Josephine Bailey has narrated 24 audiobooks on Listento.it by 21 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 70 ratings. The most-rated is The Sweet Far Thing.
The Sweet Far Thing
Summary
It has been a year of change since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength to turn catty schoolgirls into loyal friends, and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic runs wild. Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic to herself and forged unlikely new alliances with headstrong Felicity and timid Ann; with Kartik, an exotic young Indian man whose companionship is forbidden; and with the fearsome creatures of the realms. Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test these bonds. The Order, the mysterious group Gemma's mother was once part of, is grappling for control of the realms, as are the Rakshana. It is there that the girls meet their adored friend Pippa, who is not the same...or is she? The power to change everything - both in and out of the realms - rests in Gemma's hands. Libba Bray's The Sweet Far Thing concludes the trilogy that began with the bestsellers A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels.
©2008 Libba Bray (P)2008 Listening Library
A Great and Terrible Beauty
Summary
It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls, and their foray into the spiritual world, lead to?
©2003 Libba Bray (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group
Whiteout
Summary
Like no other suspense author in his genre, Follett reinvents the thriller with each new storyline. But nothing matches the intricate, knife-edge drama of Whiteout. A missing canister of a deadly virus. A lab technician bleeding from the eyes. Toni Gallo, the security director of a Scottish medical research firm, knows she has problems, but she has no idea of the nightmare to come. As a Christmas Eve blizzard whips out of the north, several people converge on a remote family house. Stanley Oxenford, the research company's director, has everything riding on the drug he is developing to fight the virus, but he isn't the only one: his grown children, who have come to spend Christmas, have their eyes on the money it will bring; Toni Gallo, forced to resign from the police department in disgrace, is betting her career on keeping the drug safe; a local television reporter, determined to move up, has sniffed the story, even if he has to bend the facts to tell it; and a violent trio of thugs is on its way to steal it for a client already waiting, though what the client really has in mind is something that will shock them all. As the storm worsens, the emotional sparks, jealousies, distrust, sexual attraction, and rivalries, crackle; desperate secrets are revealed; hidden traitors and unexpected heroes emerge. Filled with startling twists at every turn, Whiteout rockets Follett to a class by himself.
©2004 Ken Follett (P)2004 Penguin Audio
Rebel Angels
Summary
Ah, Christmas! Gemma Doyle is looking forward to a holiday from Spence Academy, spending time with her friends in the city, attending ritzy balls, and on a somber note, tending to her ailing father. As she prepares to ring in the New Year, 1896, a handsome young man, Lord Denby, has set his sights on Gemma, or so it seems. Yet amidst the distractions of London, Gemma's visions intensify, visions of three girls dressed in white, to whom something horrific has happened, something only the realms can explain. The lure is strong, and before long, Gemma, Felicity, and Ann are turning flowers into butterflies in the enchanted world of the realms that Gemma alone can bring them to. To the girls' great joy, their beloved Pippa is there as well, eager to complete their circle of friendship. But all is not well in the realms, or out. The mysterious Kartik has reappeared, telling Gemma she must find the Temple and bind the magic, else great disaster will befall her. Gemma's willing to do his intrusive bidding, despite the dangers it brings, for it means she will meet up with her mother's greatest friend, and now her foe, Circe. Until Circe is destroyed, Gemma cannot live out her destiny. But finding Circe proves a most perilous task.
©2005 Libba Bray (P)2005 Listening Library
Shopaholic & Sister
Summary
Sophie Kinsella has conquered the hearts of millions with her New York Times best-selling Shopaholic novels, which feature the irresistible one-woman shopping phenomenon Becky Bloomwood. Now Becky’s back in a hilarious, heartwarming tale of married life, best friends, and long-lost sisters (and the perils of simply having to own an Angel handbag!). What’s a round-the-world honeymoon if you can’t buy the odd souvenir to ship back home? Like the Chinese urns and 20 silk dressing gowns Becky found in Hong Kong...the five kilim rugs from Turkey...the splendid hand-carved dining table (and 10 chairs) from Sri Lanka...the, um, huge wooden giraffes from Malawi (that her husband Luke expressly forbade her to buy)... Only now Becky and Luke have returned home to London and Luke is furious. Two truckloads of those souvenirs have cluttered up their usually immaculate loft, and the bills for them are outrageous. Becky’s even maxed out on her second secret credit card, and she doesn’t have a new job yet! Luke insists she go on a budget. And worse: her beloved best friend Suze has found a new best friend while Becky was away. Becky’s feeling rather blue - when her parents deliver some incredible news. She has a long-lost sister! Becky is thrilled! She’s convinced her sister will be a true soulmate. They’ll go shopping together, drink cappuccinos together, have manicures together, and watch their favorite videos together. Until she meets Jessica for the first time and gets the shock of her life. Surely Becky Bloomwood’s sister can’t...hate shopping?
©2004 Sophie Kinsella (P)2004 Books on Tape
Between Two Worlds
Summary
Zainab Salbi was 11-years-old when her father was chosen to serve as Saddam Hussein's personal pilot, her family often forced to spend weekends with Saddam where he watched their every move. As a palace insider, Zainab offers a singular glimpse of what it is like to come of age under a dictator and provides an intimate portrait of the man she was taught to call "uncle". She watched as Saddam pitted friends, spouses, and even children against each other to compete for his approval. She was sent to donate her mother's jewelry to one of the world's richest men, asked to erase her memory as she heard of crimes she was not supposed to hear of, and witnessed her mother hiding her tears lest it upset Saddam. Her mother eventually sent Zainab to America for an arranged marriage, to spare her from Saddam's growing affection, but the marriage intended to save her turned out to be another world of tyranny and abuse. Despite extraordinary psychological challenges, Zainab started over. She forged a new identity as a champion of female victims of war, dedicating her life to speaking out on behalf of oppressed women around the world. Her unique nonprofit organization has been featured in the media numerous times, including multiple appearances by Zainab on The Oprah Winfrey Show. But until now, Zainab has never told this very personal tale. In this intimate portrait, she reveals the tyrant through the eyes of a child, a secretly rebellious teenager, an abused wife, and ultimately a professional woman coming to terms with the horror of secrets her mother revealed only on her deathbed. Through her ability to come to terms with the child she used to be and the dangerous world in which she managed to survive, Between Two Worlds emerges as a story of heroism like no other.
©2005 Zainab Salbi (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc.
The Bible
Summary
As the work at the heart of Christianity, the Bible is the spiritual guide for one out of every three people in the world. It is also the world's most widely distributed book, having been translated into over 2,000 languages, as well as the world's best-selling book, year after year. But the Bible is a complex work with a complicated and obscure history. Made up of 66 "books" written by various authors and divided into two testaments, its contents have changed over the centuries. The Bible has been transformed by translation and, through interpretation, has developed manifold meanings to various religions, denominations, and sects. In this seminal account, acclaimed historian Karen Armstrong discusses the conception, gestation, and life of history's most powerful book. Armstrong analyzes the social and political situation in which oral history turned into written scripture, how this all-pervasive scripture was collected into one work, and how it became accepted as Christianity's sacred text. She explores how scripture came to be read for information and how, in the 19th century, historical criticism of the Bible caused greater fear than Darwinism. The Bible: A Biography is a brilliant, captivating book, crucial in an age of declining faith and rising fundamentalism.
©2007 Karen Armstrong (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
I Don't Know How She Does It
Summary
For every woman trying to strike that impossible balance between work and home - and pretending that she has - and for every woman who has wanted to hurl the acquaintance who coos admiringly, "Honestly, I just don't know how you do it," out a window, here's a novel to make you cringe with recognition and laugh out loud. With fierce, unsentimental irony, Allison Pearson's novel brilliantly dramatizes the dilemma of working motherhood at the start of the 21st century. Meet Kate Reddy, hedge-fund manager and mother of two. She can juggle nine different currencies in five different time zones and get herself and two children washed and dressed and out of the house in half an hour. In Kate's life, Everything Goes Perfectly as long as Everything Goes Perfectly. She lies to her own mother about how much time she spends with her kids; practices pelvic floor squeezes in the boardroom; applies tips from Toddler Taming to soothe her irascible boss; uses her cell phone in the office bathroom to procure a hamster for her daughter's birthday ("Any working mother who says she doesn't bribe her kids can add Liar to her résumé"); and cries into the laundry hamper when she misses her children's bedtime. In a novel that is at once uproariously funny and achingly sad, Allison Pearson captures the guilty secret lives of working women - the self-recrimination, the comic deceptions, the giddy exhaustion, the despair - as no other writer has. Kate Reddy's conflict (How are we meant to pass our days? How are we to reconcile the two passions, work and motherhood, that divide our lives?) gets at the private absurdities of working motherhood as only a novel could: with humor, drama, and bracing wisdom.
©2011 Allison Pearson (P)2011 Random House Audio
Four Queens
Summary
Set against the backdrop of the turbulent 13th century, a time of chivalry and crusades, poetry, knights, and monarchs, comes the story of the four beautiful daughters of the count of Provence, whose brilliant marriages made them the queens of France, England, Germany, and Sicily. From a cultured childhood in Provence, each sister was propelled into a world marked by shifting alliances, intrigue, and subterfuge: Marguerite, the eldest, whose resolution and spirit would be tested by the cold splendor of the Palais du Roi in Paris; Eleanor, whose soaring political aspirations would provoke her kingdom to civil war; Sanchia, the neglected wife of the richest man in England, who bought himself the crown of Germany; and Beatrice, whose desire for sovereignty was so acute that she risked her life to earn her place at the royal table. Four Queens shatters the myth that women were helpless pawns in a society that celebrated physical prowess and masculine intellect. A riveting historical saga for fans of Alison Weir and Antonia Fraser.
©2007 Nancy Goldstone (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.
Elizabeth I
Summary
Welcome to the bizarre court of Henry VIII, where even a princess fears losing her head like her mother. Elizabeth hides her tenacious personality from everyone, especially her father. Your 21st-century kid will enjoy Elizabeth's "treasonous thoughts" and glimpse the daily life of a young woman who ascended the throne at 25 and went on to rule her country for 45 years.
©1999 Kathryn Lasky (P)2005 Tantor Media, LLC
Rasputin's Daughter
Summary
With the same riveting historical narrative that made The Kitchen Boy a national best seller and a book club favorite, Robert Alexander returns to revolutionary Russia for the harrowing tale of Rasputin's final days as told by his youthful and bold daughter, Maria. Interrogated by the Provisional Government on the details of her father's death, Maria vividly recounts a politically tumultuous Russia, where Rasputin's powerful influence over the throne are unsettling to all levels of society, and the threats to his life are no secret. With vast conspiracies mounting against her father, Maria must struggle with the discovery of Rasputin's true nature, his unbridled carnal appetites, mysterious relationship with the Empress, rumors of involvement in secret religious cults, to save her father from his murderers. Swept away in a plot much larger than the death of one man, Maria finds herself on the cusp of the Russian Revolution itself. With Rasputin's Daughter, Robert Alexander once again delivers an imaginative and compelling story, fashioned from one of history's most fascinating periods that, until now, has been virtually unexplored in fiction.
©2006 Robert Alexander (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.
Come Back to Me
Summary
After centuries of conflict, a peace treaty has finally been drawn between the warring Saxons and Norse - largely due to the wisdom and bravery of the legendary Viking leader Wolf Hakonson and the noble warrior Lord Hawk. Hawk and Wolf each married women from warring clans to unite the Saxons and Norse. But for all its blessings, the promise of peace will remain fragile - unless it can be sealed forever by a third and final marriage between these two proud clans....Come Back to Me The most feared Viking to come out of the Northlands in a generation or more, Dragon Hakonson, brother to Lord Wolf and friend to Lord Hawk, hopes to steal a few days away by himself before entering into an arranged marriage with a Saxon bride. But instead of tranquillity, Dragon finds intrigue and passion when he has a chance encounter with a beguiling beauty disguised in boy’s garb. It is clear that the fiery-haired, fiercely willed Rycca is running away from something...or someone. Dragon is determined to uncover Rycca’s reasons for escape and see her safely to her destination. Yet rather than surrender herself to Dragon’s care, Rycca dares to defy him, disarm him, and even enchant him. For Rycca has a secret gift that Dragon cannot see. Stalked by the tragic past, struggling to fulfill the promise of peace, only when it is too late does Dragon discover the truth: that the temptress who has stolen his heart is none other than the woman destined to become his reluctant bride....
©2001 Josie Litton (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.
Cleopatra VII
Summary
Established Dear America author Kristiana Gregory kicks off The Royal Diaries series with the captivating story of a young Cleopatra's life. While her father is in hiding after attempts on his life, 12-year-old Cleopatra records in her diary how she fears for her own safety and hopes to survive to become queen of Egypt some day.
©1999 Kristiana Gregory (P)2006 Tantor Media Inc
The Devil's Feather
Summary
In each of her previous 10 critically acclaimed and hugely popular novels, Minette Walters has explored the dark terrain of the human psyche to give us thrillers of exceptional psychological complexity and suspense. Now, in The Devil's Feather, she gives us her most unexpected and electrifying novel yet. In 2002, five women are discovered barbarously murdered in Sierra Leone. Reuters Africa correspondent Connie Burns suspects a British mercenary: a man who seems to turn up in every war-torn corner of Africa, whose reputation for violence and brutality is well-founded and widely known. Connie's suspicions that he's using the chaos of war to act out sadistic, misogynistic fantasies fall on deaf ears -- but she's determined to expose him and his secret. The consequences are devastating. Connie encounters the man again in Baghdad, but almost immediately she's taken hostage. Released after three desperate days, terrified and traumatized by the experience -- fearing that she will never again be the person she once was -- Connie retreats to England. She is bent on protecting herself by withholding information about her abduction. But secluded in a remote rented house, where the jealously guarded history of her landlady's family seems to mirror her own fears, she knows that it is only a matter of time before her nightmares become real. With its sinuous plot, its acutely drawn characters, and its blistering suspense, The Devil's Feather keeps us riveted from first to last.
©2006 Minette Walters (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.
Late for the Wedding
Summary
Not many detectives stumble across a crime in the midst of a late-night tryst. But that's exactly what happens to Lavinia Lake and Tobias March, the prickly and passionate pair from Slightly Shady and Don't Look Back, when their weekend getaway at a posh country house turns into a full-fledged manhunt for a killer who targets wealthy older men who are about to wed young beauties. With all the intrigue, humor, and sizzling dialogue that make up her previous best sellers, Amanda Quick delivers a beguiling period romance filled with mystery as well as charm.
©2003 Amanda Quick (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.
Believe in Me
Summary
In this sequel to Dream of Me, Josie Litton pursues the romantic and political affiliations between the Saxons and Norse at the end of the ninth century. When the Saxon lord Hawk agrees to take a Norse bride, he finds an unexpected affection for his enigmatic and fiery fiancee, Lady Krysta. But Lady Krysta arrives bearing many secrets, including her gift for seeing what others cannot. When Hawk's sinister half-sister collaborates with a bevy of other schemers to try to drive a wedge between the couple, only Krysta can sense the looming danger that threatens both Hawk and the peace affected by their union. Believe in Me is studded with a cast of colorful characters and framed by a richly-drawn historical context.
©2001 Josie Litton (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.
Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile
Summary
Few writers have attempted to explore the natural history of a particular animal by adopting the animal's own sensibility. But Verlyn Klinkenborg, with his deeply empathetic relation to the world around him, has done just that, and done it brilliantly, in Timothy; or Notes of an Abject Reptile. This is the story of a tortoise whose real life was observed by the 18th century English curate Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne. For 13 years, Timothy lived in White's garden, making an occasional appearance in his journals. Now Klinkenborg gives the tortoise an unforgettable voice and powers of observation as keen as those of any bipedal naturalist. The happy result: Timothy regales us with an account of a gracefully paced, eight-day adventure outside the gate, and entertains us with shrewd observations about the curious habits and habitations of humanity. Wry and wise, unexpectedly moving, and enchanting, Timothy will surprise and delight people of all ages.
©2006 Verlyn Klinkenborg (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.
Basilica
Summary
It was the splendor and the scandal of the age. In 1506, the ferociously ambitious Renaissance Pope Julius II tore down the most sacred shrine in Europe, the millennium-old St. Peter's Basilica built by the Emperor Constantine over the apostle's grave, to build a better basilica. Construction of the new St. Peter's spanned two centuries, embroiled 27 popes, and consumed the genius of the greatest artists of the age: Michaelangelo, Bramante, Raphael, and Bernini. The cost of building the new cathedral was costly in more than just monetary terms; the new basilica provoked the Protestant Reformation, dividing the Christian world for all time. In this swift, colorful narrative, R.A. Scotti brings to life the artists and the popes, the politics and the passions behind this audacious enterprise. Scotti turns sacred architecture into a spellbinding human epic of enormous daring, petty jealousy, and staggering genius.
©2006 R.A. Scotti (P)2006 Tantor Media Inc
Dream of Me
Summary
Set in ninth-century England and Norway, Dream of Me tells the story of Wolf Hakonson, a fierce Norse chief who falls in love when he kidnaps the sister of his rival, Hawk, a prominent Saxon lord. Wolf marries the lovely Cymbra but their wedded bliss is short-lived. First the women of the settlement refuse to accept their Saxon mistress who turns out to have emphatic abilities, and then Wolf must face the wrath of his brother-in-law. Inevitably, true love triumphs, but the peace brought about by their union is precarious.
©2001 Josie Litton (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.
The Pirate Queen
Summary
Dubbed the "pirate queen" by the Vatican and Spain's Philip II, Elizabeth I was feared and admired by her enemies. Extravagant, whimsical, and hot-tempered, Elizabeth was the epitome of power. Her visionary accomplishments were made possible by her daring merchants, gifted rapscallion adventurers, astronomer philosophers, and her stalwart Privy Council, including Sir William Cecil, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Sir Nicholas Bacon. All these men contributed their vast genius, power, greed, and expertise to the advancement of England. In The Pirate Queen, historian Susan Ronald offers a fresh look at Elizabeth I, focusing on her uncanny instinct for financial survival and the superior intellect that propelled and sustained her rise. The foundation of Elizabeth's empire was built on a carefully choreographed strategy whereby piracy transformed England from an impoverished state on the fringes of Europe into the first building block of an empire that covered two-fifths of the world. Based on a wealth of historical sources and thousands of personal letters between Elizabeth and her merchant adventurers, advisers, and royal "cousins", The Pirate Queen tells the thrilling story of Elizabeth and the swashbuckling mariners who terrorized the seas, planted the seedlings of an empire, and amassed great wealth for themselves and the Crown.
©2007 Susan Ronald (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.