Esther Wane has narrated 117 audiobooks on Listento.it by 75 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 5,013 ratings. The most-rated is The Power of Vulnerability.
The Lucky Prepper: A Gardener's Story of Surviving a Pandemic
Summary
What do you eat when the shops run out of food? Zoe loves teaching science, she loves her garden, and most of all she loves her quiet, peaceful bungalow. Then at school, people start falling ill. The virus is airborne and highly infectious. It starts with flu symptoms, confusion, and sleepiness, which worsen until one day they just don't wake up. It decimates the population and leaves chaos in its wake. Now Zoe has to find a way to survive. Luckily, when the pandemic strikes, she already has a greenhouse full of vegetable seedlings, but not everyone around is as prepared. Can she avoid the people hunting for food: the "knockers" who don't always just knock? And will her strategy of stay in, hide, and wait be enough?
©2019 Emma Zeth (P)2020 Tantor
The Sweetness of Venus
Summary
For millennia, scientists thought women were inside-out versions of men, and male anxiety about female sexuality generated ludicrous ideas and perpetuated inaccurate information. The Sweetness of Venus is a provocative, straight-talking history that exposes the denial, misunderstanding, brutality, and lies endured by this taboo part of human anatomy. Much of the story of the clitoris has been defined by those who discovered and mapped her. However, even after the true anatomy of the clitoris was finally fully mapped with 3D imaging in 2005, it still hardly gets a mention in America's best-selling teen sex-education book for girls, and no mention at all in the parallel book for boys. Equality when it comes to sex has not been achieved. This book challenges Western culture's definition of female sexuality and will have you laughing out loud, shouting "clitoris!" with abandon, and championing sex equality and pleasure for all.
©2021 Sarah Chadwick (P)2021 Insatiable Press
Paradise Bay Romantic Comedy Series 3
Summary
Handsome, rich, and charming, Leopold Davenport has always been the life of the party. But when he takes things too far, his father banishes the 27-year-old from his homeland of Avonia for six months. With nowhere to turn, Leo moves to Santa Valentina Island, where his sister-in-law helps him find work as a bellboy at the Paradise Bay Resort. Little does he know that dealing with people's baggage will make him examine his own. Twenty-six-year-old single mum Brianna Lewis (a.k.a. Bree) doesn't believe in fairy tales - not after being abandoned by the father of daughter, Isabelle. Suddenly finding herself in dire straits, she converts her garden shed into a rental suite in hopes of climbing out of the financial hole she's in. But when the only person interested in renting the suite turns out to be to Leopold Davenport, the ridiculously good-looking co-worker she loves to hate, she knows she must choose between being happy and being broke. Can Leopold make the leap from ultimate playboy to become the man Bree needs in her life? Will Bree allow herself to believe in happily-ever-afters or will she play it safe and hang a do-not-disturb sign on her heart? Contains mature themes.
©2019 Gretz Corp. (P)2020 Tantor
The Princess Pact: A Twist on Rumpelstiltskin
Summary
Spinning straw into gold was only the beginning of the story.... Marie, the dutiful princess of Northhelm, chafes under the rigid protocol that governs her life. Then a growing darkness threatens the kingdom and uncovers the lie at the center of her whole life - a single pact that changes everything. Throwing off convention, she joins Rafe, a handsome, charming newcomer, on a quest to save her kingdom. Except he doesn't know she has a mission of her own - to discover the truth about her identity. Increasingly drawn to Rafe's strength and good humor, Marie is torn by her double purpose. With time running out and death and destruction looming, Marie will have to unravel the bargains that surround her and choose where her true allegiance lies. In this twist on the classic fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin, a hidden identity is just one of the things Marie will have to unravel.
©2017 Melanie Cellier (P)2020 Tantor
The Fateful Marriage
Summary
Wherever Lady Fan goes, murder follows.... 1791, England Lady Ottilia and Lord Francis Fanshawe are holidaying in Tunbridge Wells when they stumble across the scene of a horrific accident. While visiting the High Rocks, a local tourist spot, a young woman falls to her death from the top of the climb. It soon becomes clear that the woman is linked to the infamous Dowager Viscountess Lady Wem - an indomitable matriarch visiting Tunbridge with her extended family. The young woman was at the center of a scandal - Lady Wem's grandson, Daniel, eloped with her three years prior. As Lady Fan is introduced to the family her suspicions are aroused. Was the fall a devastating mishap? Or could the woman have been pushed? Lady Fan must unravel dark family secrets in her quest for the truth....
©2020 Elizabeth Bailey (P)2021 Tantor
The Mortal Blow
Summary
Lady Fan is back to full health but can she solve the trickiest case yet...? 1792, England Lord Francis and Lady Ottilia Fanshawe are on their way home when their coach comes to a sudden stop. A woman is standing in the middle of the road - covered in blood. The woman refuses to speak but on further investigation they find the body of a man hidden in the woods. Ottilia insists on bringing the woman home to find out what occurred. But the more she finds out the more complicated the case becomes.... Who was the man in the woods? Did the blood-covered woman murder him? Or did someone else strike The Mortal Blow...?
©2019 Elizabeth Bailey (P)2021 Tantor
The Opium Purge
Summary
A dark shadow has been brought from the West Indies to an English estate.... England, 1790. Lord Francis and Lady Ottilia Fanshawe are preparing for the birth of their first child. But Lady Fan won't let a little thing like pregnancy get in the way of solving a local mystery. Their neighbor - Sir Joslin Cadel, who recently returned from a sugar plantation in Barbados - has collapsed and died on his doorstep. And his young ward, Tamasine Roy, claims to have murdered him. With Tamasine clearly suffering from some kind of mental disorder and the rest of Cadel's household acting suspiciously, it is clear all is not as it seems. Why did Sir Joslin suddenly return to England? What happened to Tamasine's parents? Could this seemingly angelic young woman really be a murderess?
©2018 Elizabeth Bailey (P)2020 Tantor
The Princess Search
Summary
An outcast. A prince. And a deadly rebellion.... After a lifetime of rejection, seamstress Evie can't trust Frederic, the crown prince of Lanover - not his words of friendship or the way the warmth in his eyes seems to ask for even more. But when they end up on a tour of his kingdom - one filled with increasing danger - Evie's mistrust might doom them all. In this spin on the classic fairy tale, an ugly duckling must discover her true worth in order to save her kingdom and maybe even find true love.
©2018 Melanie Cellier (P)2020 Tantor
Blackberry and Wild Rose
Summary
Set in 18th-century Spitalfields, London, Blackberry and Wild Rose is the rich and atmospheric tale of a household of Huguenot silk weavers as the pursuit of the perfect silk design leads them all into ambition, love, and betrayal. When Esther Thorel, wife of a master silk weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel, she thinks she is doing God's will, but her good deed is not returned. Sara quickly realizes that the Thorel household is built on hypocrisy and lies and soon tires of the drudgery of life as Esther's new lady's maid. As the two women's relationship becomes increasingly fractious, Sara resolves to find out what it is that so preoccupies her mistress.... Esther has long yearned to be a silk designer. When her early water colors are dismissed by her husband, Elias, as the daubs of a foolish girl, she continues her attempts in secret. It may have been that none of them would ever have become actual silks, were it not for the presence of the extraordinarily talented Bisby Lambert in the Thorel household. Brought in by Elias to weave his master piece on the Thorel's loom in the attic of their house in Spitalfields, the strange cadence of the loom as Bisby works is like a siren call to Esther. The minute she first sets foot in the garret and sees Bisby Lambert at his loom, marks the beginning of Blackberry and Wild Rose, the most exquisite silk design Spitalfields has ever seen, and the end of the Thorel household's veneer of perfection. As unrest among the journeyman silk weavers boils over into riot and rebellion, it leads to a devastating day of reckoning between Esther and Sara. A Library Journal Editor's Pick of Best Debut Novels of Winter/Spring 2019.
©2019 Sonia Velton (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Princess Game: A Reimagining of Sleeping Beauty
Summary
They call her the Sleeping Princess, but Celeste is far from asleep... Celeste has been cursed since her 16th birthday - just not in the way the rest of the kingdom thinks. All they see is her breath-taking beauty, marred by her foolishness. Only she knows that she retains her brilliant mind. And it's a secret she must keep at all costs. Over the years she's grown accustomed to the necessary deception. After all, her life depends on it. And she's even found a way to protect her kingdom, working from the shadows. But now a dangerous new threat has emerged, one that Celeste can't defeat alone. She needs the help of a newly-arrived prince. One who's altogether too handsome and too charming. Somehow she needs to keep her secret, save her kingdom, and find a way to free herself from the curse. The last thing she has time to do is sleep. In this reimagining of the classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty, it's only the princess' mind that is asleep. And sometimes appearances can be deceiving.
©2017 Melanie Cellier (P)2020 Tantor
The Candlelit Coffin
Summary
Murder lurks behind the scenes.... England, 1791. Lord Francis and Lady Ottilia Fanshawe have suffered a devastating blow. With Ottilia sunk deep into a depression, Francis is desperate to get his beloved wife back. So when he hears about a murder at the seaside town of Weymouth, an idea starts to form.... A young girl's body has been discovered, laid out in an open coffin, surrounded by candles. The staged scene, and the fact that the victim was a member of a theatrical troupe, suggests one of her colleagues is the killer. Knowing Ottilia's sharp intuition and penchant for solving mysteries, Francis brings her to the murder site. Can the case spark Ottilia's interest? Will the intrepid "Lady Fan" once more make an appearance? And can she solve the mystery of the Candlelit Coffin?
©2018 Elizabeth Bailey (P)2021 Tantor
Brides of Rome
Summary
It is a world of power and privilege, secrets and sacred duty. It is the world of ancient Rome. And it is the esteemed Vestal Virgins - priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the home and hearth - who protect the Eternal Flame that protects the Eternal City. Dedicated to a 30-year vow of chaste service, Priestess Pomponia finds herself swept up in the intrigue, violence, wars, and bedroom politics of Rome’s elite - Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian and his maneuvering wife, Livia - all the while guarding the secret affection she has in her heart. But when a charge of incestum - a broken vow of chastity - is made against the Vestal order, the ultimate punishment looms: death by being buried alive in the “Evil Field”. In Brides of Rome, book one in the Vesta Shadows series, Debra May Macleod skillfully recreates the world of ancient Rome with all its brutality and brilliance, all its rich history and even richer legend. A true pause-resister that is as smart as it is compelling, this must-listen novel brings the Vestal order to life like never before.
©2020 Debra May Macleod (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
The Princess Fugitive: A Reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood
Summary
Princess Ava used to be a weapon - sharp, strong and beautiful. But when she fails at her most important task, she's forced to flee from her own family. Only her personal bodyguard, Hans, remains loyal. Hans claims to know the real Ava but she finds that hard to believe - after all, she's been the villain so long that she can't remember anything else. Deep in exile, Ava learns her kingdom needs a hero, and she might be the only one who can save it. The catch? She'll have to ally herself with the people she blames for her downfall. But in a game of life and death where the stakes are an entire kingdom, winning over her enemies will only be the beginning. Can one fugitive save her people, her kingdom, and - hardest of all - herself? In this reimagining of the classic fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood, the girl in the red hood has been swallowed up by the wolf and must decide if she's willing to fight for her freedom, no matter the cost.
©2016 Melanie Cellier (P)2020 Tantor
Doctor Who Psychology
Summary
How does an immortal deal with death? What kind of person makes the best companion? Why does the Doctor say he and Freud "got on very well"? How do the Daleks and Cybermen reflect concerns about losing our humanity? And what can looking at an ancient Time Lord teach us about real human nature? Doctor Who Psychology: A Madman with a Box explores these questions and many more. Chapters include: "Getting to the Hearts of Time Lord Personality Change" "Who's Who: Interview with Four Doctors and a River on the Core of Personality" "Post-Time War Stress Disorder" "From Human to Machine: At What Point Do You Lose Your Soul?" Doctor Who Psychology explores the alien in us all. This fascinating in-depth collection, edited by Travis Langley, contains 19 chapters and other special features delving into the psychology behind the time-traveling Doctor in his many iterations, as well as his companions and his foes.
©2016 Travis Langley (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
A Captive of Wing and Feather
Summary
Princess Adelaide has been missing for years. And that's exactly the way she wants it. Haunted by her past, not even the curse that entraps her is enough to make her long for her old home. But her past finds her anyway, in the form of a handsome prince from her childhood. Adelaide doesn't want to let Gabe in, but a sinister force is spreading fear throughout her new kingdom, and only Gabe has the will to help her. Adelaide can't refuse his assistance - not when the evil might soon ensnare much more than a solitary princess. But with her friends and her new kingdom in danger, even the help of Gabe and her seven swans might not be enough. In this reimagining of the classic tale, Swan Lake, the trapped princess must find the courage to overcome her past if she has any hope of turning a tragedy into a happy ending.
©2019 Melanie Cellier (P)2019 Tantor
You Then, Me Now
Summary
She’s given her daughter everything. Now it’s time to give her the truth. Becky’s father is not just absent: he’s a total mystery, a hole in her life. He died before she was born and for her mother, Laura, the subject is strictly off-limits. When Laura books a spontaneous trip to Greece, Becky decides to join her, determined to get closer to her mother - and to the truth. But as they make their way to the island of Santorini, it becomes clear that this holiday is not as impulsive as Becky thought. Laura’s hiding something from her daughter - and she’s been hiding it for Becky’s whole life. Not only has she been here before, it’s where she last saw Becky’s father. But Laura’s memories of that first visit are tinged with pain and heartbreak, secrets she’s kept buried for twenty-five years. Now, with the truth emerging into the sunlight at last, can Laura and Becky lay the ghosts of their past to rest and find the happiness they’ve both been looking for?
©2019 by Nick Alexander. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
A House of Ghosts
Summary
When guests arrive at a séance to contact a man's lost sons, it becomes clear that everyone has dark secrets - secrets that result in the death of a guest.
©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC
A Dream of Ebony and White
Summary
Snow has always lived under the shadow of her cruel stepmother, with only her beloved father and her childhood friend - the huntsman, Alexander - to make life bearable. When her father dies, she should be crowned queen, but instead she finds herself fleeing for her life. With no allies, no skills, and no food, her future could be over before it has truly begun. But there's more at stake than just one life. If Snow can't claim her throne, her kingdom faces destruction. Snow has to make a choice: focus on her own salvation or put everything on the line - even those she loves the most. And if she's going to succeed, Snow must fight the hardest battle of all, against her own doubt and weakness, and gain new skills and strength she never imagined possessing. Alexander is ready to help her. But if she lets him, the consequences might be more than she can bear - because her heart is in as much jeopardy as the kingdom. In this reimagining of the classic fairy tale, Snow must find her inner strength in time to fight for her throne before it's too late.
©2018 Melanie Cellier (P)2019 Tantor
The Unsuitable
Summary
Molly Pohlig's The Unsuitable is a fierce blend of Gothic ghost story and Victorian novel of manners that’s also pitch perfect for our current cultural moment. Iseult Wince is a Victorian woman perilously close to spinsterhood whose distinctly unpleasant father is trying to marry her off. She is awkward, plain, and most pertinently, believes that her mother, who died in childbirth, lives in the scar on her neck. Iseult’s father parades a host of unsuitable candidates before her, the majority of whom Iseult wastes no time frightening away. When at last her father finds a suitor desperate enough to take Iseult off his hands - a man whose medical treatments have turned his skin silver - a true comedy of errors ensues. As history’s least conventional courtship progresses into talk of marriage, Iseult’s mother becomes increasingly volatile and uncontrollable, and Iseult is forced to resort to extreme, often violent, measures to keep her in check. As the day of the wedding nears, Iseult must decide whether (and how) to set the course of her life, with increasing interference from both her mother and father, tipping her ever closer to madness, and to an inevitable, devastating final act.
©2020 Molly Pohlig (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
In Her Shadow
Summary
Isabel’s life seemed perfect. Successful business, beautiful house, adoring husband. And then she was dead. For four years Jessica has never doubted that her sister Isabel’s death was an accident. But when Jessica’s young daughter seems to know long-forgotten details about her aunt’s past, Jessica can’t shake the feeling that there’s a more sinister truth behind the tragedy. As Jessica unearths disturbing revelations about her sister, and about the people she loved and trusted most, it becomes clear Isabel’s life was less than perfect and that Jessica’s might also be at risk. Did someone murder Isabel? Are they now after Jessica and her family? The key seems to lie in the hands of a child. Can Isabel reveal the truth from beyond the grave, or is the answer closer to home? In Her Shadow is a gripping tale of family secrets, lies and obsession from the two million copy bestselling author Mark Edwards.
©2018 Mark Edwards (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.