Allyson Ryan has narrated 118 audiobooks on Listento.it by 101 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 1,124 ratings. The most-rated is No Rules Rules.
The Life of the Mind
Summary
“[A] jewel of a debut...abundantly satisfying.” (Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker) A witty, intelligent novel of an American woman on the edge, by a brilliant new voice in fiction - “the glorious love child of Ottessa Moshfegh and Sally Rooney” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) As an adjunct professor of English in New York City with no hope of finding a permanent position, Dorothy feels “like a janitor in the temple who continued to sweep because she had nowhere else to be but who had lost her belief in the essential sanctity of the enterprise”. No one but her boyfriend knows that she’s just had a miscarriage, not even her therapists - Dorothy has two of them. Nor can she bring herself to tell the other women in her life: her friends, her doctor, her mentor, her mother. The freedom not to be a mother is one of the victories of feminism. So why does she feel like a failure? Piercingly intelligent and darkly funny, The Life of the Mind is a novel about endings: of youth, of professional aspiration, of possibility, of the illusion that our minds can ever free us from the tyranny of our bodies. And yet Dorothy’s mind is all she has to make sense of a world largely out of her control, one where disaster looms and is already here, where things happen but there is no plot. There is meaning, however, if Dorothy figures out where to look, and as the weeks pass and the bleeding subsides, she finds it in the most unlikely places, from a Las Vegas poolside to a living room karaoke session. In literature - as Dorothy well knows - stories end. But life, as they say, goes on.
©2021 Christine Smallwood (P)2021 Random House Audio
The Two-Date Rule
Summary
Willa Frank has one simple rule: never go on a date with anyone more than twice. Now that her business is providing the stability she’s always needed, she can’t afford distractions. Her two-date rule protects her just fine...until she meets smokejumper Grady Billman. After one date - one amazing, unforgettable date - Grady isn’t ready to call it quits, despite his own no-attachments policy, and he’s found a sneaky way around both their rules. Throwing gutter balls with pitchers of beer? Not a real date. Everyone knows bowling doesn’t count. Watching a band play at a local show? They just happen to have the same great taste in music. Definitely not a date. Hiking? Nope. How can exercise be considered a date? With every non-date Grady suggests, his reasoning gets more ridiculous, and Willa must admit she’s having fun playing along. But when their time together costs Willa two critical clients, it's clear she needs to focus on the only thing that matters - her future. And really, he should do the same. But what is she supposed to do with a future that looks gray without Grady in it?
©2020 Tawna Fenske (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Fade to Black
Summary
Fans of Mary Higgins Clark, Lisa Jackson, and Allison Brennan will love this thrilling novel of suspense by Wendy Corsi Staub! Sometimes secrets can kill.... I know who you are. When Elizabeth Baxter reads these words, her world crashes. Five years ago, she was Hollywood superstar Mallory Eden - until a mysterious stalker turned her life into a nightmare. Now she hides in the small town of Windmere Cove, Rhode Island, living in fear, constantly looking over her shoulder.... Then her house is ransacked. The phone rings, and no one is on the other end.... And very soon Elizabeth realizes she's being hunted again. Her only peace is the solace she's found in the arms of Harper Smith. She longs to tell him the truth - and then she learns of his own secret past...a past that connects to Mallory Eden's.
©1998 Wendy Corsi Staub (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers
Good Trouble
Summary
A masterly collection of 11 stories about the way we live now from the best-selling author of Netherland. From bourgeois facial-hair trends to parental sleep deprivation, Joseph O’Neill closely observes the mores of his characters, whose vacillations and second thoughts expose the mysterious pettiness, underlying violence, and, sometimes, surprising beauty of ordinary life in the early 21st century. A lonely wedding guest talks to a goose; two poets struggle over whether to participate in a “pardon Edward Snowden” verse petition; a cowardly husband lets his wife face a possible intruder in their home; a potential co-op renter in New York City can’t find anyone to give him a character reference. On the surface, these men and women may be in only mild trouble, but in these perfectly made, fiercely modern stories O’Neill reminds us of the real, secretly political consequences of our internal monologues. No writer is more incisive about the strange world we live in now; the laugh-out-loud vulnerability of his people is also fodder for tears. Cast of Narrators: "Pardon Edward Snowden" read by Robbie Daymond "The Trusted Traveler" read by Arthur Morey "The World of Cheese" read by Kimberly Farr "The Referees" read by Mike Chamberlain "Promises, Promises" read by Allyson Ryan "The Death of Billy Joel" read by Mark Deakins "Ponchos" read by Mark Bramhall "The Poltroon Husband" read by John H. Meyer "Goose" read by Mike Chamberlain "The Mustache in 2010" read by Cassandra Campbell "The Sinking of the Houston" read by Danny Campbell
©2018 Joseph O'Neill (P)2018 Random House Audio
One Perfect Kiss
Summary
Josie Barnes has always craved a sense of home. She's found that in Hope, Oklahoma - she bought a house, has a new job as an English teacher at Hope High, she's made wonderful friends, and she's taking in stray animals no one else wants. Now, she's flirting with fellow teacher and hot high school football coach Zach Powers. But he's almost too good to be true, and Josie learned long ago not to trust in the too good to be true because it has always let her down. A former pro football player, Zach had to pull back when a career-ending knee injury forced him to rethink his future. Now, he's happy calling plays as Coach. If he could just get Josie Barnes to stop benching his players for their poor grades, life would be perfect. Instead, she drives him crazy as the stern teacher at school and the sexy woman of his dreams outside of the classroom. He knows she's been hurt in the past, but he wants to be that guy she can trust. The one thing Josie has never been able to count on is the people closest to her. But Zach intends to show her that what they have between them is a textbook case of love.
©2018 Jaci Burton, Inc. (P)2018 Tantor
In the Blink of an Eye
Summary
Welcome to Lily Dale, New York...a sleepy summer resort, home to a population of psychics, and the place where Julia Garrity and Kristin Shuttleworth formed a fast friendship broken only by death. Ten Summer Street is no ordinary house. It was there, 15 years ago, that Kristin saw something on a Halloween night that would haunt her until the end of her days. Since then, Julia has watched both Kristin and her mother fall prey to whomever - or whatever - lurks there. Now Kristin's blind six-year-old daughter, Dulcie, has come to live in Lily Dale - at 10 Summer Street. Appointing herself protector, Julia is determined to coax the secrets of the house out into the light, to discover what the little girl "sees" roaming its halls...before the murderous force residing there makes them both its next victims.
©2009 Wendy Corsi Staub (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers
Women's Work
Summary
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019 From National Book Award finalist Megan K. Stack, a stunning memoir of raising her children abroad with the help of Chinese and Indian women who are also working mothers When Megan Stack was living in Beijing, she left her prestigious job as a foreign correspondent to have her first child and work from home writing a book. She quickly realized that caring for a baby and keeping up with the housework while her husband went to the office each day was consuming the time she needed to write. This dilemma was resolved in the manner of many upper-class families and large corporations: she availed herself of cheap Chinese labor. The housekeeper Stack hired was a migrant from the countryside, a mother who had left her daughter in a precarious situation to earn desperately needed cash in the capital. As Stack's family grew and her husband's job took them to Delhi, a series of Chinese and Indian women cooked, cleaned, and babysat in her home. Stack grew increasingly aware of the brutal realities of their lives: domestic abuse, alcoholism, unplanned pregnancies. Hiring poor women had given her the ability to work while raising her children, but what ethical compromise had she made? Determined to confront the truth, Stack traveled to her employees' homes, met their parents and children, and turned a journalistic eye on the tradeoffs they'd been forced to make as working mothers seeking upward mobility - and on the cost to the children who were left behind. Women's Work is an unforgettable story of four women as well as an electrifying meditation on the evasions of marriage, motherhood, feminism, and privilege.
©2019 Megan K. Stack (P)2019 Random House Audio
All the Greys on Greene Street
Summary
"A dazzling debut novel about resilience, courage, home and family." (Rebecca Stead, Newbery Award-winning author of When You Reach Me) SoHo, 1981. Twelve-year-old Olympia is an artist - and in her neighborhood, that's normal. Her dad and his business partner Apollo bring antique paintings back to life, while her mother makes intricate sculptures in a corner of their loft, leaving Ollie to roam the streets of New York with her best friends Richard and Alex, drawing everything that catches her eye. Then everything falls apart. Ollie's dad disappears in the middle of the night, leaving her only a cryptic note and instructions to destroy it. Her mom has gone to bed, and she's not getting up. Apollo is hiding something, Alex is acting strange, and Richard has questions about the mysterious stranger he saw outside. And someone keeps calling, looking for a missing piece of art.... Olympia knows her dad is the key - but first, she has to find him, and time is running out. Lauded by critics in five-star reviews, All the Greys on Greene Street has been called "a remarkable debut" and "a triumph."
©2019 Laura Tucker (P)2019 Listening Library
Toil and Trouble
Summary
From New York Times and USA Today best-selling fantasy romance author, HP Mallory, comes The Jolie Wilkins series! “H.P. Mallory has a quick wit, a fresh voice, and a clever way with words. If you like Charlaine Harris, you’ll love H.P. Mallory!” (Larissa Lone, New York Times Best-selling Vampire Romance Series Author) If you like your books steamy (this is a paranormal romance series for adults, not for kids or teens!) and you appreciate a good witch, warlock and vampire romance triangle, listen on! Toil And Trouble is the second book in the Jolie Wilkins series (witch romance books). The Underworld in civil war. The cause? A witch who can reanimate the dead. A sexy as sin vampire determined to claim her. An infuriatingly handsome warlock torn between duty and love. Who says blonds have more fun? After defending herself against fairy magic, Jolie Wilkins wakes to find her world turned upside down - the creatures of the Underworld on the precipice of war. The Underworld is polarized in a battle of witch against witch, creature against creature, led by the villainous Bella, who would be Queen. While Jolie has one goal in mind - to stake the vampire who nearly killed her - she also must choose between the affections of her warlock employer, Rand, and the mysteriously sexy vampire, Sinjin. And as if that weren’t enough to ruin a girl’s day, everything Jolie knows will be turned inside out when she’s thrust into the shock of a lifetime.
©2010 H. P. Mallory (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Last to Know
Summary
Townsend Heights is the perfect small town, just the kind of place Tasha Banks longed for when she left her big-city career for full-time motherhood. But now her dream is turning into a nightmare as a serial killer stalks Tasha's friends. One by one they are dying in horrific ways, and terror is transforming her peaceful existence into one of fear and foreboding...where evil lurks behind the mask of a familiar face - a face that may be the last one Tasha ever sees.
©2001 Wendy Corsi Staub (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers
All Unquiet Things
Summary
Carly: She was sweet. Smart. Self-destructive. She knew the secrets of Brighton Day Schools most privileged students. Secrets that got her killed. Neily: Dumped by Carly for a notorious bad boy, Neily didnt answer the phone call she made before she died. If he had, maybe he could have helped her. Now he can't get the image of her lifeless body out of his mind. Audrey: Shes the reason Carly got tangled up with Brighton's fast crowd in the first place, and now she regrets it - especially since she's convinced the police have put the wrong person in jail. Audrey thinks the murderer is someone at Brighton, and she wants Neily to help her find out who it is. As reluctant allies Neily and Audrey dig into their shared past with Carly, her involvement with Brighton's dark goings-on comes to light. But figuring out how Carly and her killer fit into the twisted drama will force Audrey and Neily to face hard truths about themselves and the girl they couldnt save.
©2009 Anna Jarzab (P)2009 Listening Library
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth
Summary
A debut short story collection in the tradition of writers like Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, and George Saunders - strange, imaginative, and refreshingly original - now on audio as part of Ecco’s Art of the Story Series, and with a new introduction from the author. Kevin Wilson’s characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. “Grand Stand-In” is narrated by an employee of the Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider - a company that supplies “stand-ins” for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents. And in “Blowing Up on the Spot”, a story singled out by Ann Patchett for Ploughshares, a young woman works sorting tiles at a Scrabble factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted. Southern gothic at its best, laced with humor and pathos, these wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways we try to cope with both.
©2009 Kevin Wilson (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
The Stories You Tell
Summary
The Stories You Tell is Shamus Award-winning and Anthony and Macavity Award-nominated author Kristen Lepionka's heart-pounding third novel that will keep listeners on the edge of their seats with her signature twists and mile-high stakes. A late-night phone call is never good news, especially when you're Roxane Weary. This one is from her brother Andrew, whose evening was interrupted by an urgent visit from Addison, a hip young DJ and one-time fling, who turns up at his apartment scared and begging to use his phone. She leaves as quickly as she appeared, but now Andrew is worried - especially when Addison never makes it home and her friends and family demand to know where she is. As the police begin to suspect that something may have happened to Addison, and that Andrew is involved, Roxane tracks Addison's digital footprint as she goes deeper and deeper into the events preceding her disappearance. Meanwhile, a cop is found dead on the opposite side of town, leading to a swirl of questions surrounding a dance club whose staff - which includes Addison - has suddenly gone AWOL. As Roxane struggles to distinguish the truth from the stories people tell about themselves online, it's clear that the mystery of Addison's whereabouts is just the beginning.
©2019 Kristen Lepionka (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Doctor's Redemption
Summary
Gwen Bailey has been busy taking care of everyone but herself. After a tragedy tore her family apart, she put her dreams aside to be with family. Now that her life is getting back on track and her new Chocolaterie is open, she can concentrate on snagging the handsome, mysterious customer who has her dreaming about her own happily-ever-after.... Doctor Luke Thomson has spent the last five years filled with guilt. He hopes to make amends in Shadow Creek; however, he doesn't count on falling for the adorable and gorgeous Gwen Bailey. He vows to not get involved with her, but she's too sweet to resist. It's only a matter of time, though, before the truth comes out. Luke knows there's no way Gwen will look at him the same way once she discovers his secret....
©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Becoming a Baker
Summary
An illuminating guide to a career as a baker, written by acclaimed journalist Glynnis MacNicol and based on the real-life experiences of an expert in the field - essential listening for someone considering a path to this challenging, yet rewarding profession. Go behind the scenes and be mentored by the best to find out what it’s really like, and what it really takes, to become a baker. Esteemed journalist Glynnis MacNicol takes listeners to the front counters of bakeries and cafes to offer a candid portrait of modern baking. MacNicol shadows Mary Louise Clemens, the owner and head baker of Ladybird Bakery in Brooklyn, to reveal how bakers work and how they stand out in a neighborhood, community, and city. In Becoming a Baker, MacNicol reveals the path to becoming a baker, from education to the creation of new recipes, from negotiating with suppliers to the possibility of opening a small business. Prepare the legendary “Brooklyn Blackout” cupcakes in Ladybird’s kitchen, shape croissants at the beloved Sea Wolf Bakery in Seattle, and learn why bakers think the Great British Bake-Off has captured our collective imagination. As the food industry changes to meet the 21st century, the role of a baker is becoming more and more central to our lives. For those passionate about nourishment, working with your hands, and the place of locally-owned businesses in communities, this is the most valuable informational interview you’ll ever have - required listening for anyone considering this career.
©2019 Glynnis MacNicol (P)2019 Simon & Schuster Audio
White Elephant
Summary
A turf war between neighbors leads to a small-town crisis in this hilarious, addictive, and sharply observant debut novel. The White Elephant looms large over the quaint suburban town of Willard Park: a gaudy, newly constructed behemoth of a home, it soars over the neighborhood, dwarfing the houses that surround it. When owner Nick Cox cuts down Allison and Ted Millers’ precious red maple - in an effort to make his unsightly property more appealing to buyers - their once serene town becomes a battleground. While tensions between Ted and Nick escalate, other dysfunctions abound: Allison finds herself compulsively drawn to the man who is threatening to upend her quietly organized life. A lawyer with a pot habit and a serious midlife crisis skirts his responsibilities. And in a quest for popularity, a teenage girl gets caught up in a not-so-harmless prank. Newcomers and longtime residents alike begin to clash in conflicting pursuits of the American dream, with trees mysteriously uprooted, fires set, fingers pointed, and lines drawn. White Elephant is an uproarious, tangled-web tale of neighbor hating neighbor (and neighbor falling head over heels for neighbor). Soon, peaceful Willard Park becomes a tinderbox with nowhere to go but up in flames.
©2019 Julia Langsdorf (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers
In a Handful of Dust
Summary
The only thing bigger than the world is fear. Lucy's life by the pond has always been full. She has water and friends, laughter and the love of her adoptive mother, Lynn, who has made sure that Lucy's childhood was very different from her own. Yet it seems Lucy's future is settled already - a house, a man, children, and a water source - and anything more than life by the pond is beyond reach. When disease burns through their community, the once life-saving water of the pond might be the source of what's killing them now. Rumors of desalinization plants in California have lingered in Lynn's mind, and the prospect of a "normal" life for Lucy sets the two of them on an epic journey west to face new dangers: hunger, mountains, deserts, betrayal, and the perils of a world so vast that Lucy fears she could be lost forever, only to disappear in a handful of dust. In this companion to Not a Drop to Drink, Mindy McGinnis thrillingly combines the heart-swelling hope of a journey, the challenges of establishing your own place in the world, and the gripping physical danger of nature in a futuristic frontier.
©2014 Mindy McGinnis (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers
The Door
Summary
The story of a girl whose strange life in a mysterious lighthouse is turned upside down when her mother's murder leads her to a hidden door - and a mission into an alternate world. Hannah Silver has a secret. She can sense things that other people can't, like the cotton-candy smell of a bad sign, or the weightless touch of an approaching storm. Or the warm, smooth voices of people who aren't really there. In the Cliff House, secrets of all kinds float through the air and bounce off the walls. Secrets that have passed from generation to generation - until they suddenly stop. When Hannah finds her mom murdered outside of their lighthouse, she discovers there are secrets even she doesn't know about. Secrets that will take her through a mysterious door - and into an unknown, other world.
©2014 Andy Marino (P)2014 Scholastic Inc.
The Good Sister
Summary
In New York Times best-selling author Wendy Corsi Staub's electrifying new thriller, a mother races to save her daughter before her darkest nightmare comes true. Sacred Sisters Catholic girls' school has hardly changed since Jen Archer was a student. Jen hoped her older daughter would thrive here. Instead, shy and studious Carley becomes the target of vicious bullies. But the real danger at Sacred Sisters goes much deeper. The only person Carley can talk to is "Angel", a kindred spirit she met online. Carley tells Angel everything - about her younger sister, about school, about the sudden death of her former best friend. Angel is her lifeline. And Angel is closer than she knows. When another schoolgirl is found dead, Jen's unease grows. There are too many coincidences, too many links to her past. Every instinct tells her that Carley is the next target. For someone is intent on punishing the guilty, teaching the ultimate lesson in how to fear...and how to die.
©2013 Wendy Corsi Staub (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers
The End of Men
Summary
The novel that inspired the acclaimed Rebecca Miller film Maggie's Plan, starring Julianne Moore, Ethan Hawke, and Greta Gerwig. Isabel, Anna, Beth, and Maggie are women who aren't afraid to take it all. Whether spearheading a pregnancy lingerie company, conspiring to return a husband to his ex-wife, lusting after an old lover while in a satisfying marriage, or trying to balance motherhood and work - they are sexy, determined, and not looking for a simple happily ever after. Through punchy, hilarious, and insightful storytelling, The End of Men shatters the confines of society and, more importantly, those we impose upon ourselves.
©2017 Karen Rinaldi (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers