John Keating has narrated 98 audiobooks on Listento.it by 60 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 688 ratings. The most-rated is The Ruins of Gorlan.
Shaman's Crossing, Book One of the Soldier Son Trilogy
Summary
Hugo and Nebula Award finalist Robin Hobb crafts intricate fantasy tales featuring larger-than-life characters and exotic landscapes. Nevare Burvelle was born to be a soldier in the Gernian army. But as Nevare's career takes off, his worldview alters considerably. Corruption and nepotism reign, and now Nevare questions his own ideals, wondering why he continues fighting for the empire.
©2005 Megan Lindholm (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC
An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War
Summary
Long before Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly became a fixture in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, he was a young M.B. with plans to marry midwife Dierdre Mawhinney. Those plans were complicated by the outbreak of World War II and the call of duty. Assigned to the HMS Warspite, a formidable 30,000-ton battleship, Surgeon Lieutenant O’Reilly soon found himself face-to-face with the hardships of war, tending to the dreadnought’s crew of 1,200 as well as to the many casualties brought aboard. Life in Ballybuckebo is a far cry from the strife of war, but over two decades later O’Reilly and his younger colleagues still have plenty of challenges: an outbreak of German measles, the odd tropical disease, a hard-fought pie-baking contest, and a local man whose mule-headed adherence to tradition is standing in the way of his son’s future. Now older and wiser, O’Reilly has prescriptions for whatever ails...until a secret from the past threatens to unravel his own peace of mind. Shifting deftly between two very different eras, Patrick Taylor’s latest Irish Country novel reveals more about O’Reilly’s tumultuous past, even as Ballybucklebo faces the future in its own singular fashion.
©2014 Ballybucklebo Stories Corp (P)2014 Macmillan Audio
An Irish Country Love Story
Summary
It's the winter of 1967, and snow is on the ground in the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, but the chilly weather can't stop love from warming hearts all over the county. Not just the love between a man and woman, as with young doctor Barry Laverty and his fiancée, Sue Nolan, who are making plans to start a new life together, but also the love of an ailing pensioner for a faithful dog that's gone missing, the love of the local gentry for the great estate they are on the verge of losing, or Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly's deep and abiding love for his longtime home and practice. For decades, ever since the war, Number One Main Street, Ballybucklebo, has housed O'Reilly and his practice. In recent years it has also opened its doors to O'Reilly's wife, Barry Laverty, and a new addition to the practice, Dr. Nonie Stevens, a sultry and occasionally prickly young woman who may not be fitting in as well as she should. It is to Number One that patients young and old come when they need a doctor's care for everything from the measles to a rare and baffling blood disease. An unexpected turn of events threatens to drive O'Reilly from his home for good unless the entire village can rally behind their doctor and prove that love really can conquer all. An Irish Country Love Story is a new and heartwarming installment in Patrick Taylor's beloved best-selling Irish Country series.
©2016 Patrick Taylor (P)2016 Macmillan Audio
The Invaders
Summary
Hal and the Herons have done the impossible. This group of outsiders has beaten out the strongest, most skilled young warriors in all of Skandia to win the Brotherband competition. But their celebration comes to an abrupt end when the Skandians' most sacred artifact, the Andomal, is stolen - and the Herons are to blame. To find redemption they must track down the thief Zavac and recover the Andomal. But that means traversing stormy seas, surviving a bitter winter, and battling a group of deadly pirates willing to protect their prize at all costs. Even Brotherband training and the help of Skandia's greatest warrior may not be enough to ensure that Hal and his friends return home with the Andomal - or their lives.
©2011 John Flanagan. 2012 Penguin Audio. (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Skippy Dies
Summary
This touching and uproarious novel by author Paul Murray made everyone’s best fiction of 2010 lists, including The Washington Post, Financial Times, Village Voice, and others. Why Skippy dies and what happens next is the mystery that links the boys of Dublin’s Seabrook College (Ruprecht Van Doren, the overweight genius obsessed with string theory; Carl, the teenager drug dealer and borderline psychotic; Philip Kilfether, the basketball-playing midget) to their parents and teachers in ways that no one could have imagined. This unique production of Murray’s heartfelt exploration of the pain, joy, and beauty of adolescence features an all-star narrating cast of 16 Audible favorites: John Keating, Graeme Malcom, Khristine Hvam, Nicola Barber, Fred Berman, Clodagh Bowyer, Terry Donnelly, Sean Gormley, Lawrence Lowry, Paul Nugent, Tim Smallwood, Fiona Walsh, Fiana Toibin, Declan Sammon, Heather O'Neill, and Ed Malone.
©2010 Paul Murray (P)2010 Audible, Inc.
Forest Mage
Summary
A luminary in SF literature, Robin Hobb continues her marvelous Soldier Son trilogy with part two, Forest Mage. Nevare Burvelle has survived major combat and is making a quick recovery from a disease plaguing his fellows in the King's army. He also believes he is free from the Speck magic that held him under its sway. Now traveling home to rendezvous with his fiancée, Nevare suffers haunting visions and soon realizes that malicious magic still resides within him - and is intent on destroying everything he holds dear.
©2006 Robin Hobb (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC
Airman
Summary
Conor Broekhart was born to fly. In fact, legend has it that he was born flying, in a hot air balloon at the Paris World's Fair. In the 1890s Conor and his family live on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast. Conor spends his days studying the science of flight with his tutor and exploring the castle with the king's daughter, Princess Isabella. But the boy's idyllic life changes forever the day he discovers a deadly conspiracy against the king. When Conor tries to intervene, he is branded a traitor and thrown into jail on the prison island of Little Saltee. There, he has to fight for his life, as he and the other prisoners are forced to mine for diamonds in inhumane conditions. There is only one way to escape Little Saltee, and that is to fly. So Conor passes the solitary months by scratching drawings of flying machines on the prison walls. The months turn into years; but eventually the day comes when Conor must find the courage to trust his revolutionary designs and take to the skies.
©2008 Eoin Colfer (P)2008 Random House, Inc.
An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea
Summary
Doctor O'Reilly experiences both love and loss during World War II in this new novel in Patrick Taylor's beloved Irish Country series. Long before Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly came to the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, young Surgeon-Lieutenant O'Reilly answered the call of duty to serve in World War II. Fingal just wants to marry his beloved Deirdre and live happily ever after. First, he must hone his skills at a British naval hospital before reporting back to the HMS Warspite, where, as a ship's doctor, he faces danger upon the high seas. With German bombers a constant threat, the future has never been more uncertain, but Fingal and Deirdre are determined to make a life together...no matter what may lie ahead. Decades later the war is long over, and O'Reilly is content to mend the bodies and souls of his patients in Ballybucklebo, but there are still changes and challenges aplenty. A difficult pregnancy as well as an old colleague badly in denial concerning his own serious medical condition test O'Reilly and his young partner, Barry Laverty. But even with all that occupies him in the present, can O'Reilly ever truly let go of the ghosts from his past? Shifting effortlessly between two singular eras, best-selling author Patrick Taylor continues the story of O'Reilly's wartime experiences while vividly bringing the daily joys and struggles of Ballybucklebo to life once more.
©2015 Ballybucklebo Stories Corp. (P)2015 Macmillan Audio
Renegade's Magic
Summary
Robin Hobb's thrilling Soldier Son trilogy comes to its conclusion in Renegade's Magic. Nevare Burvelle stands accused of a host of heinous crimes, including murder. And he remains under the thrall of the Speck magic that twists his psyche into a ruthless alter-ego. But all is not lost. Perhaps if he asserts control of this other self, he will emerge transformed and triumphant.
©2008 Robin Hobb (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC
The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling
Summary
Author Peter Ackroyd has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, and the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s immortal work, this retelling of The Canterbury Tales follows a party of travelers as they tell stories amongst themselves about love and chivalry, saints and legends, travel and adventure. Through allegory, satire, and humor, the tales help pass the time during their journey.
©2009 Peter Ackroyd (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC
Farthing
Summary
One summer weekend in 1949 - but not our 1949 - the well-connected "Farthing set", a group of upper-crust English families, enjoy a country retreat. Lucy is a minor daughter in one of those families; her parents were both leading figures in the group that overthrew Churchill and negotiated peace with Herr Hitler eight years before. Despite her parents' evident disapproval, Lucy is married - happily - to a London Jew. It was therefore quite a surprise to Lucy when she and her husband, David, found themselves invited to the retreat. It's even more startling when, on the retreat's first night, a major politician of the Farthing set is found gruesomely murdered, with abundant signs that the killing was ritualistic. It quickly becomes clear to Lucy that she and David were brought to the retreat in order to pin the murder on him. Major political machinations are at stake, including an initiative in Parliament, supported by the Farthing set, to limit the right to vote to university graduates. But whoever's behind the murder, and the frame-up, didn't reckon on the principal investigator from Scotland Yard being a man with very private reasons for sympathizing with outcasts and looking beyond the obvious. As the trap slowly shuts on Lucy and David, they begin to see a way out - a way fraught with peril in a darkening world.
©2006 Jo Walton (P)2011 Audible, Inc.
A Lot Like Christmas
Summary
Holiday stories and traditions enchantingly reimagined - with an insightfully satirical twist. Featuring five stories new to this collection, plus seven previously published stories, now all collected together for the first time. From the award-winning author of Crosstalk. No one could ask for a better present than a collection of Connie Willis Christmas tales. These are amazing stories, representing all the best of the Connie Willis experience: true Christmas gifts to her many fans. They are full of humor, absurdity, human foibles, tragedy, joy, and hope. They both send up and embrace many of the best Christmas traditions, such as the Christmas newsletter, Secret Santas, office parties, holiday pageants, and Christmas dinners (both elaborate and spare). There are ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come; debates over which is the best Christmas movie (Connie argues for the original Miracle on 34th Street, hands down); Rockettes; modern-day Magi; and the triumph of generosity over greed.
©2017 Connie Willis (P)2017 Recorded Books
The Nothing Man
Summary
I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man. Now I am the woman who is going to catch him.... You've just read the opening lines of The Nothing Man, the true-crime memoir Eve Black has written about her obsessive search for the man who killed her family nearly two decades ago. Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle is reading it too, and with each turn of the page his rage grows. Because Jim was - is - the Nothing Man. The more Jim reads, the more he realises how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won't give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first....
©2020 Catherine Ryan Howard (P)2020 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
The Outcasts
Summary
In Skandia, there is only one way to become a warrior. Boys are chosen for teams called brotherbands and must endure three months of gruelling training in seamanship, weapons and battle tactics. It's brotherband against brotherband, fighting it out in a series of challenges. There can be only one winner. When Hal Mikkelson finds himself the unwilling leader of a brotherband made up of outcasts, he must step up to the challenge. The Heron brotherband might not have the strength and numbers of the other two teams, but with inventiveness, ingenuity and courage on their side, they might just surprise everyone.
©2011 John Flanagan (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Dick Francis's Gamble
Summary
Felix Francis co-wrote several horse racing mysteries with his late father Dick Francis before the legendary author passed away in 2010. Taking up the reins for his first solo effort, Felix delivers a captivating tale that franchise fans will thoroughly enjoy. Former jockey Nicholas “Foxy” Foxton is at the track one day when he witnesses the execution-style killing of his friend Herb Novak. Worried he might be next, Foxy wonders if there was a dark side to Herb he didn’t know about.
©2011 Dick Frances Corporation (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC
The 13th Apostle
Summary
The story - both romantic and terrifying - of how a handful of men, armed with nothing more than handguns and guts, forced the greatest nation in the world from their shores. On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, the first great revolution of the twentieth century began as working-class men and women occupied buildings throughout Dublin, Ireland, including the general post office on O’Connell Street. Among the commoners in the GPO was a young staff captain of the Irish Volunteers named Michael Collins. He was joined a day later by a fourteen-year-old messenger boy, Eoin Kavanagh. Four days later they would all surrender, but they had struck the match that would burn Great Britain out of Ireland for the first time in seven hundred years. The 13th Apostle is the reimagined story of how Michael Collins, along with his young acolyte Eoin, transformed Ireland from a colony into a nation. Collins’s secret weapon was his intelligence system and his assassination squad, nicknamed “The Twelve Apostles.” On November 21, 1920, the squad - with its thirteenth member, young Eoin - assassinated the entire British Secret Service in Dublin. Twelve months and sixteen days later, Collins signed the Treaty at 10 Downing Street, which brought into being what is, today, the Republic of Ireland. An epic novel in the tradition of Thomas Flanagan’s The Year of the French and Leon Uris’s Trinity, The 13th Apostle is a story that will capture the imagination and hearts of freedom-loving readers everywhere.
©2014 Dermot McEvoy (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Blue Moon Rising
Summary
Rupert didn't especially want to be a prince. And he certainly never asked to be the second son of a royal line that really didn't need a spare. So he was sent out to slay a dragon and prove himself - a quest straight out of legend. But he also discovered the kinds of things legends tend to leave out, as well as the usual demons, goblins, the dreaded Night Witch - and even worse terrors hidden in the shadows of Darkwood. Rupert did find a fiery dragon - and a beautiful princess to rescue. But the dragon turned out to be a better friend than anyone back at the castle, and with the evil of Darkwood spreading, Rupert was going to need all the friends he could get.
©1989 Simon R. Green (P)2014 Recorded Books
The Hunters
Summary
Hal and his brotherband crew are hot on the trail of the pirate Zavac and they have one thing only on their minds: stopping the bloodthirsty thief before he can do more damage. Of course, they also know Zavac has the Andomal, the priceless Skandian artefact stolen when the brotherband let down their guard. The chase leads down mighty rivers, terrifying rapids, to the lawless fortress of Ragusa. If Hal is to succeed, he will need to go beyond his brotherband training. He will need to challenge the pirate one-on-one, knowing only one of them will survive.
©2012 John Flanagan (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
The Nothing Man
Summary
At the age of 12, Eve Black was the only member of her family to survive an encounter with serial attacker the Nothing Man. Now an adult, she is obsessed with identifying the man who destroyed her life. Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle has just started reading The Nothing Man - the true-crime memoir Eve has written about her efforts to track down her family’s killer. As he turns each page, his rage grows. Because Jim’s not just interested in reading about the Nothing Man. He is the Nothing Man. Jim soon begins to realize how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won’t give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first....
©2020 Catherine Ryan Howard (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Belfast Noir
Summary
Launched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Reflecting a city still divided, Belfast Noir serves as a record of a city transitioning to normalcy, or perhaps as a warning that underneath the fragile peace darker forces still lurk. Featuring brand-new stories by: Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, Garbhan Downey, Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Brian McGilloway, Ian McDonald, Arlene Hunt, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Claire McGowan, Steve Cavanagh, Lucy Caldwell, Sam Millar, and Gerard Brennan. From the introduction by Adrian McKinty & Stuart Neville: "Few European cities have had as disturbed and violent a history as Belfast over the last half-century. For much of that time the Troubles (1968–1998) dominated life in Ireland's second-biggest population centre, and during the darkest days of the conflict - in the 1970s and 1980s - riots, bombings, and indiscriminate shootings were tragically commonplace. The British army patrolled the streets in armoured vehicles and civilians were searched for guns and explosives before they were allowed entry into the shopping district of the city centre... Belfast is still a city divided... You can see Belfast's bloodstains up close and personal. This is the city that gave the world its worst ever maritime disaster, and turned it into a tourist attraction; similarly, we are perversely proud of our thousands of murders, our wounds constantly on display. You want noir? How about a painting the size of a house, a portrait of a man known to have murdered at least a dozen human beings in cold blood? Or a similar house-sized gable painting of a zombie marching across a post-apocalyptic wasteland with an AK-47 over the legend UVF: Prepared for Peace - Ready for War. As Lee Child has said, Belfast is still 'the most noir place on earth.'"
©2014 Akashic Books (P)2014 Audible Inc.