Bernadette Dunne has narrated 203 audiobooks on Listento.it by 158 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 6,128 ratings. The most-rated is Why We Sleep.
The Falcon Always Wings Twice
Summary
A new side-splitting Meg Langslow mystery from award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of Terns of Endearment. When Meg's grandmother, Cordelia, hosts a Renaissance Faire at her craft center, the whole family is put to work: Meg handles the blacksmithing, Michael and the boys will be performing, and no one misses the opportunity to dress up in full regalia. More exciting to Grandfather is the pair of rare falcons he discovers breeding at the fairgrounds. Concerned for their well-being amid all the activity, he appoints himself their protector. When one of the actors performing at the fair is found dead - an actor suspected of mistreating one of the falcons, among other sins - Grandfather is a prime suspect. Donna Andrews’s long-running Meg Langslow series continues to be beloved by its fans, who loyally listen to every new installment. The Falcon Always Wings Twice is a perfect new addition, full of laughter, adventure, and Andrews's wonderful cast of wacky characters. A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books
©2020 Donna Andrews (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
Fall of a Philanderer
Summary
In the summer of 1924, the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher is off on a holiday by the sea with her step-daughter Belinda, Belinda's chum Deva, and Daisy's husband, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. Daisy is anticipating a relaxing, nondramatic holiday. But Daisy doesn't have that kind of luck. It seems that a low-rent Don Juan has been busily seducing the local womenfolk, and, in a town this small, no secret is kept for long. When the Fletchers' picnic is interrupted by the discovery of a broken body at the foot of the cliff, that of the philandering local innkeeper, the unflappable Daisy Dalrymple finds herself embroiled in a mystery. In the continuation of her popular series, Carola Dunn vividly evokes the life and times of 1920s England, wrapped in a classic mystery to delight her many fans.
©2005 Carola Dunn (P)2006 Blackstone Audiobooks
Rosemary
Summary
They were the most prominent American family of the 20th century. The daughter they secreted away made all the difference. Joe and Rose Kennedy's strikingly beautiful daughter, Rosemary, attended exclusive schools, was presented as a debutante to the queen of England, and traveled the world with her high-spirited sisters. And yet Rosemary was intellectually disabled - a secret fiercely guarded by her powerful and glamorous family. Major new sources - Rose Kennedy's diaries and correspondence, school and doctors' letters, and exclusive family interviews - bring Rosemary to life as a girl adored but left far behind by her competitive siblings. Kate Larson reveals both the sensitive care Rose and Joe gave to Rosemary and then, as the family's standing reached an apex, the often desperate and duplicitous arrangements the Kennedys made to keep her away from home as she became increasingly intractable in her early 20s. Finally, Larson illuminates Joe's decision to have Rosemary lobotomized at age 23 and the family's complicity in keeping the secret. Rosemary delivers a profoundly moving coda: JFK visited Rosemary for the first time while campaigning in the Midwest; she had been living isolated in a Wisconsin institution for nearly 20 years. Only then did the siblings understand what had happened to Rosemary and bring her home for loving family visits. It was a reckoning that inspired them to direct attention to the plight of the disabled, transforming the lives of millions.
©2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2015 Blackstone Audiobooks
Murder with Peacocks
Summary
Meg Langslow's summer is not going swimmingly. In her small Virginia hometown, she's the maid of honor at the nuptials of three loved ones - each of whom has dumped the planning in her hands. One bride is set on including a Native American herbal purification ceremony while another wants live peacocks on the lawn. Only help from the town's drop-dead gorgeous hunk keeps Meg afloat in a sea of relatives and outrageous neighbors. But when an offensive newcomer, who hints at skeletons in the guests' closets, is found dead under suspicious circumstances, level-headed Meg's to-do list extends from flower arrangements and bridal registries to catching a killer - before the next event is her own funeral.
©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC
To Sail Beyond the Sunset
Summary
Maureen Johnson, the somewhat irregular mother of Lazarus Long, wakes up in bed with a man and a cat. The cat is Pixel, well-known to fans of the New York Times best seller The Cat Who Walks through Walls. The man is a stranger to her, and besides that, he is dead. So begins Robert A. Heinlein’s To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Filled with the master’s most beloved characters, this compelling work broadens and enriches his epic vision of time and space, life and death, love and desire. It is also an autobiographical masterpiece—and a wondrous return to the alternate universes that all Heinlein fans have come to know and love.
©1987 Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein, trustees (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Face of War
Summary
Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) was a war correspondent for nearly 50 years. From the Spanish Civil War in 1937 through the wars in Central America in the mid-'80s, her candid reports reflected her feelings for people no matter what their political ideologies, and the openness and vulnerability of her conscience. "I wrote very fast, as I had to," she says, "afraid that I would forget the exact sound, smell, words, gestures, which were special to this moment and this place." Whether in Java, Finland, the Middle East, or Vietnam, she used the same vigorous approach. Collected here together for the first time, The Face of War is what The New York Times called "a brilliant anti-war book".
©1936, 1937, 1938, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1959, 1966, 1967, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 Martha Gellhorn. The reports on the War in Spain, the War in Finland, the War in China, and the First World War first appeared in Collier's; the report on the War in Java appeared in The Saturday Evening Post; "The Paths of Glory" in Collier's; "They Talked of Peace" in The New Republic; "Suffer the Little Children" in Ladies' Home JournaI; the reports on the War in Vietnam and the Six Day War were published in The Guardian (London), and the articles on Wars in Central America in The New Statesman (London). Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Many-Colored Land
Summary
This is a spellbinding tale woven of equal parts epic and myth - with a liberal dash of hard science fiction. When a one-way time tunnel to Earth’s distant past, specifically six million B.C., was discovered by folks on the Galactic Milieu, every misfit for light-years around hurried to pass through it. Each sought his own brand of happiness. But none could have guessed what awaited them. Not even in a million years. In the early 22nd century, many humans are being born with psychic powers and are linked in a single galactic mind. Those without these psychic powers - the misfits, undesirables, criminals, and radicals - have a choice: mental reprogramming or exile. Exile, voluntary or otherwise, takes them back six million years, to a time between the extinction of dinosaurs and the rise of Homo sapiens, and to a time of exotic surprises and unknown dangers. Julian May lives in Washington state and has been writing science fiction and fantasy for more than 30 years.
©1981 Julian May (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
No Nest for the Wicket
Summary
The hilly terrain next to the old Sprocket house that Meg Langslow and her fiancé, Michael, are refurbishing is the perfect location for an extreme croquet field - even the legs of cows and sheep are convenient extra wickets. Croquet has become all the rage in Caerphilly...until it appears someone in town has taken the rage a bit too literally. While stumbling down a steep bank after her ball, Meg encounters the body of a fresh female corpse with a mallet-sized dent in her head. If that isn't reason enough to call a timeout, it turns out that Michael knew the woman from years before. Ever curious, Meg decides that playing armchair sleuth is far more important than working on her game.
©2016 Donna Andrews (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Murder with Puffins
Summary
Meg Langslow and her boyfriend, Michael, are searching for some romantic alone time. She knows the perfect place for a private getaway: her aunt's cottage on the tiny island of Monhegan. But when a series of events leads to the couple being trapped in the cottage with her entire family, their private getaway vacation slowly turns into a disaster. Meg doesn't think anything more could go wrong until a resident of the island with close ties to her mother is murdered. When her father becomes the chief suspect, she knows she can no longer sit by the cozy fireplace. In a dash to save her father and her weekend, Meg finds herself knee deep in murder once again.
©2006 Donna Andrews (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Six Geese a-Slaying
Summary
Meg Langslow and Michael's house is serving as the marshalling point for the annual Caerphilly holiday parade. The theme is the 12 Days of Christmas, and it features 12 drummers from the school's marching band, 11 bagpipers, 10 leaping lords costumed in medieval finery from the college's drama department, and so on. There are also assorted floats, a live nativity scene on a flatbed truck, the three wise men on Caerphilly Zoo camels, and Santa in a bright-red horse-drawn sleigh. As the organizer, Meg's job is already hard enough, but when her nephew Eric, wide-eyed and ashen-faced, whispers, "Something's wrong with Santa...", things take a tragic turn. It turns out that the local curmudgeon, whose beard and belly made him a natural for the role, has been murdered. Now it's up to Meg and Chief Burke, who is playing one of the wise men, to tackle a twofold mission: solve the murder and save Christmas.
©2008 Donna Andrews (P)2017 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Hostage Moon
Summary
Everything can change in a heartbeat.Hunter Roswell thought she had left her past behind. But her carefully structured world starts to fall apart when a serial killer connected to her past emerges from the shadows and begins stalking her. Already responsible for the deaths of five women, the killer now has Hunter firmly in his sights. And he’s picked a target date - the night of October’s full moon - also known as the blood moon or hunter’s moon. Sara Wilder, a psychologist and former FBI profiler, is brought in to help Hunter unravel the connection between her past and a ruthless killer. But as the search for the killer intensifies, both women find themselves struggling with an unexpected and undeniably mutual attraction. In a race against time, can they survive a killer who is willing to use anything - even love - to further his own agenda?
©2011 A.J. Quinn (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
The Sharing Knife, Volume 2
Summary
Filled with magic, heroism, and all-too-human characters, Bujold's Sharing Knife saga is both a gripping adventure and a poignant romance. In this second volume, Fawn Bluefield, the clever farm girl, and Dag Redwing Hickory, the seasoned Lakewalker soldier-sorcerer, are newly married. Their arrival at Dag's home on Hickory Lake Camp is met with prejudice and suspicion, as many in the camp deny the literal bond between Dag and Fawn, woven in blood in the Lakewalker magical way. Then Dag is called away by an unexpected and vicious malice attack on a neighboring hinterland, threatening Lakewalkers and farmers both. What his patrol discovers there will not only change Dag and his new bride but will call into question the uneasy relationship between their peoples - and may even offer hope of a less divided future.
©2007 Lois McMaster Bujold (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.
The Pursuit of the Pankera
Summary
The Pursuit of the Pankera is one of the most audacious experiments ever done in science fiction by the legendary author of the classic best seller Starship Troopers. Robert A. Heinlein wrote The Number of the Beast, which was published in 1980. In the book Zeb, Deety, Hilda, and Jake are ambushed by the alien "Black Hats" and barely escape with their lives on a specially configured vehicle (the Gay Deceiver) which can travel along various planes of existence, allowing them to visit parallel universes. However, unknown to most fans, Heinlein had already written a "parallel" novel about the four characters and parallel universes in 1977. He effectively wrote two parallel novels about parallel universes. The novels share the same start, but as soon as the Gay Deceiver is used to transport them to a parallel universe, each book transports them to a totally different parallel world. From that point on the plot lines diverge completely. While The Number of the Beast morphs into something very different, more representative of later Heinlein works, The Pursuit of the Pankera remains on target with a much more traditional Heinleinesque storyline and ending, reminiscent of his earlier works. The Pursuit of the Pankera was never published, and there have been many competing theories as to why (including significant copyright issues in 1977). Over time the manuscript was largely forgotten but survived in fragments. A recent re-examination of these fragments, however, made it clear that they constitute the complete novel. And here it finally is: Robert A. Heinlein's audacious experiment. A fitting farewell from one of the most inventive science fiction writers to have ever lived: a parallel novel about parallel universes, as well as a great adventure pitting the forces of good versus evil only the way Heinlein could do.
©2020 Robert A. Heinlein (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon
Summary
Poor Meg Langslow. She's blessed in so many ways. Michael, her boyfriend, is a handsome, delightful heartthrob who adores her. She's a successful blacksmith, known for her artistic wrought-iron creations. But somehow Meg's road to contentment is more rutted and filled with potholes than seems fair. There are Michael's and Meg's doting but demanding mothers, for a start. And then there's the fruitless hunt for a place big enough for the couple to live together. And a succession of crises brought on by the well-meaning but utterly wacky demands of her friends and family. Demands that Meg has a hard time refusing, which is why she's tending the switchboard of Mutant Wizards, where her brother's computer games are created, and handling all the office management problems that no one else bothers with. For companionship, besides a crew of eccentric techies, she has a buzzard with one wing, who she must feed frozen mice thawed in the office microwave, and Michael's mother's nightmare dog. Not to mention the psychotherapists who refuse to give up their lease on half of the office space, and whose conflicting therapies cause continuing dissension. This is not what Meg had in mind when she agreed to help her brother move his staff to new offices. In fact, the atmosphere is so consistently loony that the office mail cart makes several passes through the reception room, with the office practical joker lying on top of it pretending to be dead, before Meg realizes that he's become the victim of someone who wasn't joking at all. He's been murdered for real. Donna Andrews's debut book, Murder with Peacocks, won the St. Martin's Malice Domestic best first novel contest and reaped a harvest of other honors as well. This is the fourth book in the Meg Langslow series, which features the intrepid Meg and her cast of oddball relatives. Their capers are a lighthearted joy to read.
©2003 Donna Andrews (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.
The Gift of the Magpie
Summary
An AudioFile Earphones Award-winning production. New York Times best-selling author Donna Andrews returns with another Meg Langslow mystery crafted "firmly in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie's Christmas books" (Toronto Globe and Mail). The 28th audiobook and the seventh Christmas mystery in the Meg Langslow series, The Gift of the Magpie is yet another wonderfully merry and funny book from New York Times best-selling author Donna Andrews. Meg’s running Caerphilly’s Helping Hands for the Holidays project, in which neighbors help each other with things they can’t do and can’t afford to have done. Her hopes for a relatively peaceful (if busy) Christmas vanish when someone murders Harvey the Hoarder, whose house the Helping Hands were decluttering. Was there any truth to the rumor that he had something valuable hidden beneath all his junk? Was one of his friends, neighbors, or relatives greedy enough to murder him for the rumored treasure? And what about the magpie that has been bringing her family bits of tinsel and costume jewelry - does the bird’s latest gift hold a clue to solving the crime? Full of intrigue, this Christmas mystery will take listeners home to Caerphilly, where the suspense falls as thick as the snow. A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books
©2020 Donna Andrews (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
How the Finch Stole Christmas!
Summary
Meg's husband has decided to escalate his one-man show of Dickens's A Christmas Carol into a full-scale production with a large cast including their sons Jamie and Josh as Tiny Tim and young Scrooge and Meg helping as stage manager. When a famous, although slightly over-the-hill, actor comes to town to play the starring role of Scrooge, no one expects that he's bringing a lot of baggage and enemies with him. Like Andrews' previous Christmas books Six Geese a-Slaying, Duck the Halls, and The Nightingale Before Christmas, How the Finch Stole Christmas! is guaranteed to put the ho ho hos into the holidays of cozy lovers everywhere with its gut-bustingly funny mystery.
©2017 Donna Andrews (P)2017 Dreamscape Media, LLC
In Praise of Difficult Women
Summary
From Frida Kahlo and Elizabeth Taylor to Nora Ephron, Carrie Fisher, and Lena Dunham, this witty narrative explores what we can learn from the imperfect and extraordinary legacies of 29 iconic women who forged their own unique paths in the world. Smart, sassy, and unapologetically feminine, In Praise of Difficult Women is an ode to the bold and charismatic women of modern history. Best-selling author Karen Karbo spotlights the spirited rule breakers who charted their way with little regard for expectations: Amelia Earhart, Helen Gurley Brown, Edie Sedgwick, Hillary Clinton, Amy Poehler, and Shonda Rhimes, among others. Their lives - imperfect, elegant, messy, glorious - provide inspiration and instruction for the new age of feminism we have entered. Karbo distills these lessons with wit and humor, examining the universal themes that connect us to each of these mesmerizing personalities today: success and style, love and authenticity, daring and courage. Being "difficult," Karbo reveals, might not make life easier, but it can make it more fulfilling-whatever that means for you.
©2018 Karen Karbo (P)2018 Blackstone Publishing
Requiem for a Mezzo
Summary
With dashing Scotland Yard Inspector Alec Fletcher at her side, Daisy is enjoying a delightful performance of Verdi's Requiem, featuring her neighbor Muriel Westlea's celebrated sister, Bettina. But when all that emerges from the doomed diva's vocal chords is a dying gasp, Daisy soon discovers that the notoriously difficult opera star had her share of adversaries; among them a smugly philandering tenor, a burly Russian bass, and even her own vocal coach husband, with whom she shared a hardly harmonious marriage. Did one of them fatally poison the acclaimed mezzo? Or is someone else determined to see that Daisy's investigation ends on as bitter a note as Bettina's fateful last performance?
©1996 Carola Dunn (P)2006 Blackstone Audio Inc
Son of Khyber
Summary
Thorn infiltrates a gang of criminals with special powers - aberrant dragonmarks - trying to gain information on their leader, the enigmatic Son of Khyber. But when her orders and her experiences contradict each other, Thorn starts listening to what the Son of Khyber has to say. Featuring characters from Baker’s popular Dreaming Dark Trilogy that return to challenge Thorn, the creator of the world of Eberron returns with a series that has all the smarts and action of a spy thriller, with the magic and depth of world only fantasy can create. There’s something here for every fan!
©2009 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
The Romantic Manifesto
Summary
In this beautifully written and brilliantly reasoned collection of essays, Ayn Rand throws new light on the nature of art and its purpose in human life. Once again, Rand demonstrates her bold originality and her refusal to let conventional ideas define her sense of the truth.
Rand eloquently asserts that one cannot create art without infusing it with one's own value judgments and personal philosophy - even an attempt to withhold moral overtones only results in a deterministic or naturalistic message. Because the moral influence of art is inescapable, she argues, art should always strive to elevate the human spirit.
The Romantic Manifesto takes its place beside The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as one of the most important achievements of our time.
©1971 The Objectivist, Inc. (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.