Cassandra Campbell has narrated 565 audiobooks on Listento.it by 493 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 19,477 ratings. The most-rated is Where the Crawdads Sing.
Harvesting the Heart
Summary
Jodi Picoult earned rave notices for her debut novel Songs of the Humpback Whale. Now this gifted young writer turns her considerable literary talents to the story of a young woman overcome by the demands of having a family. Written with astonishing clarity and evocative detail, convincing in its depiction of emotional pain, love, and vulnerability, Harvesting the Heart recalls the writing of Alice Hoffman and Sue Miller. Paige has only a few vivid memories of her mother, who left when she was five. Now, having left her father behind in Chicago for dreams of art school and marriage to an ambitious young doctor, she finds herself with a child of her own. But her mother's absence, and shameful memories of her past, make her doubt both her maternal ability and her sense of self worth. Out of Paige's struggle to find wholeness, Jodi Picoult crafts an absorbing novel peopled by richly drawn characters and explores issues and emotions readers can relate to.
©1995 Jodi Picoult (P)2008 Penguin
Little Eyes
Summary
Longlisted for the 2020 Man Booker International Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year "Her most unsettling work yet - and her most realistic." (New York Times) Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Vulture, Bustle, Refinery29, and Thrillist A visionary novel about our interconnected present, about the collision of horror and humanity, from a master of the spine-tingling tale. They've infiltrated homes in Hong Kong, shops in Vancouver, the streets of in Sierra Leone, town squares in Oaxaca, schools in Tel Aviv, bedrooms in Indiana. They're everywhere. They're here. They're us. They're not pets, or ghosts, or robots. They're real people, but how can a person living in Berlin walk freely through the living room of someone in Sydney? How can someone in Bangkok have breakfast with your children in Buenos Aires, without your knowing? Especially when these people are completely anonymous, unknown, unfindable. The characters in Samanta Schweblin's brilliant new novel, Little Eyes, reveal the beauty of connection between far-flung souls - but yet they also expose the ugly side of our increasingly linked world. Trusting strangers can lead to unexpected love, playful encounters, and marvelous adventure, but what happens when it can also pave the way for unimaginable terror? This is a story that is already happening; it's familiar and unsettling because it's our present and we're living it, we just don't know it yet. In this prophecy of a story, Schweblin creates a dark and complex world that's somehow so sensible, so recognizable, that once it's entered, no one can ever leave.
©2020 Samanta Schweblin (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Woman No. 17
Summary
"A juice box of suburban satire laced with Alfred Hitchcock” (The Washington Post) - a novel of art, motherhood, and the intensity of female friendships, set in the posh hills above Los Angeles, from the New York Times best-selling author of California. Named one of the best books of the year by: The Washington Post The Boston Globe San Francisco Chronicle New York Observer Huffington Post The Millions Nylon Vulture Bustle High in the Hollywood Hills, Lady Daniels has separated from her husband. She’s going to need help with their toddler son if she’s going to finish the memoir she can’t stand writing. From a Craigslist ad, she hires S, a magnetic young artist, to live in the guesthouse behind the pool, take care of Lady’s young son, and keep an eye on her older, teenage one. S performs her job beautifully and quickly draws the entire family into her orbit - but she isn’t exactly who she seems. As Lady and S grow closer, old secrets and new betrayals come to light, jeopardizing what they hold most dear. Praise for Woman No. 17: “Woman No. 17 is propulsive and moving, and considers vital questions with empathy and sly intelligence.... A winning novel.” (The New York Times Book Review) “Lepucki’s exploration of personal relationships takes on an increasingly noirish tone: Much like Chekhov’s gun, a swimming pool introduced early in the book takes on the shadows of a floating body long before the reader realizes this might be a possibility.” (Elle) “Edan Lepucki’s Woman No. 17 is part family melodrama, part twisty self-reflection.... Very funny.” (GQ) “While Woman No. 17 does possess all the trappings of a frothy page-turner - stormy arguments, showy melodrama, and (oops!) an affair - there are some quiet, serious moments, too. It’s the intersection between the two that makes this read both scintillating and thought-provoking.” (San Francisco Chronicle)
©2017 Edan Lepucki (P)2017 Random House Audio
A Tangle of Gold
Summary
For fans of Lev Grossman and Deborah Harkness, this funny, suspenseful, and totally original fantasy comes to its brilliantly colorful conclusion.
Cello is in crisis. Princess Ko's deception of her people has emerged, and the Kingdom is outraged: The Jagged Edge Elite have taken control, placing the Princess and two members of the Royal Youth Alliance under arrest and ordering their execution; the King's attempts to negotiate their release have failed. Color storms are rampant, and nobody has heard the Cello wind blowing in months.
Meanwhile, Madeleine fears she's about to lose the Kingdom of Cello forever. Plans are in place to bring the remaining Royals home, and after that all communication between Cello and the World will cease. That means she'll also lose Elliot, now back in Cello and being held captive by a branch of Hostiles. And there's nothing he can do to help his friends unless he can escape the Hostile compound.
Worlds apart and with time running out, Madeleine and Elliot find themselves on a collision course to save the Kingdom they love - and maybe even save each other.
©2016 Jaclyn Moriarty (P)2016 Scholastic Inc.
Weather
Summary
"What are you afraid of, he asks me and the answer of course is dentistry, humiliation, scarcity, then he says what are your most useful skills? People think I'm funny." Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practise her other calling: as an unofficial shrink. For years, she has supported her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but then her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. Sylvia has become famous for her prescient podcast, 'Hell and High Water', and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right wingers worried about the decline of western civilization. As she dives into this polarized world, she begins to wonder what it means to keep tending your own garden once you've seen the flames beyond its walls. When her brother becomes a father and Sylvia a recluse, Lizzie is forced to acknowledge the limits of what she can do. But if she can't save others, then what, or who, might save her? And all the while the voices of the city keep floating in - funny, disturbing, and increasingly mad.
©2020 Jenny Offill (P)2020 Jenny Offill
Stress: The Psychology of Managing Pressure
Summary
Covering sources of stress in every area of life: work, exams, relationships, social pressure, money, and more, this practical audio guide incorporates self-analysis questionnaires to make information easy to access and apply. This dynamic program, founded on cutting-edge psychological research, enables you to deconstruct and deal with stress head-on. Stress: The Psychology of Managing Pressure helps you identify external and internal sources of stress in your life and reframe unhelpful patterns of thought into powerful psychological solutions that you can apply every day. Underpinned by psychological theory, with relevant findings from psychologists, doctors, and teachers, this audiobook will help you smash the shadow of stress in any area of your life and emerge happier, healthier, and more productive.
©2019 DK (P)2019 Random House Audio
Serafina and the Seven Stars
Summary
Fierce battles have given way to tranquility at Biltmore Estate. Who is Serafina if not the protector of her beloved home? Our heroine must confront deceptively dark and terrifying forces in this return to Robert Beatty's number one best-selling Serafina series. Serafina makes an epic return in the fourth installment of Robert Beatty's number one New York Times best-selling series. Peace and tranquility have finally returned to Biltmore Estate after hard-won battles against encroaching darkness. But as time passes without signs of danger, Serafina finds herself questioning her own purpose. Who is she if not Biltmore's protector? When a pure-white fawn emerges from the estate's lake, Braeden is quick to befriend the mysterious creature and nurse it back to health. But Serafina feels ill at ease around the fawn, and she is quick to suspect a connection when unsettling events take place at Biltmore. Is Serafina merely desperate to once again play the role of heroine? Or is her home in terrible danger from a strange and sinister force?
©2019 Robert Beatty (P)2019 Listening Library
Kill the King
Summary
From the internationally best-selling thriller writer who has been compared to Thomas Harris, the third and final novel in the Caselli and Torre Series - a web of betrayals and shocking violence in which the series’ brilliant detectives must, if they want to live, figure out what is real and what is imagined.
Reeling from a deadly bombing in Venice and her investigative partner Dante’s disappearance, Detective Colomba Caselli retreats to the rural countryside outside Rome to nurse her wounds. When an apparently autistic teenager appears in her yard, covered in blood, he leads her to a brutal crime scene where nothing is what it seems. As Colomba gets pulled into the investigation and the body count continues to grow, she is implicated in the violence. She is convinced that a powerful villain is working in the shadows to cause the carnage and frame her, but the only person who can help her is Dante - and he hasn’t been seen in over a year and is presumed dead. Colomba is sure he’s alive and out there somewhere, but will she find him before it’s too late? And can she clear her name and be free of the far-reaching legacy of the villain known as the Father...
Bursting with action, ingeniously plotted, and filled with one unexpected twist after another, Kill the King is a shocking and satisfying conclusion to this breathtakingly original crime series.
©2020 Sandrone Dazieri (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio
Smoke
Summary
From the internationally bestselling author Catherine McKenzie comes an evocative tale of two women navigating the secrets and lies at the heart of a wildfire threatening their town. After a decadelong career combating wildfires, Elizabeth has traded in her former life for a quieter one with her husband. Now she works as the local arson investigator in a beautiful, quaint town in the Rockies. But that tranquil life vanishes when she and her husband agree to divorce and a fire in nearby Cooper Basin begins to spread rapidly. For Elizabeth, containing a raging wildfire is easier than accepting that her marriage has failed. For Elizabeth's ex-friend Mindy, who feels disconnected from her husband and teenage children, the fire represents a chance to find a new purpose: helping a man who has lost his home to the blaze. But her faith is shattered by a shocking accusation. As the encroaching inferno threatens the town's residents, Elizabeth and Mindy must discover what will be lost in the fire, and what will be saved.
©2015 Catherine McKenzie (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
The Thinking Mom's Revolution
Summary
The Thinking Moms’ Revolution (TMR) is a group of 23 moms (and one awesome dad) from Montana to Malaysia who all have children with developmental disabilities. Initially collaborating online about therapies, biomedical intervention, alternative medicine, special diets, and doctors on the cutting edge of treatment approaches to an array of chronic and developmental disabilities, such as autism, sensory processing disorders, food allergies, ADHD, asthma, and seizures, they've come together into something far more substantial. Suspecting that some of the main causes may be overused medicines, vaccinations, environmental toxins, and processed foods, they began a mission to help reverse the effects. In the process, they became a tight-knit family dedicated to helping their kids shed their diagnoses. Here, collected by Helen Conroy and Lisa Joyce Goes, are the stories of their fights to recover their kids from autism and related disorders. With each chapter written by a different TMR member, they share how they discovered one another, what they learned from one another, and why it’s important to have close friends who understand what it's like to parent a child with special needs. You'll read about their experiences, and learn how their determination and friendships have become a daily motivation for parents worldwide. The complete list of narrators includes Amanda Carlin, Nicol Zanzarella, and Abby Craden.
©2013 The Thinking Moms’ Revolution LLC (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Serafina and the Twisted Staff
Summary
Serafina's defeat of the Man in the Black Cloak has brought her out of the shadows and into the daylight realm of her home, Biltmore Estate. Every night, she visits her mother in the forest, eager to learn the ways of the catamount. But Serafina finds herself caught between her two worlds: She's too wild for Biltmore's beautifully dressed ladies and formal customs and too human to fully join her kin.
Late one night Serafina encounters a strange and terrifying figure in the forest and is attacked by the vicious wolfhounds that seem to be under his control. Even worse, she's convinced that the stranger was not alone, that he has sent his accomplice into Biltmore in disguise.
Someone is wreaking havoc at the estate. A mysterious series of attacks test Serafina's role as Biltmore's protector, culminating in a tragedy that tears Serafina's best friend and only ally, Braeden Vanderbilt, from her side. Heartbroken, she flees.
Deep in the forest, Serafina comes face-to-face with the evil infecting Biltmore - and discovers its reach is far greater than she'd ever imagined. All the humans and creatures of the Blue Ridge Mountains are in terrible danger. For Serafina to defeat this new evil before it engulfs her beloved home, she must search deep inside herself and embrace the destiny that has always awaited her.
©2016 Robert Beatty (P)2016 Listening Library
Downfall
Summary
A girl with a questionable past. An Alfred Hitchcock movie. And a plan for a double murder conspire for one explosive ride. Emily Covington has turned her life around after a drug addiction, but her family still has trouble trusting her. Though Emily has committed herself to a year-long treatment program and has been sober for almost a year beyond that, even her mother walks on eggshells around her, fearing she’ll relapse. After her behavior during her drug years, Emily realizes she has a lot to prove. When police discover a homemade bomb under Emily’s car, and she then learns the wife of one of her friends was murdered that same morning, she knows things are deadly serious. But who wants her dead? A conversation she had with two men, an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and a plan for a double murder all conspire for one explosive ride...and Emily is the only one who can identify the killer and save the life of the next potential victim. But will anyone believe her? As she frantically works to solve this ever more complicated puzzle and convince the authorities of the truth, Emily finds the focus of the investigation turned back on her. She’s played right into the killer’s hands...and he won’t stop until more lives are destroyed. Full-length suspense Part of the Intervention series: Book One: Intervention Book Two: Vicious Cycle Book Three: Downfall Includes discussion questions for book clubs
©2012 Terri Blackstock (P)2012 Zondervan
Knighthood
Summary
The last war was fought with weapons unimaginable.... A war was fought. Humanity lost. Time for a rematch. The world fell, the invaders won, and demons now ruled what had once been man's domain. The great works of a once powerful civilization lie in ruins, its people having forgotten the wonders of their forefathers as they now live in the yoke. Not everyone is willing to go quietly into the endless night, however, and for every inch of ground they'd won, they had paid in blood and bone. At the end of it all, however, the demons stood victorious and all that was left to accomplish was the final cleanup of the human pests that infested occasional parts of the conquered world. In one nearly uninhabitable part of that world, a very young such pest has come of age and, without understanding what it means, she walks in the shadow of destiny. The demons have a lesson to learn, one last to be taught to them by humans, before they can call this world truly their own. A cleansing fire can start from the smallest of sparks...and it is always darkest just before the dawn.
©2017 Evan Currie (P)2017 Podium Publishing
A Shade of Vampire 16: An End of Night
Summary
The thrilling finale of Rose and Caleb's series! Thanks to Mona's discovery, the residents of The Shade finally understand their enemies' ultimate weakness. But this knowledge will soon be worthless if they lose the race against the black witches. Starting out on what seems like an impossible journey, the Novaks and their closest companions must solve the mystery that is Magnus...and hope not to lose themselves in the process. Twists, turns, danger and secrets. Are you ready for an epic return to The Shade? Buy now! The complete list of narrators includes Kaleo Griffith, Amanda Ronconi, Erin Mallon, Zach Karem, Brittany Pressley, Cassandra Campbell, Will Damron, Jeffrey Kafer, and Nicole Poole.
©2016 Bella Forrest (P)2016 Bella Forrest
Respect Yourself
Summary
The story of Stax Records unfolds like a Greek tragedy. A white brother and sister build a record company that becomes a monument to racial harmony in 1960’s segregated south Memphis. Their success is startling, and Stax soon defines an international sound. Then, after losses both business and personal, the siblings part, and the brother allies with a visionary African-American partner. Under integrated leadership, Stax explodes as a national player until, Icarus-like, they fall from great heights to a tragic demise. Everything is lost, and the sanctuary that flourished is ripped from the ground. A generation later, Stax is rebuilt brick by brick to once again bring music and opportunity to the people of Memphis. Set in the world of 1960s and '70s soul music, Respect Yourself is a story of epic heroes in a shady industry. It’s about music and musicians - Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers, and Booker T. and the M.G.’s, Stax’s interracial house band. It’s about a small independent company’s struggle to survive in a business world of burgeoning conglomerates. And always at the center of the story is Memphis, Tennessee, an explosive city struggling through heated, divisive years. Told by one of our leading music chroniclers, Respect Yourself brings to life this treasured cultural institution and the city that created it.
©2013 Robert Gordon (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Age of American Unreason
Summary
Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon - one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, Jacoby surveys an antirationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought". Disdain for logic and evidence defines a pervasive malaise fostered by the mass media, triumphalist religious fundamentalism, mediocre public education, a dearth of fair-minded public intellectuals on the right and the left, and, above all, a lazy and credulous public. Jacoby offers an unsparing indictment of the American addiction to infotainment - from television to the Web - and cites this toxic dependency as the major element distinguishing our current age of unreason from earlier outbreaks of American anti-intellectualism and antirationalism. With reading on the decline and scientific and historical illiteracy on the rise, an increasingly ignorant public square is dominated by debased media-driven language and received opinion. At this critical political juncture, nothing could be more important than recognizing the "overarching crisis of memory and knowledge" described in this impassioned, tough-minded book, which challenges Americans to face the painful truth about what the flights from reason has cost us as individuals and as a nation.
©2008 Susan Jacoby (P)2008 Tantor
The Glass Universe
Summary
Number-one New York Times best-selling author Dava Sobel returns with the captivating, little-known true story of a group of women whose remarkable contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe. In the mid-19th century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or "human computers", to interpret the observations made via telescope by their male counterparts each night. At the outset this group included the wives, sisters, and daughters of the resident astronomers, but by the 1880s the female corps included graduates of the new women's colleges - Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The "glass universe" of half a million plates that Harvard amassed in this period - thanks in part to the early financial support of another woman, Mrs. Anna Draper, whose late husband pioneered the technique of stellar photography - enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what stars were made of, divided the stars into meaningful categories for further research, and found a way to measure distances across space by starlight. Their ranks included Williamina Fleming, a Scottish woman originally hired as a maid who went on to identify 10 novae and more than 300 variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that was adopted by astronomers the world over and is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard - and Harvard's first female department chair. Elegantly written and enriched by excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs, The Glass Universe is the hidden history of a group of remarkable women who, through their hard work and groundbreaking discoveries, disproved the commonly held belief that the gentler sex had little to contribute to human knowledge.
©2016 Dava Sobel (P)2016 Penguin Audio
Shaded Vision
Summary
"We're the D'Artigo sisters: sexy, savvy ex-operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. But being half-human, half-Fae means our powers could go haywire at any time—mostly the wrong times. My sister Camille is a wicked-good witch with three sexy husbands. My sister Menolly is a vampire who's dating a werepuma. And me? I'm Delilah, a two-faced werecat and Death Maiden. I watch over things in the Super Community, where trouble is about to go down hard. It's Valentine's Day and the D'Artigo women are preparing for their friend Iris's wedding. But when Delilah and her sisters get word that the Super Community Center has been bombed, things get really ugly. The evil coyote shifters—the Koyami—are back, and Newkirk, their new leader, has joined forces with a group of rogue sorcerers. Then, just when it seems things can't get worse, the demon lord Shadow Wing sends in a new front man, and life really goes to hell."
©2012 Yasmine Galenorn (P)2012 Tantor
The Poet Prince
Summary
The Son of Man shall choose/When the time returns for the Poet Prince. He will inspire the hearts and minds of the people/So as to illuminate the path of service/And show them the Way. This is his legacy, This, and to know a very great love. Worldwide controversy surrounds author Maureen Paschal as she promotes her new best seller - the explosive account of her discovery of a gospel written in Jesus's own hand. But a scandalous headline about her lover, Bérenger Sinclair, shatters Maureen's plans and sends her to Florence. In Tuscany, Maureen and Bérenger seek out their spiritual teacher, Destino, who insists the besieged couple study one of history's great Poet Princes: Lorenzo de' Medici, the godfather of the Italian Renaissance. Bérenger is a Poet Prince of the ancient bloodline prophecy, and even across the centuries, his fate is intertwined with Lorenzo de' Medici's. Bérenger must uncover the heretical secrets of the Medici family---and the shocking truth behind the birth of the Renaissance---if he is to fulfill his own destiny. These heretical secrets were hidden for a reason, and there are those who would stop at nothing to prevent Bérenger's assumption of his rightful role. The Renaissance comes vividly to life as Maureen decodes the clues contained within the great masterpieces of Lorenzo the Magnificent's friends: Donatello, Botticelli, and Michelangelo. Maureen uncovers truths connected to the legend of Longinus Gaius, the Roman centurion who pierced the crucified Jesus with his spear. Could Longinus Gaius, doomed to live forever, be someone she knows? Could his infamous Spear of Destiny, sought even by Hitler, be the key to Bérenger's fate? As Maureen and Bérenger race to find the answers, someone is after them, hell-bent on settling a 500-year-old blood feud and destroying the heresy once and for all.
©2010 McGowan Media, Inc. (P)2010 Tantor
God Gave Us Christmas
Summary
ECPA BEST SELLER Over one million copies sold! As Little Cub and her family prepare to celebrate the most special day of the year, the curious young polar bear begins to wonder.... “Who invented Christmas?” Mama’s answer only leads to more questions like “Is God more important than Santa?” So she and Little Cub head off on a polar expedition to find God and to see how he gave them Christmas. Along the way, they find signs that God is at work all around them. Through Mama’s gentle guidance, Little Cub learns about the very first Christmas and discovers that Jesus is the best present of all. This enchanting tale provides the perfect opportunity to help young children celebrate the true meaning of Christmas and to discover how very much God loves them.
©2011 Lisa Tawn Bergren (P)2020 Listening Library