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.
My Good Life in France
Summary
One grey dismal day, Janine Marsh was on a trip to northern France to pick up some cheap wine. She returned to England a few hours later having put in an offer on a rundown old barn in the rural Seven Valleys area of Pas de Calais. This was not something she'd expected or planned for. Janine eventually gave up her job in London to move with her husband to live the good life in France. Or so she hoped. While getting to grips with the locals and la vie Française, and renovating her dilapidated new house, a building lacking the comforts of mains drainage, heating, or proper rooms, and with little money and less of a clue, she started to realize there was lot more to her new home than she could ever have imagined. Ten years ago, Janine Marsh decided to leave her corporate life behind to fix up a run-down barn in northern France. This is the true story of her rollercoaster ride, in many ways a love story, with her sharp observations on the very different way of life, culture, and etiquette of France. From her early struggles and homesickness through personal tragedy, to her attempts to become self-sufficient and to breed "the fattest chickens in the village", Janine learned that there was more to her new home than she could ever have imagined.
©2017 Janine Marsh (P)2018 Tantor
Behind the Fireplace
Summary
As World War II progressed, the Okma family took six Jewish refugees into their house, hiding them in a secret room behind their fireplace. The youngest daughter, Kieks, joined the Resistance, delivering illegal newspapers, guiding British parachutists around The Hague and preparing safe houses for Special Forces who were dropped in from England. As the war continued, she fell in love with a Resistance commander, and worked with him to rescue wounded colleagues, steal weapons from German arms dumps, and move weapons around the country. They had a tumultuous parting and she continued her work, acting as a courier with a two hundred km bike ride to the north of Holland. When she returned home, she appreciated how much the war had changed her and her boyfriend, and prepared to try a reconciliation. She escaped a firing squad four times, and survived the war, mentally scarred by her experiences. She sought help, but the help she was offered came in a poisoned chalice, and she kept her secret to herself for almost 50 years. Her family in Holland was recognized by Yad Vashem, the Israeli organization that records those who saved Jews from the Holocaust, and she was awarded a pension for her work in the Resistance by the Dutch foundation Stichting 1940-1945.
©1992 Andrew Scott and Grietje Scott (P)2020 Tantor
Gardenias and a Grave Mistake
Summary
Flowers, favors, and a cake with a body in it...what a way to start a wedding! Diana already regrets saying yes to her neighbor's ridiculous wedding flower demands, but when she discovers a body in the middle of the multi-tiered centerpiece...it's really taking the cake! The man in the cake has been murdered. Diana suspects that one of her neighbors may be the killer. And she already knows that some of them are keeping skeletons in their closets. Sometimes literally. Murder would send most people running for the hills, but Diana has a blossoming business to think about. She needs to get to the bottom of her neighborhood's dark past, or her new cut flower business could suffer a blight!
©2018 Ruby Loren (P)2019 Tantor
The Regret
Summary
A gripping psychological thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. If you are a fan of authors like Rachel Abbott, Cara Hunter and C.L. Taylor, you'll love this. Rachel Stone’s world was destroyed by a stalker, Alan Griffin. After he went to prison, she rebuilt her life. Now she has a daughter and is in a new relationship. But someone is stalking her again. Her phone, her emails and her social media are hacked. Rachel believes it’s Griffin, out of prison and looking for revenge. She needs to find him and make him leave her alone. But as Rachel is drawn into a hunt, she realises that something even more horrific is happening - something that will make her confront the childhood that has lingered like a ghost and will force her to face the truth about her new life. Is Griffin the one ruining her life? Or someone else?
©2019 Dan Malakin (P)2020 W. F. Howes Ltd
Malory Towers: Fun and Games
Summary
For new girl Darrell Rivers, there are friends to be made, pranks to be played and fun to be had at Malory Towers in Enid Blyton's best-loved boarding school series. Music concert or Tennis tournament? In audiobook ten, feisty June and new girl Millicent can't agree what's more important. Soon all becomes irrelevant when things begin disappearing. Is there a thief in fifth form? Expect more drama at Malory Towers!
©2009 Enid Blyton Ltd (P)2017 Hodder Children's Books
Sheer Mischief
Summary
Sheer Mischief by best-selling author Jill Mansell is an unmissable romantic comedy about sisterly love and rivalry.... Not to be missed by listeners of Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes. It's not that Janey Sinclair isn't pleased to see her sister. It's just that being woken at seven by Maxine, complete with police escort, isn't quite how she'd planned to spend her Sunday. Even so, Janey, who's just rebuilding her life after her husband disappeared, is delighted that her sister's back in the Cornish town where they grew up. When Maxine sets her sights on Guy Cassidy, an impossibly glamorous fashion photographer, Janey knows there's no limit to the mischief her sister will get up to in order to dispatch her rivals. But little do they know that the competition is a lot closer to home than they think....
©2001 Jill Mansell (P)2016 Headline Digital
Malory Towers: Goodbye
Summary
For new girl Darrell Rivers, there are friends to be made, pranks to be played and fun to be had at Malory Towers in Enid Blyton's best-loved boarding school series. In audiobook 12, the sixth form girls are to attend finishing school before they're sent out into the world. They are to learn deportment, etiquette and obedience. Oh dear! Expect more drama at Malory Towers!
©2009 Enid Blyton Ltd (P)2017 Hodder Children's Books
The French for Love
Summary
Like a glass of wine in the French afternoon sunshine, The French for Love is the perfect summer escape. Can happy ever after get lost in translation? Gina has lost her perfect job, her boyfriend, and her favorite aunt all within the space of a few months. So when she inherits her aunt's ramshackle French house, Gina decides to pack her bags for the Bordeaux countryside - swapping English weather for blue skies, sunshine, great wine, and a fresh start. What she hasn't factored in is a hole in the roof, the most embarrassing language faux pas, and discovering family secrets she was never supposed to know. Suddenly feeling a long way from home, Gina will have to rely on newfound friends, her own hard work - and Cedric - her charming, mysterious, and tres handsome new stonemason. But while desire needs no translation, love is a different matter. Can Gina overcome the language barrier to make her French dream come true?
©2013 Fiona Valpy (P)2019 Tantor
Malory Towers: New Term
Summary
For new girl Darrell Rivers, there are friends to be made, pranks to be played and fun to be had at Malory Towers in Enid Blyton's best-loved boarding school series. In audiobook seven, Darrell has left Malory Towers, and her sister Felicity takes over as head girl. But the other girls are determined to cause trouble. Will Freddie and June ever stop playing tricks? And what's Amy's strange family secret? Expect more drama at Malory Towers!
©2009 Enid Blyton Ltd (P)2017 Hodder Children's Books
Almost a Bride
Summary
Always close, but never a bride. Longing to find true love, Kate Millington arrives in British Columbia on a bride ship. With countless men waiting to snag a bride, Kate has no trouble getting engaged. It's staying engaged that's the problem. After traveling to the remote mining town of Williamsville to marry her newest fiance, she finds herself single again. As the prosperous owner of a gold mine, Zeke Hart has everything he's ever wanted except for a wife. At Kate's arrival, he takes it upon himself to protect his childhood friend from the men clamoring to court her. The more he renews her friendship, the more he wants to win her for himself. But as much as Kate admires Zeke, she's resolved not to marry someone who doesn't share her faith. When Zeke begins receiving anonymous threats, he unwittingly puts them both in grave danger. In the midst of peril, the past rises up to haunt them both, and Zeke realizes the fight for Kate's affection may be his biggest challenge yet.
©2020 Jody Hedlund (P)2020 Tantor
Malory Towers: Summer Term
Summary
For new girl Darrell Rivers, there are friends to be made, pranks to be played and fun to be had at Malory Towers in Enid Blyton's best-loved boarding school series. In audiobook eight, someone has stolen Julie's horse. And there's money missing, too. Can Felicity and the girls find out who would do such a terrible thing? Expect more drama at Malory Towers!
©2009 Enid Blyton Ltd (P)2017 Hodder Children's Books
Queens of the Crusades: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Her Successors
Summary
The Plantagenet queens of England played a role in some of the most dramatic events in our history. Crusading queens, queens in rebellion against their king, queen seductresses, learned queens, queens in battle, queens who enlivened England with the romantic culture of Southern Europe - these determined women often broke through medieval constraints to exercise power and influence, for good and sometimes for ill. Alison Weir’s ground-breaking history of the queens of medieval England now moves into a period of even higher drama, from 1154 to 1291: years of chivalry, dynastic ambition, conflict with the church, baronial wars and the all-pervading bonds of feudalism. We see events such as the murder of Becket, the Magna Carta and the birth of parliaments from a new perspective. Her narrative begins with the formidable Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Henry II establishes a dynasty which rules for more than 300 years and creates the most powerful empire in Western Christendom - but also sows the seeds for some of the most destructive family conflicts in history and for the collapse, under her son King John, of England’s power in Europe. The lives of Eleanor’s successors were just as remarkable: Berengaria of Navarre, queen of Richard the Lionheart, Isabella of Angoulême, queen of John, and Alienor of Provence, queen of Henry III, and finally Eleanor of Castile, the grasping but beloved wife of Edward I. Through the story of these first five Plantagenet queens, Alison Weir provides an enthralling new perspective on a dramatic period of high romance and sometimes low politics, with determined women at its heart.
©2020 Alison Weir (P)2020 W. F. Howes Ltd
The Paris Secret
Summary
The last time Valerie was in Paris, she was three years old, running from the Nazis, away from the only home she had ever known. Now as a young woman all alone in the world, Valerie must return to Paris, to the bookshop and her sole surviving relative, her grandfather Vincent, the only person who knows the truth about what happened to her parents. As she gets to know grumpy, taciturn Vincent again, she hears a tragic story of Nazi-occupied Paris, a doomed love affair, and a mother willing to sacrifice everything for her beloved daughter. Can Valerie and Vincent help each other to mend the wounds of the past? Valerie isn't after a fairytale ending, she only wants the truth. But what is the one devastating secret that Vincent is determined to keep from his granddaughter?
©2018 Lily Graham (P)2019 Tantor
Malory Towers: Winter Term
Summary
For new girl Darrell Rivers, there are friends to be made, pranks to be played and fun to be had at Malory Towers in Enid Blyton's best-loved boarding school series. In audiobook nine, Susan's in charge of the winter concert, but new teacher Miss Tallant won't let her make any decisions. When Miss interferes in a midnight feast, the girls realise that there's a spy in their midst. Expect more drama at Malory Towers!
©2009 Enid Blyton Ltd (P)2017 Hodder Children's Books
A Princess of Wind and Wave: A Retelling of The Little Mermaid
Summary
Isla may be a mermaid princess, but she's never felt at home in her undersea kingdom. Instead she dreams of the day her people can return to the surface - and the boy whose life she once saved. But while Isla foresees danger for her people beneath the ocean, she has no concept of the dark forces working to keep her people submerged. When an impetuous vow sets her on the course of the truth, Isla discovers that shadowy foes beset the kingdoms of both land and sea. And when she finally finds herself onshore, Isla realizes the fight will require not only her sword but her mind and heart as well - at least if she ever hopes to overcome her enemies and win the love of the prince of her dreams. In this reimagining of the classic fairy tale The Little Mermaid, the princess will have to grow beyond her dreams if she wants to save two kingdoms and her own heart.
©2019 Melanie Cellier (P)2020 Tantor
A Medal for Murder
Summary
It's no rest for the wicked when Kate Shackleton picks up her second professional sleuthing case. But exposing the culprit of a pawn-shop robbery turns sinister when her investigation takes her to the wealthy neighborhoods of Harrogate - and murder is only one step behind. A night at the theater should have been just what the doctor ordered, until Kate stumbles across a body in the doorway. The knife sticking out of its chest definitely suggests a killer in the theater's midst. Kate likes nothing better than a mystery - except solving it. So when a ransom note demands GBP 1,000 for the safe return of the play's leading lady, Kate must piece together clues - and lure criminals out of their lairs.
©2010 Frances McNeil (P)2013 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Snow White Learns Witchcraft
Summary
A young woman hunts for her wayward shadow at the school where she first learned magic - while another faces a test she never studied for as ice envelopes the world. The tasks assigned a bookish boy lead him to fateful encounters with lizards, owls, trolls, and a feisty, sarcastic cat. A bear wedding is cause for celebration, the spinning wheel and the tower in the briar hedge get to tell their own stories, and a kitchen maid finds out that a lost princess is more than she seems. The sea witch reveals what she hoped to gain when she took the mermaid's voice. A wiser Snow White sets out to craft herself a new tale. In these eight stories and 23 poems, World Fantasy Award winner Theodora Goss retells and recasts fairy tales by Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Oscar Wilde. Sometimes harrowing, sometimes hilarious, always lyrical, the works gathered in Snow White Learns Witchcraft re-center and empower the women at the heart of these timeless narratives. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Jane Yolen, in her introduction, proclaims that Goss "transposes, transforms, and transcends times, eras, and old tales with ease. But also there is a core of tough magic that runs through all her pieces like a river through Faerie...I am ready to reread some of my new favorites."
©2019 Theodora Goss (P)2020 Tantor