Mary Alice Monroe has narrated 14 audiobooks on Listento.it by 1 author, with an average listener rating of 4.9★ across 17 ratings. The most-rated is The Beach House.
Swimming Lessons
Summary
It's been five years since the original turtle lady, old Miss Lovie Rutledge, passed away, but her legacy lives on with some special women, especially Toy and her daughter, young Little Lovie. Toy Sooner kept her graveside vow to her beloved mentor. She left behind an abusive, dysfunctional lifestyle to become a strong single mother and aquarist at the South Carolina Aquarium. But success has taken its toll, leaving Toy fearful of change and risks. Caretta Rutledge, Florence Prescott and Emmaline Baker have all experienced loss. This summer, with each other's friendship and support, they will try to make their dreams a reality. The turtle season begins the day Toy rescues a sick sea turtle on the beach. When Toy brings the loggerhead to the aquarium, she begins a turtle hospital with the help of her boss, Ethan. As the summer progresses and the sea turtles take their measured steps toward healing and freedom Toy, Cara, Flo and Emmi must find their own strength to face their fears and move courageously toward their futures. Mary Alice Monroe delivers another deeply satisfying novel written with an eye to nature and keen insights into the connections between women.
©2007 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Beach House Memories
Summary
Autumn brings its own haunting beauty to the sun-soaked beaches and dunes on Isle of Palms, where Olivia “Lovie” Rutledge lives in her beloved Primrose Cottage with her daughter, Cara. Looking back as summer fades, Lovie can remember many island summers, but especially one. . . . In 1974, America was changing, but Charleston remained eternally the same. Lovie had always done what was expected - marrying the son of a historic Charleston family, Stratton Rutledge, and turning over her fortune and fate to his control. But one thing she steadfastly refuses to relinquish: her family’s old seaside cottage. The precious summers spent on the barrier island are Lovie’s refuge. Here, she can escape with her children from the social expectations of her traditional Southern mother, and her overbearing husband’s ambition and philandering. Here, she indulges her lifelong vocation as a “Turtle Lady”, tending the loggerhead sea turtles that lay their eggs in the warm night sand and then slip back into the sea. This summer, however, is different. Visiting biologist Russell Bennett arrives on the island to research the loggerheads. What begins as a shared passion for the turtles changes to a love far more passionate and profound than Lovie has ever known - but one that forces her to face the most agonizing decision of her life. For Charleston’s elite, divorce is an unforgivable scandal, and Stratton’s influence is far-reaching. If Lovie dares to dream beyond a summer affair, she risks losing everything: her reputation, her wealth, even her precious children. Beach House Memories - a poignant and emotional tale of a strong, passionate woman torn between duty and desire, between the traditions of the old South and the social changes sweeping America - will capture your heart. For Lovie, it is an empowering journey of seasons of self-discovery. Until this autumn, this time of changing tides, of holding on and letting go. . . .
©2011 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Beach House
Summary
Caretta Rutledge thought she’d left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind. But an unusual request from her mother – coming just as her own life is spinning out of control – has Cara heading back to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers.
Before long, the rhythms of the island open her heart in wonderful ways as she repairs the family beach house, becomes a bona fide “turtle lady” and renews old acquaintances long thought lost. But it is in reconnecting with her mother that she will learn life’s most precious lessons – true love involves sacrifice, family is forever and the mistakes of the past can be forgiven.
©2006 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Beach House Reunion
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author and “skilled storyteller who never lets her readers down” (Huffington Post) returns to her beloved Beach House series with this “authentic, generous, and heartfelt” (Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times best-selling author) tale of new beginnings, resilience, and one family’s enduring love. Cara Rutledge returns to her Southern home on the idyllic Isle of Palms. Everything is comfortingly the same, yet each detail is rife with painful memories. Only through reconnecting with family, friends, and the rhythms of the lowcountry can Cara release the hold of the past and open herself to the possibility of a new love, career, and hope for the future. Meanwhile, her niece Linnea, a recent college graduate who doesn’t know where her life will take her, leaves her historic home in Charleston, with all its entitlement and expectations, and heads to her aunt’s beach house. On the island, she is part of the freer, natural ocean lifestyle she loves, rejoining the turtle team, learning to surf, and falling in love. Remembering the lessons of her beloved grandmother, Lovie, the original “turtle lady”, Linnea rediscovers a meaningful purpose to her life and finds the courage she needs to break from tradition. In this heartwarming novel, three generations of the Rutledge family gather together to find the strength, love, and commitment to break destructive family patterns and to forge new bonds that will endure long beyond one summer reunion.
©2018 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2018 Simon & Schuster Audio
The Summer Girls
Summary
Three sisters reunite on Sullivan’s Island off the coast of South Carolina after years of separation in this heartwarming first novel in a new trilogy from a beloved author. 80-year-old Marietta Muir is a dowager of Charleston society who has retired to her historic summer home on Sullivan’s Island. At the onset of summer, Marietta - "Mamaw" - seeks to gather her three granddaughters - Carson, Eudora, and Harper - with the intent to reunite them after years apart.
©2013 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2013 AudioGO
A Lowcountry Wedding
Summary
Wedding season has arrived in New York Times best-selling author Mary Alice Monroe's next novel in the "distinct, complex, and endearing" (Charleston Magazine) Lowcountry Summer series, set against the romantic, charming Charleston Lowcountry. Nothing could be more enchanting than a summer wedding - or two! - in Charleston's fabled Lowcountry. A centuries-old church, an avenue of ancient oaks dripping moss, a storied ballroom, a sand dune at sunset.... Yet when a stranger arrives, a long-held family secret could silence the bells ringing for the Muir sisters. Scandals surface, family bonds are questioned, and promises are broken and renewed. In A Lowcountry Wedding, Monroe delves into the heart of marriage, commitment, and family ties. Huffington Post calls the Lowcountry Summer series "the perfect beach read and a whole lot more".
©2016 Mary Alice Monroe, Ltd. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster, Inc.
A Lowcountry Christmas
Summary
A wounded warrior and his younger brother discover the true meaning of Christmas in this timeless story of family bonds. A poignant continuation of the Lowcountry Summer series. As far as 10-year-old Miller McClellan is concerned, it's the worst Christmas ever. His father's shrimp boat is docked, his mother is working two jobs, and with finances strained, Miller is told, they can't afford the dog he desperately wants. "Your brother's return from war is our family's gift," his parents tell him. But when Taylor returns with PTSD, family strains darken the holidays. Then Taylor's service dog arrives - a large black Labrador/Great Dane named Thor. His brother even got the dog! When Miller goes out on Christmas Eve with his father's ax, determined to get his family the tree they can't afford, he takes the dog for company - but accidentally winds up lost in the wild forest. The splintered family must come together to rediscover their strengths, their family bond, and the true meaning of Christmas. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2016 Mary Alice Monroe, Ltd. All rights reserved. (P)2016 Simon & Schuster
Beach House for Rent
Summary
Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times best-selling author of the Lowcountry Summer series, returns to her beloved Beach House series with the highly anticipated follow-up to Beach House Memories and The Beach House!
©2017 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2017 Simon & Schuster Audio
The Summer's End
Summary
In the powerful and heartwarming conclusion to her best-selling Lowcountry Summer trilogy, New York Times best-selling author Mary Alice Monroe brings her listeners back to the charm and sultry beauty of Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, to reveal how the pull of family bonds and true love is as strong and steady as the tides. It is summer's end, and Sea Breeze, the family's beloved estate on Sullivan's Island, must be sold. It is an emotional time of transition as Mamaw and the three sisters each must face loss and find a new place in the world. Harper, the youngest sister, arrives at Sea Breeze intending to stay only a weekend. But a rift with her wealthy, influential mother leaves her without direction or a home. During this remarkable summer, free from her mother's tyranny and with the help of her half sisters, Harper discovers her talents and independent spirit. But summer is ending, and the fate of Sea Breeze hinges on her courage to decide the course of her own life. To do so she must release her insecurities and recognize her newfound strengths. Harper must accept love fully into her life - the love of Mamaw, Carson, and Dora, the love of Sea Breeze and the lowcountry, and most of all the love of a wounded warrior who has claimed her heart.
©2015 Mary Alice Monroe, Ltd. (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Butterfly's Daughter
Summary
The legend of las mariposas — the beautiful monarch butterflies that every year fly more than two thousand miles on fragile wings to return to their winter home in Mexico — is Luz Avila’s birthright. She learned of their ways and their mystical powers from the grandmother who was the only family she ever knew. Now it is her turn, like the butterflies, to make that long, perilous journey. In order to honor a promise to her beloved abuela, Luz must return her grandmother’s ashes to her ancestral village in the mountains of Mexico. But while this ofrenda, a tradition so old its origins are lost in the mists of time, will mean leaving behind a man who loves Luz deeply, the journey promises to bring deep spiritual meaning to the life of a woman who cannot find her way into the future until she comes to terms with the past. As Luz slowly makes her way south from blustery Milwaukee in a VW Bug so ancient it has no business on the highway, a series of seemingly random encounters touches her life: a desperate mother-to-be, even younger than her, fleeing an abusive lover. An anywhere-the-wind-blows free spirit. A lonely career woman who is determined to live, really live, for the first time. It is in San Antonio, however, that a truly startling revelation awaits Luz: a reunion with a shadowy figure from her childhood. Together, they cross the border into Mexico, but they also must somehow cross the border that separates past from present, bitterness from love, and truth from lies. They will honor the memory of another beloved woman by standing in the Sacred Circle to witness the spectacular, glittering river of orange monarchs descend from the sky to return home. If they can share in this age-old ritual, perhaps they will be able to find their way back to love, and take their place in the enduring cycle of life.
©2011 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Summer Wind
Summary
The Summer Wind is the second book in Monroe's Lowcountry Summer trilogy, following the New York Times best seller The Summer Girls. This series is the poignant and heartwarming story of three half-sisters and their grandmother, who is determined to help them rediscover their Southern roots and family bonds. It's midsummer, and Eudora, nicknamed Dora, is staying at Sea Breeze, the family's ancestral home on Sullivan's Island. For years, Dora has played the role of the perfect wife and mother in a loveless marriage. Now her husband has filed for divorce, her child is diagnosed with autism, and her house is on the market. Dora's façade collapses under the weight of her grief, and she suffers "broken heart syndrome." Mamaw and the girls rally around Dora - but it's up to Dora to heal herself as she spends the summer prowling the beach, discovering the secrets of the island and her heart. This is a summer of discovery for all the women of Sea Breeze. Carson returns from Florida to face life-changing decisions, Lucille confronts a health scare, and an unexpected visitor has Harper reconsidering her life's direction. When tropical storm winds batter the island, the women must band together and weather the tempest - both the one outside their windows and the raging sea of emotions within each of them. They must learn again what it means to be a sister. It is up to Mamaw to keep the light burning at Sea Breeze to guide the girls through the lies, the threats, and the rocky waters of indecision to home.
©2014 Blackstone Audio; 2014 Mary Alice Monroe
Time Is a River
Summary
With her evocative prose and finely tuned insights into family relationships, Mary Alice Monroe has earned legions of fans and numerous awards. Reminiscent of Anne Rivers Siddons, her writing is a delightful blend of southern authenticity and rich emotional drama, and she delivers an engaging and complex novel with
Time Is a River.
Mia Landon travels to a mountain sanctuary near Asheville, North Carolina, while she begins her recovery from breast cancer. There, in the cabin at Watkins Glenn, Mia discovers the long lost journal of a well-known fly-fisherwoman from the 1920s, Kate Watkins.
Reading Kate's inspiring words recounting her sensational adventures on the river coaxes an otherwise withdrawn Mia from her shell and gives her the desire to reconnect with the world around her. And as she learns to fish, she also uncovers surprising secrets that span generations - and a hidden scandal that has the power to change not only her own life, but also those who live at Watkins Glenn.
Enthralling, heartwarming, and moving, Time Is a River is a novel that wonderfully captures the complexity of human connections - to the natural world, to each other, to one's self, and ultimately to one's soul.
©2008 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2008 Brilliance Audio
Second Star to the Right
Summary
Sometimes fairy tales do come true… As a single mother of two, Faye O'Neill has no time for fairy tales. She's not even certain she believes in luck. Practical, smart, and desperate to escape a shadowy past, Faye takes a job at a top advertising firm in London where she hopes she and her children can find a fresh start. When she finds the beautiful two-story flat for rent in a stately old Victorian complete with a neglected but tumbling English garden, she can scarcely believe her good fortune. But it isn't long before Faye realizes not everything in the old home may be as peaceful as it seems. A strange light begins to appear in her children's rooms at night, and then there's the reclusive elderly tenant, Crazy Wendy, her landlady warned her to steer clear of, the woman who spends her evenings spying on Faye's children from her garret-room window. The woman who believes she is Peter Pan's Wendy. To make matters worse, Faye, who has sworn off men, discovers her downstairs neighbor Jack is a disturbingly handsome professor with a talent for charming women and children alike. Before she knows it, Faye has embarked upon a whole new adventure into a world where anything might be possible, where broken hearts can be healed by a kiss, and where Neverland may not be a place of fables but a forgotten land one can still find if they are only brave enough to follow the second star to the right.
©2015 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Last Light over Carolina
Summary
With a warm voice that brings the South to life,
New York Times best-selling author Mary Alice Monroe writes richly textured novels that intimately portray the complex and emotional relationships shared among family, friends, and the natural world.
Here, in Last Light Over Carolina, Monroe tells the haunting and touching story of a longtime shrimp boat captain and his wife of 30 years on the day he is injured at sea.
On an otherwise ordinary day, in a small shrimping village off the coast of South Carolina, a boat goes missing. The entire town rallies as all are mobilized to find the lost vessel. Throughout the course of one day, flashbacks of Bud Morrison, the captain on board, and Carolina, his wife, reveal the happier days of a once-thriving shrimping industry juxtaposed with the memories of their long term marriage.
Through her wonderfully evocative storytelling and keen insights into the human heart, Mary Alice Monroe has yet again delivered an exceptional and engaging work of fiction.
©2009 Mary Alice Monroe (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.