Laura Kirman has narrated 57 audiobooks on Listento.it by 40 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 206 ratings. The most-rated is Codename Villanelle.
Codename Villanelle
Summary
She is the perfect assassin. A Russian orphan, saved from the death penalty for the brutal revenge she took on her gangster father's killers. Ruthlessly trained. Given a new life. New names, new faces - whichever fits. Her paymasters call themselves The Twelve. But she knows nothing of them. Konstantin is the man who saved her and the one she answers to. She is Villanelle. Without conscience. Without guilt. Without weakness. Eve Polastri is the woman who hunts her. MI5, until one error of judgment costs her everything. Then stopping a ruthless assassin becomes more than her job. It becomes personal.
©2018 Luke Jennings (P)2018 W. F. Howes Ltd
The Secret Wife
Summary
The stories of two very different women, linked by the secrets and lies of history, merge together as past and present weave together in this stunning story of love, loss and resilience. 2016. Kitty, fleeing from a devastating revelation in her own life, finds herself at her great-grandfather's cabin in Lake Akanabee. There she discovers a gorgeous necklace, which leads her uncover to long-buried family secret. 1914. Tatiana, Grand Princess of Russia, falls in love with Dmitri, a Russian solider, as she nurses him back to health. The world is an uncertain place, especially for the Romanov family, and as their romance plays out the world as they know it rapidly crumbles around them.
©2016 Gill Paul (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
Seven Days
Summary
An incredible new psychological crime thriller from the top 10 Sunday Times best-selling author. A race against time to save her child.... In seven days, Maggie’s son, Max, turns three. But she’s not planning a party or buying presents or updating his baby book. She’s dreading it. Because in her world, third birthdays are the days on which the unthinkable happens...she loses her child. For the last 12 years Maggie has been imprisoned in a basement. Abducted aged 15, she gave birth to two sons before Max, and on their third birthdays her captor came and took them from her. She cannot let it happen again. But she has no idea how to stop it. And the clock is ticking....
©2019 Alex Lake (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
Summary
"Just because the men have gone to war, why do we have to close the choir? And precisely when we need it most!" As England enters World War II's dark early days, spirited music professor Primrose Trent, recently arrived to the village of Chilbury, emboldens the women of the town to defy the Vicar's stuffy edict to shutter the church's choir in the absence of men and instead carry on singing. Resurrecting themselves as The Chilbury Ladies' Choir, the women of this small village soon use their joint song to lift up themselves and the community as the war tears through their lives. Told through letters and journals, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir moves seamlessly from budding romances to village intrigues to heartbreaking matters of life and death. As we come to know the struggles of the charismatic members of this unforgettable outfit - a timid widow worried over her son at the front, the town beauty drawn to a rakish artist, her younger sister nursing an impossible crush and dabbling in politics she doesn't understand, a young Jewish refugee hiding secrets about her family, and a conniving midwife plotting to outrun her seedy past - we come to see how the strength each finds in the choir's collective voice reverberates in her individual life. In turns funny, charming and heart-wrenching, this lovingly executed ensemble novel will charm and inspire, illuminating the true spirit of the women on the home front, in a village of indomitable spirit, at the dawn of a most terrible conflict. This audiobook includes popular versions of classical music sung by women's choirs, including the songs "Abide with Me" and "All Creatures", "Ave Maria", and "The Lord's My Shepherd".
©2017 Jennifer Ryan (P)2017 Random House Audio
The Phantom Tree
Summary
Browsing an antiques shop in Wiltshire, Alison Bannister stumbles across a delicate old portrait - identified as the doomed Tudor queen Anne Boleyn. Except Alison knows better. The subject is Mary Seymour, the daughter of Katherine Parr, who was taken to Wolf Hall in 1557 and presumed dead after going missing as a child. And Alison knows this because she, too, lived at Wolf Hall and knew Mary...more than 400 years ago. The painting of Mary is more than just a beautiful object for Alison - it holds the key to her past life, the unlocking of the mystery surrounding Mary’s disappearance and how Alison can get back to her own time. To when she and Mary were childhood enemies yet shared a pact that now, finally, must be fulfilled, no matter the cost. Best-selling author of House of Shadows, Nicola Cornick offers a provocative alternate history of rivals, secrets, and danger, set in a time when a woman’s destiny was determined by the politics of men and luck of birth. A spellbinding tale for fans of Kate Morton, Philippa Gregory, and Barbara Erskine.
©2018 Nicola Cornick (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers, Limited
The Last Lie
Summary
The twisty new psychological thriller from the best-selling author of After Anna, Killing Kate and Copycat Everyone lies...but some lies are deadly. For Claire Daniels, life is good. She has everything she’s ever wanted - a career she loves, friends she can rely on and a husband who dotes on her. All she needs is to start a family of her own and things will be even better than good. They’ll be perfect. For Alfie, it couldn’t be more different. His life with Claire is built on a lie. A lot of lies. And she can never find out. Because Alfie has plans for her. Plans which must never come to light. But lies have a way of taking on a life of their own, and when his do, the consequences threaten to destroy everything. For him and Claire.
©2018 Alex Lake (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
The Choice
Summary
An incredible new psychological crime thriller from the top ten Sunday Times best-selling author. A kidnap.... Matt Westbrook only turned his back for a moment. But when he looks around, his car - with his three young children inside - has vanished. A ransom.... Panicked, Matt assumes a car thief has got more than he bargained for, but then he starts to receive text messages: This is a kidnap. If you want to see your children again, you will exchange them for your wife. A choice.... Matt and his wife Annabelle are horrified. They can’t involve the police, or their children will be killed. Which means they have to choose: Annabelle, or their children. Either option is unthinkable. But one is inevitable. And they have only hours to make their decision....
©2020 Alex Lake (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Daughters of the Winter Queen
Summary
The captivating story of four unforgettable sisters and their glamorous mother, Elizabeth Stuart, granddaughter of Mary, Queen of Scots Young Elizabeth Stuart was thrust into a life of wealth and splendor when her godmother, Queen Elizabeth I, died and her father, James I, ascended to the illustrious throne of England. At 16 she was married to a dashing German count far below her rank, with the understanding that James would help her husband achieve the crown of Bohemia. Her father's terrible betrayal of this promise would ruin "the Winter Queen", as Elizabeth would forever be known, imperil the lives of those she loved, and launch a war that would last for 30 years. Forced into exile, the Winter Queen and her growing family found refuge in Holland, where the glorious art and culture of the Dutch Golden Age formed the backdrop to her daughters' education. The eldest, Princess Elizabeth, was renowned as a scholar when women were all but excluded from serious study and counted the preeminent philosopher René Descartes among her closest friends. Louise Hollandine, whose lively manner and appealing looks would provoke heartache and scandal, was a gifted painter. Shy, gentle Henrietta Maria, the beauty of the family, would achieve the dynastic ambition of marrying into royalty, although at great cost. But it would be the youngest, Sophia, a heroine in the tradition of Jane Austen, whose ready wit and good-natured common sense masked immense strength of character, who would fulfill the promise of her great-grandmother, a legacy that endures to this day. Brilliantly researched and captivatingly written, Nancy Goldstone shows how these spirited, passionate women faced danger, tragic loss, and betrayal, and by refusing to surrender to adversity, changed the course of history.
©2018 Nancy Goldstone (P)2018 Hachette Audio
The Real Wallis Simpson
Summary
Wallis Simpson is known as the woman at the center of the most scandalous love affair of the 20th century, but in this “unputdownable...lively and detailed” (The Times, London) biography, discover a woman wronged by history with new information revealed by the latest research those who were close to the couple.
The story that has been told repeatedly is this: The handsome, charismatic, and popular Prince Edward was expected to marry a well-bred virgin who would one day become queen of England when he ascended the throne. But when the prince was nearly 40, he fell in love with a divorced American woman - Wallis Simpson. No one thought the relationship would last, and when the prince did become king, everyone assumed that was the end of the affair. But to the shock of the British establishment, the new king announced his intention to marry the American divorcée.
Overnight, Wallis was accused of entrapping the prince in a seductive web in order to achieve her audacious ambition to be queen. After declaring that he could not rule without the woman he loved, the king abdicated, and his family banished him and his new wife from the country. The couple spent the rest of their days in exile, but happy in their devoted love for each other.
Now, Anna Pasternak’s The American Dutchess tells a different story: that Wallis was the victim of the abdication, not the villain. Warm, well-mannered, and witty, Wallis was flattered by Prince Edward’s attention, but like everyone else, she never expected his infatuation to last. She never anticipated his jealous, possessive nature - and his absolute refusal to let her go. Edward’s true dark nature, however, was no secret to the royal family, the church, or the Parliament; everyone close to Edward knew that beyond his charming façade, he was utterly unfit to rule. Caught in Edward’s fierce obsession, she became the perfect scapegoat for those who wished to dethrone the troubled king. With profound insight and evenhanded research, Pasternak pulls back the curtain on one of the darkest fairy tales in recent memory and effortlessly reveals “[A] host of intriguing insights into a misunderstood woman” (Kirkus Reviews).
©2019 Anna Pasternak (P)2019 Simon & Schuster
The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts
Summary
Where happy ever after is only a page away...A delightful new series set in a quaint old bookshop, for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny Colgan. Once upon a time in a crumbling London bookshop, Posy Morland spent her life lost in the pages of her favourite romantic novels. So when Bookend's eccentric owner, Lavinia, dies and leaves the shop to Posy, she must put down her books and join the real world. Because Posy hasn't just inherited an ailing business, but also the unwelcome attentions of Lavinia's grandson, Sebastian, AKA The Rudest Man In London™. Posy has a cunning plan and six months to transform Bookends into the bookshop of her dreams - if only Sebastian would leave her alone to get on with it. As Posy and her friends fight to save their beloved bookshop, Posy's drawn into a battle of wills with Sebastian, about whom she's started to have some rather feverish fantasies...Like her favourite romantic heroines, will she get her happy ever after too?
©2016 Annie Darling (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
The Crown of Dalemark
Summary
The final book in the epic fantasy-adventure series from 'the Godmother of Fantasy', Diana Wynne Jones. Now back in print! 'Mitt arrived at the top of the steps, panting, and pushed open the door. "Oh, there you are," said the Countess. "We want you to kill someone."' Since his arrival in the North of Dalemark Mitt has become disillusioned. The North seems no more free than the Holand he fled, a fugitive accused of attempted murder. And now he is trapped by the order to kill someone he doesn't know or else risk the lives of his friends. Forced once more to flee, Mitt is joined by Moril, the quietly powerful musician, and Maewen - out of her time, but mysteriously fated to play a part in their quest. For the evil powers of the mage Kankredin are re-assembling, and only the Adon's gifts - the ring, sword and cup - can once more unit Dalemark.
©1993 Diana Wynne Jones (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
The Well of Loneliness
Summary
Stephen Gordon is an ideal child of aristocratic parents - a fencer, a horse rider and a keen scholar. Stephen grows to be a war hero, a best-selling writer and a loyal, protective lover. But Stephen is a woman, and her lovers are women. As her ambitions drive her, and society confines her, Stephen is forced into desperate actions.
©2013 W F Howes Ltd (P)2013 W F Howes Ltd
Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
Summary
A romantic treat, perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny Colgan! You can go crazy searching for the one.... Nina is addicted to bad boys, the wilder, the better. Despite her friends’ misgivings, she firmly believes that true love takes only one form: wild, full of passion and fire and punctuated by tempestuous arguments. She won’t settle for anything less. But years of swiping right has uncovered nothing but losers and flings, and Nina is no closer to finding her One True Love than she ever was. And when a man from her past walks into the shop, Nina knows she has nothing to fear: the geekiest boy in her school has become a boring suit with no chance of making her heart go pitter patter. Which just shows how little Nina knows about her heart....
©2018 Annie Darling (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
The Dirty Dozen
Summary
The gritty new thriller from the Queen of Crime Drama and the fifth book in the Sunday Times best-selling Jane Tennison series. Jane Tennison has worked hard to become the first female detective ever posted to the infamous Flying Squad, or 'the Sweeney'. But the Dirty Dozen is a notorious boys' club, and Jane's new colleagues make it clear that they don't think a woman is up to the dangers of the job. Dealing with some of London's most ruthless armed criminals, who think the only good cop is a dead cop, is no joke. Determined to prove she's as good as the men, Jane discovers from a reliable witness that a gang is going to carry out a massive robbery. But she doesn't know who they are, or where and when they will strike....
©2019 Lynda La Plante (P)2019 Bonnier Books UK
A Perfect Cornish Summer
Summary
Escape to Cornwall with this gorgeous new series from Phillipa Ashley – perfect for fans of Nicola May and Holly Martin. Summer is on the horizon and the people of Porthmellow are eagerly awaiting the annual food festival. At least, most of them are.... For Sam Lovell, organising the summer festival in her hometown is one of the highlights of her year. It’s not always smooth sailing, but she loves to see Porthmellow’s harbour packed with happy visitors and being on the committee has provided a much-needed distraction from the drama in her family life (and the distinct lack of it in her love life). When their star guest pulls out with only a few weeks to go, everyone’s delighted when a London chef who grew up locally steps in at the last minute. But Gabe Matthias is the last person Sam was expecting to see and his return to Porthmellow will change her quiet coastal life for ever. If you loved A Perfect Cornish Summer, don’t miss A Perfect Cornish Christmas and A Perfect Cornish Escape!
©2019 Phillipa Ashley (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
True Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
Summary
It's a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good job, four bossy sisters and a needy cat must also have want of her one true love. Or is it? Another delightful novel from the author of The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts. Perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny Colgan. Verity Love - Jane Austen fangirl and an introvert in a world of extroverts - is perfectly happy on her own (thank you very much), and her fictional boyfriend, Peter, is very useful for getting her out of unwanted social events. But when a case of mistaken identity forces her to introduce a perfect stranger as her boyfriend, Verity's life suddenly becomes much more complicated. Johnny could also use a fictional girlfriend. Against Verity's better judgment, he persuades her to partner up for a summer season of weddings, big number birthdays and garden parties, with just one promise - not to fall in love with each other....
©2017 Annie Darling (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Little Boy Lost
Summary
Innocence is no protection against evil.... One early October afternoon, 10-year-old Jacob Rossi begins the short walk home from school. But he never makes it. Days later, DCI Anna Tate is called to the scene of a burning building, where an awful discovery has been made. A body has been found, and the label in his school blazer reads: J. Rossi. As Anna starts digging, she soon learns that a lot of people had grudges against the boy’s father. But would any of them go so far as to take his son? And is the boy’s abductor closer than she thinks? An absolutely gripping thriller for fans of Cara Hunter’s No Way Out and Angela Marsons's First Blood.
©2019 J. P. Carter (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited (2017)
At Your Door
Summary
What happens when the past comes back to kill you? When DCI Anna Tate is called to the gruesome discovery of a dead woman found on Barnes Common, she is plunged into a high-profile investigation involving a prominent MP. London is baying for blood - but is there more to Holly’s death than at first meets the eye? Meanwhile, the hunt is on for Anna’s missing daughter Chloe, who vanished 10 years ago when her ex-husband kidnapped her. The case has been cold for what feels like forever - but a phone call brings a brand-new lead.... Can Anna solve the murder case whilst dealing with her own personal demons? Or is someone from the past planning to get in her way? An addictive new thriller from J. P. Carter, perfect for fans of Katerina Diamond and M.J. Arlidge.
©2019 J. P. Carter (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
In Safe Hands
Summary
How far would you go to save the ones you love? The first book in a stunning new crime series featuring DCI Anna Tate. When nine children are snatched from a nursery school in South London, their distressed parents have no idea if they will ever see them again. The community in the surrounding area is in shock. How could this happen right under their noses? No one in the quiet suburban street saw anything - or at least that's what they're saying. But DCI Anna Tate knows that nothing is impossible, and she also knows that time is quickly running out. It’s unclear if the kidnappers are desperate for money or set on revenge, but the ransom is going up by £1 million daily. And they know that one little boy in particular is fighting for his life. It’s one of the most disturbing cases DCI Anna Tate has ever worked on - not only because nine children are being held hostage but because she’s pretty sure that someone close to them is lying....
©2019 J. P. Carter (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
The Last Piece
Summary
A sudden departure. A story decades in the making. The chaotic but happy equilibrium of the Nightingale family is thrown into disarray when Cecily - whose children can't remember her ever being remotely spontaneous - disappears to a Greek island with no warning or explanation. Her reasons for doing something so out of character are a total mystery to her three daughters, high-powered executive Felicity, unfulfilled GP Julia and organised mother-of-five Lily. What connection could she possibly have with Kefalonia? But Cecily has gone to continue a story she thought ended decades ago - one that could have a huge impact on her family. And when she returns, she'll have to tell them the truth. Will Cecily be able to hold her family together once she reveals her big secret? And might she discover that she's not the only one with a story to tell?
©2020 Blue Lizard Books Ltd. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.