Lara Sawalha has narrated 7 audiobooks on Listento.it by 14 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 11 ratings. The most-rated is The Map of Salt and Stars.
The Map of Salt and Stars
Summary
This rich, moving, and lyrical debut novel is to Syria what The Kite Runner was to Afghanistan; the story of two girls living 800 years apart - a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and a medieval adventurer apprenticed to a legendary mapmaker - places today's headlines in the sweep of history, where the pain of exile and the triumph of courage echo again and again. It is the summer of 2011, and Nour has just lost her father to cancer. Her mother, a cartographer who creates unusual, hand-painted maps, decides to move Nour and her sisters from New York City back to Syria to be closer to their family. But the country Nour's mother once knew is changing, and it isn't long before protests and shelling threaten their quiet Homs neighborhood. When a shell destroys Nour's house and almost takes her life, she and her family are forced to choose: stay and risk more violence or flee as refugees across seven countries of the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety. As their journey becomes more and more challenging, Nour's idea of home becomes a dream she struggles to remember and a hope she cannot live without. More than 800 years earlier, Rawiya, 16 and a widow's daughter, knows she must do something to help her impoverished mother. Restless and longing to see the world, she leaves home to seek her fortune. Disguising herself as a boy named Rami, she becomes an apprentice to al-Idrisi, who has been commissioned by King Roger II of Sicily to create a map of the world. In his employ, Rawiya embarks on an epic journey across the Middle East and the north of Africa, where she encounters ferocious mythical beasts, epic battles, and real historical figures. A deep immersion into the richly varied cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, The Map of Salt and Stars follows the journeys of Nour and Rawiya as they travel along identical paths across the region 800 years apart, braving the unknown beside their companions as they are pulled by the promise of reaching home at last.
©2018 Zeynab Joukhadar. All rights reserved. (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
Roar
Summary
I am woman. Hear me roar. Original, honest and thought-provoking, Roar is Cecelia Ahern's unforgettable story collection. With her trademark honesty, Cecelia Ahern gives us 30 linked stories, all titled 'The Woman Who...', that capture the different facets of women's lives. Humorous, moving, surreal and poignant, the stories capture the moments the characters are overwhelmed by guilt, confusion, frustration, intimidation, exhaustion - the private moments when they feel the need to roar. From 'The Woman Who Slowly Disappeared' to 'The Woman Who Returned and Exchanged Her Husband', discover an extraordinary collection that will resonate with listeners everywhere.
©2018 Cecelia Ahern (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
Salafi-Jihadism
Summary
No topic has gripped the public imagination so dramatically as the spectre of global jihadism. While much has been said about the way jihadists behave, their ideology remains poorly understood. Shiraz Maher charts the intellectual underpinnings of Salafi-jihadism from its origins in the mountains of the Hindu Kush to the jihadist insurgencies of the 1990s and the 9/11 wars. His groundbreaking introduction to Salafi-jihadism recalibrates our understanding of the ideas underpinning one of the most destructive political philosophies of our time.
©2017 Shiraz Maher (P)2017 Audible, Ltd
No Ballet Shoes in Syria
Summary
Aya is 11 years old and has just arrived in Britain with her mum and baby brother, seeking asylum from war in Syria. When Aya stumbles across a local ballet class, the formidable dance teacher spots her exceptional talent and believes that Aya has the potential to earn a prestigious ballet scholarship. But at the same time, Aya and her family must fight to be allowed to remain in the country, to make a home for themselves and to find Aya's father - separated from the rest of the family during the journey from Syria. With beautiful, captivating writing, wonderfully authentic ballet detail, and an important message championing the rights of refugees, this is classic storytelling - filled with warmth, hope and humanity.
©2019 Catherine Bruton (P)2019 Nosy Crow Ltd
The Girl Who Beat Isis
Summary
In August 2014, Farida Abbas was just a normal Yazidi girl living in a village high in the mountains of Northern Iraq. Then her village was attacked and swiftly taken by ISIS fighters, and her whole world changed. The jihadists murdered the men and the boys of her village, including her father and brothers, before taking Farida prisoner along with the rest of the women. This is the story of what happened to Farida after she was captured: the beatings, the rapes, the markets where ISIS sold their female prisoners like cattle, and Farida's realisation that the more difficult and resistant she became, the harder it was for her captors to continue their atrocities against her. So she struggled, she bit, she kicked, she accused her captors of going against their religion, and then one day the door to her room was left unlocked. She took her chance along with five other women and set out across the Syrian desert.... This is a story of incredible courage in the face of unthinkable atrocity. As the battle against ISIS continues to ravage the Middle East, The Girl Who Beat Isis provides an astonishing perspective on this very terrifying global threat.
©2016 Farida Khalaf (P)2016 Random House Audiobooks
The Star Outside My Window
Summary
My mum is up there somewhere. She's waiting - I can feel it. I just have to find her in time, that's all. Because when I do, I'll know the truth about who stole her.
Told through the innocent voice of a child, this is a story that celebrates the power of hope and resilience, from the author of The Boy at the Back of the Class.
On her 10th birthday, Sophie makes a wish - a wish for her mum. After school that same day, Sophie and her brother are rushed out of school and driven far, far away.
So Sophie sets out to find out the truth - about the wish and about what happened to her mother. And in doing so she ends up on an adventure she never could have foreseen...one that involves a very clever squirrel, a homeless man named Harry, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and the biggest star in Hollywood.
A story that explores the subtle faces and endless impacts of domestic violence.
©2019 Onjali Q. Rauf (P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
I Am Heathcliff
Summary
Sixteen modern fiction superstars shine a startling light on the romance and pain of the infamous literary pair Heathcliff and Cathy. Short stories to stir the heart and awaken vital conversation about love. Sixteen stories inspired by Wuthering Heights. In ‘Terminus’ a young woman hides in an empty Brighton hotel; in ‘Thicker Than Blood’ a man sits in a hot tub stalking his newly married love on social media; and in ‘A Bird Half-eaten’ an amateur boxer prepares for a match. A woman recalls the ‘Heathcliffs I Have Known’ and the physical danger she has borne at their hands; in ‘Anima’ a child and a fox are unified in one startling moment of violence; and in ‘One Letter Different’ two teenagers walk the moors and face up to their respective buried secrets. Curated by Kate Mosse and commissioned for Emily Brontë’s bicentenary year in 2018, these fresh, modern stories pulse with the raw beauty and pain of love and are as timely as they are illuminating. The full list of contributors is: Leila Aboulela, Hanan Al-Shaykh, Joanna Cannon, Alison Case, Juno Dawson, Louise Doughty, Sophie Hannah, Anna James, Erin Kelly, Dorothy Koomson, Grace McCleen, Lisa McInerney, Laurie Penny, Nikesh Shukla, Michael Stewart and Louisa Young.
©2018 Kate Mosse (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers