Michael Crouch has narrated 174 audiobooks on Listento.it by 172 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 3,066 ratings. The most-rated is The Sea in the Sky.
The Torchbearers
Summary
The third instalment in this suspenseful and spooky series from New York Times best-selling duo Brendan Reichs and Ally Condie. After the events of Dark Halloween, the town of Timbers is in a full-blown monster panic, making life for the Torchbearers - Opal, Nico, Tyler, Emma and Logan - extremely difficult. Nico is investigating the Rift and the strange natural phenomena that continue to occur, all while worrying about his dad's potential work transfer. Opal has her hands full researching the founding Torchbearer, Yvette Dumont, and deciphering clues from another realm sent by the mysterious Thing in a Jar. Emma's wildly popular YouTube show has brought her new-found fame but also earned her some enemies. Logan is trying to unlock secrets in his own family history that might shed light on how the Torchbearer Order began, while Tyler, as the self-proclaimed Beastmaster, strives to commune with - and not be eaten by - the mercurial and deadly alien sea creature living in Still Cove. But that's not all. Something cryptic has surfaced from within the Darkdeep. Questions arise, and the five friends find themselves suddenly at odds. The stakes climb even higher when an enigmatic new girl comes to town, with an agenda of her own. As the Torchbearers discover shocking secrets about their houseboat hangout, the Rift and the Darkdeep itself, signs point to new realms beyond the ones they know, putting their friendships to the test as never before. Told from alternating POVs, this thrilling next audiobook from best-selling duo Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs will once again have listeners sleeping with the lights on.
©2020 Allyson Braithwaite Condie and Brendan C. Reichs (P)2020 Audible, Ltd
50 Hidden Desires
Summary
He can make her fantasies come true.... Holly Larson wants to step out of her family's shadow and live her own life. Her mind is full of sexy fantasies, but she doesn't have anyone to share them with - until she calls upon her gorgeous childhood crush, Dalton Thomas. Now she's ready to check every box on her list.... BookShots Flames Original romances presented by James Patterson Novels you can devour in a few hours Impossible to stop listening
©2017 Jessica Lemmon; Foreword copyright 2017 by James Patterson (P)2017 Hachette Audio
All Fall Down
Summary
“There is something very wonderful about this book; it has a luminous thing that is the best thing in writing or any kind of art." (Tennessee Williams) Most people in town think 16-year-old Clinton Williams’ family is strange. His father, once an outspoken socialist, now searches for answers at the bottom of a glass. His mother has a reputation for scaring children. And his older brother, named Berry-berry, is a traveling vagabond, known by most for his cleft chin, loose morals, and streaks of violence. Clinton himself is seen as meek, timid, and not quite right, as he spends his days filling notebook after notebook, writing down every conversation he can overhear, word for word. Wishing he could contact his wayward brother, Clinton yearns for a day when he, too, can escape the neighborhood and travel the country. After following a clue to Berry-berry’s whereabouts, Clinton ventures to Coastal Florida hoping to find him, but instead gets a firsthand view of his brother’s callous destructiveness that will leave permanent marks on the young man.
©1960, 1990 James Leo Herlihy (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
Parked
Summary
For fans of Rebecca Stead and Joan Bauer comes a scrappy, poignant, uplifting debut about family, friendship, and the importance of learning both how to offer help and how to accept it. "A big-hearted novel with characters I wish were my friends in real life." (Gennifer Choldenko, author of the Al Capone at Alcatraz series) Jeanne Ann is smart, stubborn, living in an orange van, and determined to find a permanent address before the start of seventh grade. Cal is awkward, sensitive, living in a humongous house across the street, and determined to save her. Jeanne Ann wants Cal's help just about as much as she wants to live in a van. As the two form a tentative friendship that grows deeper over alternating chapters, they're buoyed by a cast of complex, oddball characters who let them down, lift them up, and leave you cheering. Debut novelist Danielle Svetcov shines a light on a big problem without a ready answer, nailing heartbreak and hope, and pulling it off with the perfect balance of humor, heartbreak, and hope. "Insightful [and] touching.... Not to be missed." (Karen Cushman, author of The Midwife's Apprentice) "You won't be able to put it down. Trust." (ScaryMommy.com) "For readers of Dan Gemeinhart [and] Katherine Applegate." (The Children's Book Review) "Relatable and beautifully told." (Commonsense Media) "Pertinent.... Honest.... Uplifting.... Fresh." (PW) "Utterly of this moment." (Jack Cheng, author of See You in the Cosmos) "Absorbing and warmhearted." (Annie Barrows, author of the Ivy & Bean series) "Realistically hopeful.... Recommended." (SLC) "Sharp.... Perceptive." (BCCB) "Unforgettable." (Brightly)
©2020 Danielle Svetcov (P)2020 Listening Library
Another Life
Summary
Laura: a teenage girl struggling to fit into her small, sleepy town in upstate New York, slowly drifting away from reality and into the secret life she inhabits online.
Paul: a twentysomething wannabe rock star, back home from New York City, broke and jobless, living with his mother.
April: a math teacher with two kids, running her church's vacation Bible school, discontent with another summer planning crafts and regurgitating verses.
Ben: a boy stuck at VBS, still adjusting to the presence of his foster brother, DeShawn, a quiet, brooding kid from Brooklyn.
Over the course of one summer, these characters' paths will collide in surprising, often hilarious ways. Encompassing questions of identity, religion, race, and family, Another Life is an absorbing and thought-provoking debut about the line we all walk between desire and responsibility.
©2019 Robert Haller (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Rapunzel, the One with All the Hair
Summary
Rapunzel is having the ultimate bad day. She's been stolen by a witch, may have a ghost for a roommate, and doesn't even have a decent brush for her hair. Prince Benjamin's got it pretty tough, too. His father wants him to be more kingly, his mother wants him to never leave her sight, and his cousin wants to get him into as much trouble as possible (possibly with a troll). Both Rapunzel and Prince Benjamin are trapped - in very different ways. Once their paths cross, well, that's when things get really strange.
©2006 Wendy Mass (P)2019 Recorded Books
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things
Summary
From number-one New York Times best-selling author Lev Grossman comes a magical-realist romance that turns the Groundhog Day premise inside-out and upside-down - coming soon to Amazon as a major motion picture. Mark is 17 years old and trapped in a time loop, and that’s just fine with him. It’s summertime and he’s spending this one infinitely repeating day reading his way through the town library. Then he discovers someone else in the loop with him: the brilliant, haunted Margaret. Together Mark and Margaret set out to find every wonderful, amazing, perfect thing that happens in that one day - a journey that will take them to the dark secret that waits at the very heart of their endless day. Thrilling, funny, and deeply romantic, this novella is perfect for fans of John Green, Nicola Yoon, and Jandy Nelson.
©2021 Lev Grossman (P)2021 Hachette Audio
The Way to Stay in Destiny
Summary
From the author of the acclaimed GLORY BE, a novel that celebrates baseball, fast piano, and small-town living in the wake of the Vietnam War. When Theo gets off a bus in Destiny, Florida, he's left behind the only life he's ever known. Now he's got to live with Uncle Raymond, a Vietnam War vet and a loner who wants nothing to do with this long-lost nephew. Thank goodness for Miss Sister Grandersole's Boarding House and Dance School. The piano that sits in Miss Sister's dance hall calls to Theo. He can't wait to play those ivory keys. When Anabel arrives, things get even more enticing. This feisty girl, a baseball fanatic, invites Theo on her quest to uncover the town's connection to old-time ball players rumored to have lived there years before. A mystery, an adventure, and a musical exploration unfold as this town called Destiny lives up to its name. Acclaimed author Augusta Scattergood has delivered a straight-to-the-heart story with unforgettable characters, humor, and hard questions about loss, family, and belonging.
©2015 August Scattergood (P)2015 Scholastic Inc.
Camp Tiger
Summary
Imagination meets reality in this poetic and tender ode to childhood.... Every year, a boy and his family go camping at Mountain Pond. Usually, they see things like an eagle fishing for his dinner, a salamander with red spots on its back, and chipmunks that come to steal food while the family sits by the campfire. But this year is different. This year, the boy is going into first grade, and his mother is encouraging him to do things on his own, just like his older brother. And the most different thing of all...this year, a tiger comes to the woods. With lyrical prose, Pulitzer Prize finalist Susan Choi has created a moving and joyful ode to growing up.
©2019 Susan Choi (P)2019 Recorded Books
Anthem
Summary
The remarkable story of two cousins who must take a road trip across American in 1969 in order to let a teen know he's been drafted to fight in Vietnam. Full of music and figures of the time, this is the masterful story of what it's like to be young and American in troubled times. It's 1969. Molly is a girl who's not sure she can feel anything anymore, because life sometimes hurts way too much. Her brother Barry ran away after having a fight with their father over the war in Vietnam. Now Barry's been drafted into that war - and Molly's mother tells her she has to travel across the country in an old schoolbus to find Barry and bring him home. Norman is Molly's slightly older cousin, who drives the old schoolbus. He's a drummer who wants to find his own music out in the world - because then he might not be the "normal Norman" that he fears he's become. He's not sure about this trip across the country...but his own mother makes it clear he doesn't have a choice. Molly and Norman get on the bus - and end up seeing a lot more of America that they'd ever imagined. From protests and parades to roaring races and rock n' roll, the cousins make their way to Barry in San Francisco, not really knowing what they'll find when they get there.
©2019 Text Copyright © 2019 by Deborah Wiles. Audio (P) 2019 Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved. scholastic, scholastic audiobooks, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. (P)2019 Scholastic Inc
The Beast
Summary
Bloomsbury presents The Beast by Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs, read by Michael Crouch and Emily Bauer. New York Times best-selling authors Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs coauthor another edge-of-your-seat adventure in this darkly suspenseful middle grade series. Nico, Opal, Tyler, Emma, and Logan survived their worst fears come to life and saved their tiny Pacific Northwest town of Timbers from a monstrous figment invasion. Now they just want to keep their heads down, enjoy Halloween and explore the secrets of their mysterious houseboat clubhouse. And also figure out their new Torchbearer responsibilities as keepers of the Darkdeep, an ancient whirlpool hidden in Still Cove that can make both dreams and nightmares into reality. But when a dangerous new breed of figments starts appearing on their own, and the very environment around them begins to spiral out of control, the friends realise they have no idea what they are doing - or how they’re supposed to restrain the Darkdeep. They must uncover the pool’s origins as well as those of the freaky Thing in a Jar, a seemingly lifeless green creature Opal believes is communicating with her. To make matters worse, a trashy YouTube series has rolled into town intent on finding the Beast, the legendary local sea monster suddenly stirring up the countryside. As threats rapidly close in around them, the friends must fight to protect their secrets, defeat new enemies, and save Timbers and all that they love. Told from alternating points of view, this chilling sequel from best-selling duo Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs will once again have listeners sleeping with the lights on.
©2019 Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs (P)2019 Bolinda
Summerlings
Summary
It’s the summer of 1959 in the seemingly tranquil suburbs of Washington, DC. But our young narrator, John, and his best friends, Ivan and Max, know the truth: Every door on their street could be hiding an escaped Nazi or a spy with secrets about the A-bomb. The entire city is being plagued by an inexplicable spider infestation - surely evidence of "insect warfare" by the Russians! So when a rare vinegaroon - a whip scorpion - is discovered on Capitol Hill and sequestered for study at the Smithsonian, the boys, along with their tomboy accomplice, Beatriz, hatch a risky midnight plan to steal the deadly creature for their own devious purposes. Yet when the friends discover some very real instances of anti-Semitism and prejudice in the neighborhood, it’s the shocking and tragic events stemming from a well-intentioned community-building potluck party that change their lives forever. A vibrantly voiced, heartfelt, and charming Cold War coming-of-age story, Summerlings captures the crystal-clear moments that mark the bittersweet reckoning of childhood’s end.
©2019 Lisa Howorth (P)2019 Random House Audio
Middle School's a Drag, You Better Werk!
Summary
In this heartfelt and hilarious new novel from Greg Howard, an enterprising boy starts his own junior talent agency and signs a 13-year-old aspiring drag queen as his first client. Twelve-year-old Mikey Pruitt - president, founder, and CEO of Anything, Inc. - has always been an entrepreneur at heart. Inspired by his grandfather Pap Pruitt, who successfully ran all sorts of businesses from a car wash to a roadside peanut stand, Mikey is still looking for his million-dollar idea. Unfortunately, most of his ideas so far have failed. A baby tornado ran off with his general store, and the kids in his neighborhood never did come back for their second croquet lesson. But Mikey is determined to keep at it. It isn't until kid drag queen Coco Caliente, Mistress of Madness and Mayhem (aka eighth grader Julian Vasquez) walks into his office (aka his family's storage/laundry room) looking for an agent that Mikey thinks he's finally found his million-dollar idea, and the Anything Talent and Pizzazz Agency is born! Soon, Mikey has a whole roster of kid clients looking to hit it big or at least win the middle school talent show's 100-dollar prize. As newly out Mikey prepares Julian for the gig of a lifetime, he realizes there's no rulebook for being gay - and if Julian can be openly gay at school, maybe Mikey can, too, and tell his crush, dreamy Colton Sanford, how he feels. Full of laughs, sass, and hijinks, this hilarious, heartfelt story shows that with a little effort and a lot of love, anything is possible.
©2020 Greg Howard (P)2020 Listening Library
Everything Is an Emergency
Summary
“This book undid me in all the best ways. Everything Is an Emergency is a brilliant, honest, necessary book that exposes the intricacies of the human brain while showing us the way creativity and friendship can anchor us. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever wondered if they see the world a little differently.” (Ada Limón) A New Yorker cartoonist illustrates his lifelong struggle with OCD. Jason Adam Katzenstein is just trying to live his life, but he keeps getting sidetracked by his overactive, anxious brain. Mundane events like shaking hands or sharing a drink snowball into absolute catastrophes. Jason has obsessive compulsive disorder, a mental illness that compels him to perform rituals in order to protect himself from dangers that don’t really exist. He checks, washes, overthinks, rinse, repeat. He does his best to hide his embarrassing compulsions, and sometimes this even works. He grows up, worries about his first kiss, falls in love with making cartoons, moves to New York City - which is magical and gross, etc. All the while, half his energy goes into living his life, while the other half is devoted to the increasingly ridiculous rituals he’s decided to maintain to keep himself from fully short-circuiting. Then, he fully short-circuits. At his absolute lowest, Jason finally decides to do the things he’s always been told to do to get better: exposure therapy and medication. These are the things that have always freaked him out, and they continue to freak him out. Also, they help him recover. Everything Is an Emergency is about all the self-destructive stories someone tells himself, over and over, until they start to seem true. In images surreal, witty, and confessional, Jason shows us that OCD can be funny, even when it feels like it’s ruining your life.
©2020 Jason Adam Katzenstein (P)2020 HarperAudio
Gold Wings Rising
Summary
In Gold Wings Rising, the final installment of Alex London's Skybound Saga, Kylee and Brysen must fight for their lives and their humanity. Book one was a Today Show Book Club pick! The war on the ground has ended, but the war with the sky has just begun. After the Siege of the Six Villages, the ghost eagles have trapped Uztaris on both sides of the conflict. The villagers and Kartami alike hide in caves, huddled in terror as they await nightly attacks. Kylee aims to plunge her arrows into each and every ghost eagle; in her mind, killing the birds is the only way to unshackle the city’s chains. But Brysen has other plans. While the humans fly familiar circles around each other, the ghost eagles create schemes far greater and more terrible than either Kylee or Brysen could have imagined. Now, the tug-of-war between love and power begins to fray, threatening bonds of siblinghood and humanity alike. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
©2020 Alex London (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
We Three Heroes
Summary
'We all have to do our part if we’re to survive the coming storm.' Alexandra Jennings might be the hero of The Medoran Chronicles, but she would be lost without her three closest friends. They are her heroes, and like all heroes, they each have their own story. Meet the real D.C. in 'Crowns and Curses' and discover how she becomes the princess Alex once despised but now adores. Follow Jordan on his healing journey in 'Scars and Silence' as he struggles in the wake of being rescued from his living nightmare. Walk beside Bear in 'Hearts and Headstones' as he faces an unspeakable trauma while helping his world prepare for the coming war. D.C., Jordan and Bear are the heroes of their own stories. It is time for their stories to be told.
©2018 Lynette Noni (P)2019 Audible, Ltd
Wink
Summary
A hilarious and heartwrenching story about surviving middle school - and an unthinkable diagnosis - while embracing life's weirdness. Ross Maloy just wants to be a normal seventh grader. He doesn't want to lose his hair, or wear a weird hat, or deal with the disappearing friends who don't know what to say to "the cancer kid". But with his recent diagnosis of a rare eye cancer, blending in is off the table. Based on Rob Harrell's real life experience, this incredibly personal and poignant novel is an unforgettable, heartbreaking, hilarious, and uplifting story of survival and finding the music, magic, and laughter in life's weirdness.
©2020 Rob Harrell (P)2020 Listening Library
To the Edge of Sorrow
Summary
From "fiction's foremost chronicler of the Holocaust" (Philip Roth), here is a haunting novel about an unforgettable group of Jewish partisans fighting the Nazis during World War II. Battling numbing cold, ever-present hunger, and German soldiers determined to hunt them down, four dozen resistance fighters - escapees from a nearby ghetto - hide in a Ukrainian forest, determined to survive the war, sabotage the German war effort, and rescue as many Jews as they can from the trains taking them to concentration camps. Their leader is relentless in his efforts to turn his ragtag band of men and boys into a disciplined force that accomplishes its goals without losing its moral compass. And so when they're not raiding peasants' homes for food and supplies, or training with the weapons taken from the soldiers they have ambushed and killed, the partisans read books of faith and philosophy that they have rescued from abandoned Jewish homes, and they draw strength from the women, the elderly, and the remarkably resilient orphaned children they are protecting. When they hear about the advances being made by the Soviet Army, the partisans prepare for what they know will be a furious attack on their compound by the retreating Germans. In the heartbreaking aftermath, the survivors emerge from the forest to bury their dead, care for their wounded, and grimly confront a world that is surprised by their existence - and profoundly unwelcoming. Narrated by 17-year-old Edmund - a member of the group who maintains his own inner resolve with memories of his parents and their life before the war - this powerful story of Jews who fought back is suffused with the riveting detail that Aharon Appelfeld was uniquely able to bring to his award-winning novels.
©2020 Aharon Appelfeld and Stuart Schoffman (P)2020 Random House Audio
Goodbye from Nowhere
Summary
Sara Zarr, author of the National Book Award finalist Story of a Girl, returns with an intimate, exquisitely crafted novel of the courage it takes to see those we love for who they are. Kyle Baker thought his family was happy. Happy enough, anyway. That’s why, when Kyle learns that his mother has been having an affair and his father has been living with the secret, his reality is altered. He quits baseball, ghosts his girlfriend, and generally checks out of life as he’s known it. With his older sisters out of the house and friends who don’t get it, the only person he can talk to is his cousin Emily - who is always there on the other end of his texts but still has her own life, hours away. Kyle’s parents want him to keep the secret of his mother’s affair from the rest of the family until after what might be their last big summer reunion. As Kyle watches the effects of his parents’ choices ripple out over friends, family, and strangers, and he feels the walls of his relationships closing in, he has to decide what his obligations are to everyone he cares for - including himself.
©2020 Sara Zarr (P)2020 Balzer + Bray
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth
Summary
A debut short story collection in the tradition of writers like Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, and George Saunders - strange, imaginative, and refreshingly original - now on audio as part of Ecco’s Art of the Story Series, and with a new introduction from the author. Kevin Wilson’s characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. “Grand Stand-In” is narrated by an employee of the Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider - a company that supplies “stand-ins” for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents. And in “Blowing Up on the Spot”, a story singled out by Ann Patchett for Ploughshares, a young woman works sorting tiles at a Scrabble factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted. Southern gothic at its best, laced with humor and pathos, these wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways we try to cope with both.
©2009 Kevin Wilson (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers