safe - perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Mary Kubica. How far would you go to protect your family? All children have imaginary friends, Georgina tells herself. It’s perfectly normal, and they all grow out of it in the end. But when seven-year-old Cody tells his mother about "New Granny", the new friend he’s met in the park, Georgina is instantly suspicious. Something - call it maternal instinct - tells her he isn’t making it up. But maybe Georgina is losing her mind. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all. And with her own mother’s recent death leaving her bereft and trying to cope with life as a busy working mom, it’s no wonder she’s feeling paranoid that Cody has invented a "New Granny" to replace his beloved grandmother. Her husband, Bren, becomes the voice of reason, assuring Georgina that it’s just a game, the product of their son’s overactive imagination. But what if Cody’s imaginary friend is not so imaginary after all?
©2021 Rachel Ryan (P)2021 Simon & Schuster Audio
Good Eggs
Summary
“A joyous, exuberantly fun-filled novel of second chances. An absolute delight from start to finish!” (Sarah Haywood, New York Times best-selling author) “Bracing, hilarious, warm, this novel is as wayward and mad as the human heart.” (Judy Blundell, New York Times best-selling author) A hilarious and heartfelt debut novel following three generations of a boisterous Irish family whose simmering tensions boil over when a home aide enters the picture, becoming the calamitous force that will either undo or remake this family - perfect for fans of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Evvie Drake Starts Over. When Kevin Gogarty’s irrepressible 83-year-old mother, Millie, is caught shoplifting yet again, he has no choice but to hire a caretaker to keep an eye on her. Kevin, recently unemployed, is already at his wits’ end tending to a full house while his wife travels to exotic locales for work, leaving him solo with his sulky, misbehaved teenaged daughter, Aideen, whose troubles escalate when she befriends the campus rebel at her new boarding school. Into the Gogarty fray steps Sylvia, Millie’s upbeat American home aide, who appears at first to be their saving grace - until she catapults the Gogarty clan into their greatest crisis yet. With charm, humor, and pathos to spare, Good Eggs is a delightful study in self-determination; the notion that it’s never too late to start living; and the unique redemption that family, despite its maddening flaws, can offer.
©2021 Rebecca Hardiman. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Perfect Mother
Summary
She thought they wanted her baby. But they won’t stop there. Roz is young, penniless and pregnant. All she wants is to be the perfect mother to her child, but the more she thinks about her own chaotic upbringing, the more certain she is that the best life for her baby is as far away as possible from her hometown in Ireland. Determined to do the right thing, Roz joins an elite adoption service and can’t believe her luck. Within days she is jetting to New York to meet a celebrity power couple desperate for a child of their own. Sheridan and Daniel are wealthy and glamorous - everything Roz isn’t. Her baby will never go hungry, and will have every opportunity for the perfect life. But soon after Roz moves into their plush basement suite, she starts to suspect that something darker lurks beneath the glossy surface of their home. When Roz discovers she isn’t the first person to move in with the couple, and that the previous woman has never been seen since, alarm bells start ringing. As the clock ticks down to her due date, Roz realises her unborn baby may be the only thing keeping her alive, and that despite her best intentions, she has walked them both into the perfect nightmare...
©2020 Caroline Mitchell (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved
The Mask Falling
Summary
Bloomsbury presents The Mask Falling by Samantha Shannon, read by Alana Kerr Collins. From the New York Times best-selling author of The Bone Season and The Priory of the Orange Tree, the stunning fourth novel set in the world of Scion. Dreamwalker Paige Mahoney has eluded death again. Snatched from the jaws of captivity and consigned to a safe house in the Scion Citadel of Paris, she finds herself caught between those factions that seek Scion’s downfall and those who would kill to protect the Rephaim’s puppet empire. The mysterious Domino Program has plans for Paige, but she has ambitions of her own in this new citadel. With Arcturus Mesarthim - her former enemy - at her side, she embarks on an adventure that will lead her from the catacombs of Paris to the glittering hallways of Versailles. Her risks promise high reward: the Parisian underworld could yield the means to escalate her rebellion to outright war. As Scion widens its bounds and the free world trembles in its shadow, Paige must fight her own memories after her ordeal at the hands of Scion. Meanwhile, she strives to understand her bond with Arcturus, which grows stronger by the day. But there are those who know the revolution began with them - and could end with them.... The Mask Falling is a gripping, fantastical new addition to this "intoxicating urban-fantasy series" (NPR.org) that will leave listeners begging for more.
©2021 Samantha Shannon (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
The Nothing Man
Summary
At the age of 12, Eve Black was the only member of her family to survive an encounter with serial attacker the Nothing Man. Now an adult, she is obsessed with identifying the man who destroyed her life. Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle has just started reading The Nothing Man - the true-crime memoir Eve has written about her efforts to track down her family’s killer. As he turns each page, his rage grows. Because Jim’s not just interested in reading about the Nothing Man. He is the Nothing Man. Jim soon begins to realize how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won’t give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first....
©2020 Catherine Ryan Howard (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing