Catherine Taber has narrated 29 audiobooks on Listento.it by 40 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 4,379 ratings. The most-rated is Before We Were Yours.
Gone Too Long
Summary
Two-time Edgar Award-winning author Lori Roy entangles listeners in a heart-pounding tale of two women battling for survival against a century's worth of hate. On the day a black truck rattles past her house and a Klan flyer lands in her front yard, 10-year-old Beth disappears from her Simmonsville, Georgia home. Armed with skills sharpened while caring for an alcoholic mother, she must battle to survive the days and months ahead. Seven years later, Imogene Coulter is burying her father - a Klan leader she has spent her life distancing herself from - and trying to escape the memories his funeral evokes. But Imogene is forced to confront secrets long held by the town and her own family when, while clearing out her father's apparent hideout on the day of his funeral, she finds a child. Young and alive, in an abandoned basement, and behind a door that only locks from the outside. As Imogene begins to uncover the truth of what happened to young Beth all those years ago, her father's heir-apparent to the Klan's leadership threatens her and her family. Driven by a love that extends beyond the ties of blood, Imogene struggles to save a girl she never knew but will now be bound to forever, and to save herself and the ones dearest to her. Tightly coiled and chilling, Gone Too Long ensnares, twists, and exposes the high price we are willing to pay for the ones we love. Praise for Gone Too Long: “Florida writer Lori Roy brings a powerful literary voice to the crime genre with this dark, corrosive tale…Gone Too Long is a hauntingly detailed story of survival.” (The Chicago Tribune, "What to read this summer: Best books by genre") “This compelling, issue-oriented story by Edgar Award-winning author Roy is a creepy, eerie account of a young girl and a community held hostage by the Klan.” (Library Journal, starred review)
©2019 Lori Roy (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Escape Room
Summary
There's no getting away from this unpauseable thriller about teens being held captive in an escape room where the stakes are all too real. Perfect for Halloween! All they need to do is get out. Alissa, Sky, Miles and Mint are ready for a night of fun at the Escape Room. It's simple. Choose their game. Get locked in a room. Find the clues. Solve the puzzles. And escape the room in 60 minutes. But what happens if the Game Master has no intention of letting them go? Underlined is a line of totally addictive romance, thriller, and horror titles coming to you fast and furious each month. Enjoy everything you want to listen to the way you want to listen to it.
©2020 Maren Stoffels (P)2020 Listening Library
The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane
Summary
This sparkling middle-grade debut is a classic-in-the-making! Maybelle Lane is looking for her father, but on the road to Nashville she finds so much more: courage, brains, heart - and true friends. Eleven-year-old Maybelle Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown jewel of her collection is a sound she didn't collect herself: an old recording of her daddy's warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phone's voicemail. It's the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows about him. Until the day she hears that laugh - his laugh - pouring out of the car radio. Going against Momma's wishes, Maybelle starts listening to her radio DJ daddy's new show, drinking in every word like a plant leaning toward the sun. When he announces he'll be the judge of a singing contest in Nashville, she signs up. What better way to meet than to stand before him and sing with all her heart? But the road to Nashville is bumpy. Her starch-stiff neighbor Mrs. Boggs offers to drive her in her RV. And a bully of a boy from the trailer park hitches a ride, too. These are not the people May would have chosen to help her, but it turns out they're searching for things as well. And the journey will mold them into the best kind of family - the kind you choose for yourself. Includes an original song introduced by the author.
©2020 Kate O'Shaughnessy (P)2020 Listening Library
Hope in the Holler
Summary
"This is a masterpiece of middle grade fiction, at once summoning the timelessness of life in rural America while blending in modern elements." (School Library Journal) The poignant - and funny - story of a girl trying to be brave and find her place in the world after she's sent to live with scheming relatives. Right before Wavie's mother died, she gave Wavie a list of instructions to help her find her way in life, including this one: Be brave, Wavie B! You got as much right to a good life as anybody, so find it! But little did Wavie's mom know that events would conspire to bring Wavie back to Conley Hollow, the Appalachian hometown her mother tried to leave behind. Now Wavie's back in the Holler - and in the clutches of her Aunt Samantha Rose. Life with the devilish Samantha Rose and her revolting cousin Hoyt is no picnic, but there's real pleasure in sleeping in her own mother's old bed, and making friends with the funny, easygoing kids her aunt calls the "neighborhood-no-accounts." With their help, Wavie just might be able to prevent her aunt from becoming her legal guardian and find her courage and place in the world.
©2018 Lisa Lewis Tyre (P)2018 Listening Library
Shiner
Summary
Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR "Amy Jo Burns writes a version of Appalachia that is one step removed from magic - all strychnine and moonshine and powerful wonder." (NPR) "[A] wrenching testament, told in language as incandescent as smoldering coal... This is not a despairing book, but a hopeful one, of Appalachian women taking back their life stories." (New York Times Book Review) On a lush mountaintop trapped in time, two women vow to protect each other at all costs - and one young girl must defy her father to survive. An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, 15-year-old Wren Bird lives in a cloistered mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, no mailbox, and no visitors - except for her mother's lifelong best friend. Every Sunday, Wren's father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station, where he takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to the hold he has over the community, over Wren and her mother. But over the course of one summer, a miracle performed by Wren's father quickly turns to tragedy. As the order of her world begins to shatter, Wren must uncover the truth of her father's mysterious legend and her mother's harrowing history and complex bond with her best friend. And with that newfound knowledge, Wren can imagine a different future for herself than she has been told to expect. Rich with epic love and epic loss, and diving deep into a world that is often forgotten but still part of America, Shiner reveals the hidden story behind two generations' worth of Appalachian heartbreak and resolve. Amy Jo Burns brings us a smoldering, taut debut novel about modern female myth-making in a land of men - and one young girl who must ultimately open her eyes.
©2020 Amy Jo Burns (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Alabama Noir
Summary
Some locales seem to come with their own soundtrack. Don Ho and his tiny bubbles provide the background music for Hawaii, Edith Piaf for Paris. The reggae of Bob Marley evokes Jamaica. The soundtrack for Alabama is without question provided by our troubled troubadour Hank Williams. The 2016 biography Hank by Mark Ribowsky paints a dark picture of the musician's short, alcoholic, drug-filled life: a life of loneliness and pain. He goes so far as to call Hank's life story "noir-ish".... In Alabama Noir we encounter "troubles and foibles" galore, darkness in many forms. The stories range from the deadly grim to some that are actually mildly humorous. We see desperate behavior on the banks of the Tennessee River, in the neighborhoods of Birmingham, in the affluent suburbs of Mobile, in a cemetery in Montgomery, and even on the deceptively pleasant beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.Fans of noir should all find something to enjoy.
©2020 Akashic Books (P)2020 Audible, Inc.
A Family Under the Christmas Tree
Summary
Unexpected events bring together a single father and a fashion photographer, who are united by their connection to a young boy and a mischievous dog, in this heartwarming Christmas romance - soon to be the Hallmark Channel original movie Picture a Perfect Christmas. David Murphy never knew much about kids. But when his brother dies unexpectedly, he is granted custody of his six-year-old nephew, Troy. He already has his hands full running his business, and he has no idea how to help the grieving boy. When Troy runs off one day, David finds him at a park playing with an adorable and rambunctious dog - who leads him to Sophie. Sophie Griffith has spent her life travelling around the world as a photojournalist. She has never stayed in one place for long, and her new assignment - helping her grandmother for a few weeks - is just temporary. Once Christmas day comes, Sophie is off the hook and can leave for a new adventure. Caring for her grandmother is a piece of cake - but caring for her new Bernese mountain dog, Riggs, is a different story. It doesn't help that Riggs strikes up a friendship with a lost little boy one day at the park - and leads her to David. Neither David nor Sophie have time for romance. But as their faith and growing love for the boy and dog unites them, they are forced to decide whether their relationship is more than a fleeting holiday romance before the season runs out.
©2016 Terri Reed (P)2020 Audible, Inc.
Surviving Savannah
Summary
It was called "The Titanic of the South." The luxury steamship sank in 1838 with Savannah's elite on board; through time, their fates were forgotten - until the wreck was found, and now their story is finally being told in this breathtaking novel from the New York Times best-selling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis. When Savannah history professor Everly Winthrop is asked to guest-curate a new museum collection focusing on artifacts recovered from the steamship Pulaski, she's shocked. The ship sank after a boiler explosion in 1838, and the wreckage was just discovered, 180 years later. Everly can't resist the opportunity to try to solve some of the mysteries and myths surrounding the devastating night of its sinking. Everly's research leads her to the astounding history of a family of eleven who boarded the Pulaski together, and the extraordinary stories of two women from this family: a known survivor, Augusta Longstreet, and her niece, Lilly Forsyth, who was never found, along with her child. These aristocratic women were part of Savannah's society, but when the ship exploded, each was faced with difficult and heartbreaking decisions. This is a moving and powerful exploration of what women will do to endure in the face of tragedy, the role fate plays, and the myriad ways we survive the surviving. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 Patti Callahan (P)2021 Penguin Audio
A Better Bad Idea
Summary
Laurie Devore's new YA novel is a searing look at a forgotten girl who has no good choices left, but one better bad idea.... Evelyn Peters is desperate. Desperate for a way out of McNair Falls, the dying Southern town that's held her captive since the day she was born. Desperate to protect her little sister from her mother's terrifying and abusive boyfriend. And desperate to connect with anyone, even fallen golden boy Ashton Harper, longtime boyfriend of the girl Evelyn can never stop thinking about - beautiful, volatile, tragically dead Reid Brewer. Until a single night sends Evelyn and Ashton on a collision course that starts something neither of them can stop. With one struck match, their whole world goes up in flames. The only thing left to do is run - but leaving McNair Falls isn't as easy as just putting distance between here and there, and some secrets refuse to stay left behind. A reckoning is coming...and not everyone is getting out alive.
©2021 Laurie Devore (P)2021 Listening Library