Catherine Ho has narrated 32 audiobooks on Listento.it by 41 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 357 ratings. The most-rated is Ragged Company.
Ragged Company
Summary
Four chronically homeless people - Amelia One Sky, Timber, Double Dick and Digger - seek refuge in a warm movie theater when a severe Arctic front descends on the city. During what is supposed to be a one-time event, this temporary refuge transfixes them. They fall in love with this new world and, once the weather clears, continue their trips to the cinema. On one of these outings they meet Granite, a jaded and lonely journalist who has turned his back on writing “the same story over and over again” in favor of the escapist qualities of film, and an unlikely friendship is struck. A found cigarette package (contents: some unsmoked cigarettes, three $20 bills, and a lottery ticket) changes the fortune of this struggling set. The ragged company discovers they have won $13.5 million, but none of them can claim the money for lack proper identification. Enlisting the help of Granite, their lives, and fortunes, become forever changed. Ragged Company is a journey into both the future and the past, told by an accomplished full cast which includes, in order of appearance: Monique Mojica as AMELIA ONE SKY Benjamin Blais as DIGGER J.D. Nicholsen as TIMBER Douglas Hughes as GRANITE Wesley French as DOUBLE DICK
©2009 Richard Wagamese (P)2019 Anchor Canada
Last Tang Standing
Summary
Crazy Rich Asians meets Bridget Jones's Diary in this funny and irresistible debut novel about the pursuit of happiness, surviving one's 30s intact, and opening oneself up to love. At 33, Andrea Tang is living the dream: She has a successful career as a lawyer, a posh condo, and a clutch of fun-loving friends who are always in the know about Singapore's hottest clubs. All she has to do is make law partner, and her life will be perfect. And if she's about to become the lone unmarried member of her generation in the Tang clan - a disappointment her meddling Chinese Malaysian family won't let her forget - well, she doesn't need a man to complete her. Yet when a chance encounter with charming, wealthy entrepreneur Eric Deng offers her a glimpse of an exciting, limitless future, Andrea decides to give Mr. Right-for-her-family a chance. Too bad Suresh Aditparan, her office rival and the last man her family would approve of, keeps throwing a wrench in her plans. Now, Andrea can't help but wonder: In the endless tug-of-war between pleasing others and pleasing herself, is there room for everyone to win?
©2020 Lauren Ho (P)2020 Penguin Audio
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
Summary
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize Finalist for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize National best seller A National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" Honoree A GOOP Book Club Pick "A fully immersive epic drama packed with narrative riches and exquisitely crafted prose." (San Francisco Chronicle) "Belongs on a shelf all of its own." (NPR) "Outstanding." (The Washington Post) "Arresting, beautiful." (The New York Times) "Revolutionary... A visionary addition to American literature." (Star Tribune) An electric debut novel set against the twilight of the American gold rush, two siblings are on the run in an unforgiving landscape - trying not just to survive but to find a home. Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their Western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future. Both epic and intimate, blending Chinese symbolism and reimagined history with fiercely original language and storytelling, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a haunting adventure story, an unforgettable sibling story, and the announcement of a stunning new voice in literature. On a broad level, it explores race in an expanding country and the question of where immigrants are allowed to belong. But it’s about the memories that bind and divide families, and the yearning for home.
©2020 C Pam Zhang (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Ship of Smoke and Steel
Summary
Ship of Smoke and Steel is the launch of Django Wexler's cinematic, action-packed epic fantasy Wells of Sorcery trilogy. In the lower wards of Kahnzoka, the great port city of the Blessed Empire, 18-year-old ward boss Isoka enforces the will of her criminal masters with the power of Melos, the Well of Combat. The money she collects goes to keep her little sister living in comfort, far from the bloody streets they grew up on. When Isoka's magic is discovered by the government, she's arrested and brought to the Emperor's spymaster, who sends her on an impossible mission: Steal Soliton, a legendary ghost ship - a ship from which no one has ever returned. If she fails, her sister’s life is forfeit. On board Soliton, nothing is as simple as it seems. Isoka tries to get close to the ship's mysterious captain, but to do it, she must become part of the brutal crew and join their endless battles against twisted creatures. She doesn't expect to have to contend with feelings for a charismatic fighter who shares her combat magic, or for a fearless princess who wields an even darker power.
©2019 Django Wexler (P)2019 Recorded Books
Modern Love, Revised and Updated (Media Tie-In)
Summary
The most popular, provocative, and unforgettable essays from the past 15 years of the New York Times "Modern Love" column - including stories from the upcoming anthology series starring Tina Fey, Andy Garcia, Anne Hathaway, Catherine Keener, Dev Patel, and John Slattery A young woman goes through the five stages of ghosting grief. A man’s promising fourth date ends in the emergency room. A female lawyer with bipolar disorder experiences the highs and lows of dating. A widower hesitates about introducing his children to his new girlfriend. A divorcée in her 70s looks back at the beauty and rubble of past relationships. These are just a few of the people who tell their stories in Modern Love, Revised and Updated, featuring dozens of the most memorable essays to run in The New York Times "Modern Love" column since its debut in 2004. Some of the stories are unconventional, while others hit close to home. Some reveal the way technology has changed dating forever; others explore the timeless struggles experienced by anyone who has ever searched for love. But all of the stories are, above everything else, honest. Together, they tell the larger story of how relationships begin, often fail, and - when we’re lucky - endure. Edited by longtime "Modern Love" editor Daniel Jones and featuring a diverse selection of contributors - including Mindy Hung, Trey Ellis, Ann Hood, Deborah Copaken, Terri Cheney, and more - this is the perfect audiobook for anyone who’s loved, lost, stalked an ex on social media, or pined for true romance: In other words, anyone interested in the endlessly complicated workings of the human heart.
©2019 Daniel Jones, Andrew Rannells, Ayelet Waldman, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Veronica Chambers (P)2019 Random House Audio
City of Stone and Silence
Summary
Django Wexler's City of Stone and Silence is the second book in the cinematic fantasy Wells of Sorcery Trilogy featuring a fierce young woman skilled in the art of combat magic on an epic mission to steal a ghost ship. After surviving the Vile Rot, Isoka, Meroe, and the rest of Soliton’s crew finally arrive at Soliton's mysterious destination, the Harbor - a city of great stone ziggurats, enshrouded in a ghostly veil of Eddica magic. And they're not alone. Royalty, monks, and madmen live in a precarious balance, and by night take shelter from monstrous living corpses. None know how to leave the Harbor, but if Isoka can't find a way to capture Soliton and return it to the Emperor's spymaster before a year is up, her sister Tori's life will be forfeit. But there's more to Tori's life back in Kahnzoka than the comfortable luxury Isoka intended for her. By night, she visits the lower wards, risking danger to help run a sanctuary for mage-bloods fleeing the Emperor's iron fist. When she discovers that Isoka is missing, her search takes her deep in the mires of intrigue and revolution. And she has her own secret - the power of Kindre, the Well of Mind, which can bend others to its will. Though she's spent her life denying this brutal magic, Tori will use whatever means she has to with Isoka's fate on the line...
©2020 Django Wexler (P)2020 Recorded Books
Mercy House
Summary
“A life-altering debut featuring fierce, funny, and irreverent women who battle the most powerful institution in the world. This is the book we’ve all been waiting for.” (Amy Schumer) She would stop at nothing to protect the women under her care. Inside a century-old row house in Brooklyn, renegade Sister Evelyn and her fellow nuns preside over a safe haven for the abused and abandoned. Gruff and indomitable on the surface, warm and wry underneath, little daunts Evelyn, until she receives word that Mercy House will be investigated by Bishop Hawkins, a man with whom she shares a dark history. In order to protect everything they’ve built, the nuns must conceal many of their methods, which are forbidden by the Catholic Church. Evelyn will go to great lengths to defend all that she loves. She confronts a gang member, defies the church, challenges her own beliefs, and faces her past. She is bolstered by the other nuns and the vibrant, diverse residents of the shelter - Lucia, Mei-Li, Desiree, Esther, and Katrina - whose differences are outweighed by what unites them: They’ve all been broken by men but are determined to rebuild. Amidst her fight, Evelyn discovers the extraordinary power of mercy and the grace it grants, not just to those who receive it, but to those strong enough to bestow it.
©2020 Alena Dillon (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
Siege of Rage and Ruin
Summary
This is Django Wexler's third book in the cinematic fantasy Wells of Sorcery Trilogy featuring a fierce young woman skilled in the art of combat magic on an epic mission to steal a ghost ship. Isoka has done the impossible - she's captured the ghost ship Soliton. With her crew of mage-bloods, including the love of her life, Princess Meroe, Isoka returns to the empire that sent her on her deadly mission. She's ready to hand over the ghost ship as ransom for her sister Tori's life but arrives to find her home city under siege - and Tori at the helm of a rebellion. Neither Isoka's mastery of combat magic nor Tori's proficiency with mind control could have prepared them for the feelings their reunion surfaces. But they're soon drawn back into the rebels fight to free the city that almost killed them.
©2021 Django Wexler (P)2021 Recorded Books
The Ikessar Falcon
Summary
"Intricate, intimate, and intensely plotted." (Nicholas Eames on The Wolf of Oren-yaro) "The Ikessar Falcon retains the excellent characterization and intrigue of The Wolf of Oren-yaro while expanding both its world and the plot at a head-spinning rate. It does everything the middle book of a trilogy should with an uncommon degree of authorial skill, and is a thoroughly entertaining read in its own right." (BookPage) The stunning sequel to The Wolf of Oren-yaro where the queen of a divided land struggles to unite her people. Even if they despise her. K. S. Villoso is a "powerful new voice in fantasy." (Kameron Hurley) The spiral to madness begins with a single push. Abandoned by her people, Queen Talyien's quest takes a turn for the worst as she stumbles upon a plot deeper and more sinister than she could have ever imagined, one that will displace her king and see her son dead. The road home beckons, strewn with a tangled web of deceit and impossible horrors that unearth the nation's true troubles - creatures from the dark, mad dragons, and men with hearts hungry for power. To save her land, Talyien must confront the myth others have built around her: Warlord Yeshin's daughter, symbol of peace, warrior and queen, and everything she could never be. The price of failure is steep. Her friends are few. And a nation carved by a murderer can only be destined for war. The Chronicles of the Bitch Queen The Wolf of Oren-yaro The Ikessar Falcon
©2018 K. S. Villoso (P)2020 Orbit
Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune
Summary
Lush and visual, chock-full of delicious recipes, Roselle Lim’s magical debut novel is about food, heritage, and finding family in the most unexpected places. At the news of her mother’s death, Natalie Tan returns home. The two women hadn’t spoken since Natalie left in anger seven years ago, when her mother refused to support her chosen career as a chef. Natalie is shocked to discover the vibrant neighborhood of San Francisco’s Chinatown that she remembers from her childhood is fading, with businesses failing and families moving out. She’s even more surprised to learn she has inherited her grandmother’s restaurant. The neighborhood seer reads the restaurant’s fortune in the leaves: Natalie must cook three recipes from her grandmother’s cookbook to aid her struggling neighbors before the restaurant will succeed. Unfortunately, Natalie has no desire to help them try to turn things around - she resents the local shopkeepers for leaving her alone to take care of her agoraphobic mother when she was growing up. But with the support of a surprising new friend and a budding romance, Natalie starts to realize that maybe her neighbors really have been there for her all along.
©2019 Roselle Lim (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Bestiary
Summary
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • Three generations of Taiwanese American women are haunted by the myths of their homeland in this spellbinding, visceral debut about one family’s queer desires, violent impulses, and buried secrets. “Gorgeous and gorgeously grotesque .... Every line of this sensuous, magical-realist marvel is utterly alive.” (O: The Oprah Magazine) LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterward, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother’s letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth - and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny. With a poetic voice of crackling electricity, K-Ming Chang is an explosive young writer who combines the wit and fabulism of Helen Oyeyemi with the subversive storytelling of Maxine Hong Kingston. Tracing one family’s history from Taiwan to America, from Arkansas to California, Bestiary is a novel of migration, queer lineages, and girlhood. Praise for Bestiary “[A] vivid, fabulist debut...the prose is full of imagery. Chang’s wild story of a family’s tenuous grasp on belonging in the U.S. stands out with a deep commitment to exploring discomfort with the body and its transformations.” (Publishers Weekly)
©2020 K-Ming Chang (P)2020 Random House Audio
The Wolf of Oren-Yaro
Summary
"Intimate and epic. It compels you to read on." (Evan Winter, author of The Rage of Dragons) "Villoso's cunning, exciting debut is a new fantasy epic that readers will clamor for." (Library Journal, starred review) From "a powerful new voice in fantasy" (Kameron Hurley) comes the tale of a queen who must unite her divided land, even if she's hated by the very people she's trying to protect. "They called me the Bitch Queen, the she-wolf, because I murdered a man and exiled my king the night before they crowned me." Born under the crumbling towers of her kingdom, Queen Talyien was the shining jewel and legacy of the bloody War of the Wolves. It nearly tore her nation apart. But her arranged marriage to the son of a rival clan heralds peace. However, he suddenly disappears before their reign can begin, and the kingdom is fractured beyond repair. Years later, he sends a mysterious invitation to meet. Talyien journeys across the sea in hopes of reconciling their past. An assassination attempt quickly dashes those dreams. Stranded in a land she doesn't know, with no idea whom she can trust, Talyien will have to embrace her namesake. A Wolf of Oren-yaro is not tamed. "Intricate, intimate, and intensely plotted." (Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the Wyld) The Chronicles of the Bitch Queen The Wolf of Oren-yaro The Ikessar Falcon
©2019 K. S. Villoso (P)2020 Orbit
How to Breathe Underwater
Summary
A New York Times notable book and winner of the Northern California Book Award for Best Short Fiction, these nine brave, wise, and spellbinding stories make up this debut. In "When She Is Old and I Am Famous", a young woman confronts the inscrutable power of her cousin's beauty. In "Note to Sixth-Grade Self", a band of popular girls exert their social power over an awkward outcast. In "Isabel Fish", 14-year-old Maddy learns to scuba dive in order to mend her family after a terrible accident. Alive with the victories, humiliations, and tragedies of youth, How to Breathe Underwater illuminates this powerful territory with striking grace and intelligence.
©2003 Julia Orringer (P)2019 Recorded Books
Home Remedies
Summary
"An urgent and necessary literary voice." (Alexander Chee, Electric Literature) "Tough, luminous stories." (The New York Times Book Review) "Spectacular." (Vogue) A finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Shortlisted for the Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection Winner of the California Book Awards Gold Medal in First Fiction Winner of the John Zacharis First Book Award Longlisted for the Story Prize Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Library Journal Xuan Juliana Wang's remarkable debut introduces us to the new and changing face of Chinese youth. From fuerdai (second-generation rich kids) to a glass-swallowing qigong grandmaster, her dazzling, formally inventive stories upend the immigrant narrative to reveal a new experience of belonging: of young people testing the limits of who they are, in a world as vast and varied as their ambitions. In stories of love, family, and friendship, here are the voices, faces, and stories of a new generation never before captured in fiction. What sets them apart is Juliana Wang’s surprising imagination, able to capture the innermost thoughts of her characters with astonishing empathy, as well as the contradictions of the modern immigrant experience in a way that feels almost universal. Home Remedies is, in the words of Alexander Chee, "the arrival of an urgent and necessary literary voice we’ve been needing, waiting for maybe, without knowing." "A radiant new talent." (Lauren Groff) "These dazzling stories interrogate the fractures, collisions and glorious new alloys of what it means to be a Chinese millennial." (Adam Johnson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Orphan Master’s Son) "Home Remedies doesn’t read like a first collection; like Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, the twelve stories here announce the arrival of an exciting, electric new voice." (Financial Times) "Stylistically ambitious in a way rarely seen in prose fiction.... Writing like this will never stop enlightening us. [Wang’s] voice comes to us from the edge of a new world." (Los Angeles Review of Books)
©2019 Xuan Juliana Wang (P)2019 Random House Audio
Unleashed
Summary
The Golden Compass for the digital age in this action-packed sequel to Jinxed. When Lacey Chu wakes up in a hospital room with no memory of how she got there, she knows something went really wrong. And with her cat baku, Jinx, missing in action and MONCHA, the company behind the invention of the robot pet, threatening her family, she isn't sure who to turn to for answers. When Lacey is expelled and her mom starts acting strangely after the latest update from MONCHA, Lacey and her friends work together to get to the bottom of it and discover a sinister plot at the heart of the corporation. Lacey must use all her skills if she has a chance of stopping MONCHA from carrying out their plans. But can she take on the biggest tech company in North America armed with only a level 1 robot beetle and her friends at her side?
©2019 Amy McCulloch (P)2021 Recorded Books
Ink in the Blood
Summary
Two friends who use tattoo magic to send divine messages must rely on one another to survive when they discover the fake deity they serve is very real - and very angry. A lush, dark YA fantasy debut that weaves together tattoo magic, faith, and eccentric theater in a world where lies are currency and ink is a weapon, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Kendare Blake. Celia Sand and her best friend, Anya Burtoni, are inklings for the esteemed religion of Profeta. Using magic, they tattoo followers with beautiful images that represent the Divine's will and guide the actions of the recipients. It's considered a noble calling, but 10 years into their servitude Celia and Anya know the truth: Profeta is built on lies, the tattooed orders strip away freedom, and the revered temple is actually a brutal, torturous prison. Their opportunity to escape arrives with the Rabble Mob, a traveling theater troupe. Using their inkling abilities for performance instead of propaganda, Celia and Anya are content for the first time...until they realize who followed them. The Divine they never believed in is very real, very angry, and determined to use Celia, Anya, and the Rabble Mob's now-infamous stage to spread her deceitful influence even further. To protect their new family from the wrath of a malicious deity and the zealots who work in her name, Celia and Anya must unmask the biggest lie of all - Profeta itself.
©2020 Jeannette Kim Smeljkal (P)2020 Recorded Books
The Girl Who Drew Butterflies
Summary
Before Carl Linnaeus began classifying organisms, before John James Audubon drew birds from the wild, before Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, there lived a 13-year-old girl named Maria Merian who loved to draw bugs. With a keen eye and deft hand, she rendered soft green caterpillars, papery-winged moths, and the dazzling, intricate beauty of the butterflies. But drawing these fascinating creatures wasn’t enough for Maria; she wanted to understand their small, mysterious lives. Where did they come from? What did they eat? And perhaps most miraculously of all, was there a connection between creeping caterpillars and beautiful butterflies? With no formal training or university education, Maria Merian took on the role of artist, adventurer, and scientist in 17th-century Europe - a time when women were rarely allowed responsibilities outside the home, and unusual interests led to accusations of witchcraft. Her intrepid fieldwork and careful observation helped uncover the truth about metamorphosis and changed the course of science forever. The Newbery Honor-winning author and poet Joyce Sidman masterfully paints a riveting portrait of Maria Merian - the girl who drew butterflies, the woman who has been called the world’s first ecologist.
©2018 Joyce Sidman (P)2019 Recorded Books
Curse of the Divine
Summary
Return to the world of inklings, tattoo magic, and evil deities as Celia uncovers the secrets of the ink in order to stop Diavala once and for all. This eagerly anticipated sequel to Ink in the Blood is perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Wicked Saints. Celia Sand faced Diavala and won, using ink magic to destroy the corrupt religion of Profeta that tormented her for a decade. But winning came with a cost. Now Celia is plagued with guilt over her role in the death of her best friend. When she discovers that Diavala is still very much alive and threatening Griffin, the now-infamous plague doctor, Celia is desperate not to lose another person she loves to the deity's wrath. The key to destroying Diavala may lie with Halycon Ronnea, the only other person to have faced Diavala and survived. But Halcyon is dangerous and has secrets of his own, ones that involve the ink that Celia has come to hate. Forced to choose between the ink and Diavala, Celia will do whatever it takes to save Griffin - even if it means making a deal with the devil himself.
©2021 Kim Smejkal (P)2021 Recorded Books
Color Outside the Lines
Summary
This modern, groundbreaking YA anthology explores the complexity and beauty of interracial and LGBTQ+ relationships where differences are front and center. When people ask me what this anthology is about, I'm often tempted to give them the complicated answer: It's about race and about how being different from the person you love can matter but how it can also not matter, and it's about Chinese pirate ghosts, black girl vigilantes, colonial India, a flower festival, a garden of poisons, and so, so much else. Honestly, though? I think the answer's much simpler than that. Color Outside the Lines is a collection of stories about young, fierce, brilliantly hopeful people in love. - Sangu Mandanna, editor of Color outside the Lines
©2019 Soho Press, Inc. (P)2019 Recorded Books
Hungry Hearts
Summary
From some of your favorite best-selling and critically acclaimed authors - including Sandhya Menon, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Rin Chupeco - comes a collection of interconnected short stories that explore the intersection of family, culture, and food in the lives of 13 teens. A shy teenager attempts to express how she really feels through the confections she makes at her family’s pasteleria. A tourist from Montenegro desperately seeks a magic soup dumpling that could cure his fear of death. An aspiring chef realizes that butter and soul are the key ingredients to win a cooking competition that could win him the money to save his mother’s life. Welcome to Hungry Hearts Row, where the answers to most of life’s hard questions are kneaded, rolled, baked. Where a typical greeting is, “Have you had anything to eat?” Where magic and food and love are sometimes one and the same. Told in interconnected short stories, Hungry Hearts explores the many meanings food can take on beyond mere nourishment. It can symbolize love and despair, family and culture, belonging and home.
©2019 Compilation Elsie Chapman and Caroline Tung Richmond (P)2019 Recorded Books