Sarah Barron has narrated 28 audiobooks on Listento.it by 18 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 84 ratings. The most-rated is The Endless Beach.
The Endless Beach
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Bookshop on the Corner and The Cafe by the Sea comes another enchanting, unforgettable novel of a woman who makes a fresh start on the beautiful Scottish Island of Mure - only to discover life has more surprises in store for her. When Flora MacKenzie traded her glum career in London for the remote Scottish island of Mure, she never dreamed that Joel - her difficult, adorable boss - would follow. Yet now, not only has Flora been reunited with her family and opened a charming café by the sea, but she and Joel are taking their first faltering steps into romance. With Joel away on business in New York, Flora is preparing for the next stage in her life. And that would be...? Love? She’s feeling it. Security? In Joel’s arms, sure. Marriage? Not open to discussion. In the meanwhile, Flora is finding pleasure in a magnificent sight: whales breaking waves off the beaches of Mure. But it also signals something less joyful. According to local superstition, it’s an omen - and a warning that Flora’s future could be as fleeting as the sea-spray… A bracing season on the shore sets the stage for Jenny Colgan’s delightful novel that’s as funny, heartwarming, and unpredictable as love itself.
©2018 Jenny Colgan (P)2018 Isis Publishing Ltd
Forensics
Summary
The dead talk - to the right listener. They can tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died, and, of course, who killed them. Forensic scientists can unlock the mysteries of the past and help serve justice using the messages left by a corpse, a crime scene, or the faintest of human traces. Forensics draws on interviews with some of these top-level professionals, groundbreaking research, and Val McDermid's own original interviews and firsthand experience on scene with top forensic scientists. Along the way McDermid discovers how maggots collected from a corpse can help determine one's time of death; how a DNA trace a millionth the size of a grain of salt can be used to convict a killer; and how a team of young Argentine scientists led by a maverick American anthropologist were able to uncover the victims of a genocide. It's a journey that will take McDermid to war zones, fire scenes, and autopsy suites and bring her into contact with both extraordinary bravery and wickedness as she traces the history of forensics from its earliest beginnings to the cutting-edge science of the modern day.
©2015 Val McDermid (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
The Cafe by the Sea
Summary
The beloved author of The Bookshop on the Corner returns with a sparkling, sunny, soulful new novel perfect for fans of Elin Hilderbrand. Years ago, Flora fled the quiet Scottish island where she grew up - and she hasn't looked back. What would have done on Mure? It's a place where everyone has known her all her life, where no one will let her forget the past. In bright, bustling London, she can be anonymous, ambitious...and hopelessly in love with her boss. But when fate brings Flora back to the island, she's suddenly swept once more into life with her brothers - all strapping, loud, and seemingly incapable of basic housework - and her father. Yet even amid the chaos of their reunion, Flora discovers a passion for cooking - and find herself restoring dusty little pink-fronted shop on the harbour: a café by the sea. But with the seasons changing, Flora must come to terms with past mistakes - and work out exactly where her future lies.... Funny and heartfelt, The Café by the Sea is a delightful summertime novel that puts a modern twist on the classic Seven Brides for Seven Brothers story.
©2017 Jenny Colgan (P)2017 ISIS Publishing Ltd
Christmas on the Island
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Café by the Sea - whose novels are “an evocative, sweet treat” (Jojo Moyes) - comes this heartwarming holiday novel set on a charming Scottish island. On the remote Scottish island of Mure, the Christmas season is stark, windy, and icy - yet incredibly festive and beautiful.... It's a time for getting cozy in front of whisky barrel wood fires and enjoying a dram and a treacle pudding with the people you love - unless, of course, you've accidentally gotten pregnant by your ex-boss and don't know how to tell him. In the season for peace and good cheer, will Flora find the nerve to reveal the truth to her nearest and dearest? Will her erstwhile co-parent, Joel, think she’s the bearer of glad tidings - or is this Christmas going to be as bleak as the Highlands in midwinter? Meanwhile Saif, a doctor and refugee from war-torn Syria, is trying to enjoy his first Western Christmas with his sons on this remote island where he’s been granted asylum. His wife, however, is still missing, and her absence hangs over what should be a joyful celebration. Can the family possibly find comfort and joy without her? Travel to the beautiful northern edge of the world and join the welcoming community of Mure for a Highland Christmas you'll never forget!
©2018 Jenny Colgan (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
Kiss
Summary
A delicious romantic comedy by the best-selling author of The One You Really Want and Three Amazing Things About You about finding love again when you think you've lost it all.... When Izzy is knocked off her motorbike, she doesn't just lose her dignity - she loses as a result not one but two long-term boyfriends, her job and, to boot, her extremely bijou flat. Gina, who caused the accident, has more important things to worry about - her husband's mistress is pregnant, and she's suddenly on her own. Why should she care about Izzy? Yet somehow the well-heeled Gina finds herself opening her home to Izzy and her spirited teenage daughter. And it's there that Izzy meets heart-stoppingly handsome Sam, whose lingering kiss is all it takes for her to find the true love that has always eluded her - though there are just a few obstacles between that first kiss and the happy ever after....
©2000 Jill Mansell (P)2016 Headline Digital
The One You Really Want
Summary
The one you really want could be closer than you think.... The One You Really Want is a sweet, funny, romantic novel from best-selling author Jill Mansell. Not to be missed by listeners of Marian Keyes and Cathy Kelly. It all starts with a shiny, red sit-on lawn mower. When Nancy spies her Christmas present from her husband sitting on the lawn, she realises the jewellery she thought was for her must be on someone else. Her best friend, Carmen, isn't surprised (she never liked Jonathan) and persuades Nancy to leave Edinburgh and come and stay in her luxury London flat - far too vast for Carmen since her husband, millionaire rock star Spike Todd, died. Soon Nancy's met gorgeous Connor O'Shea, who lives next door, and his daughter, Mia, is matchmaking - not least because she'd like to see the back of Connor's current pushy girlfriend. Meanwhile Carmen, who's always been certain she doesn't want another man in her life, feels a spark when a handsome charity worker called Joe calls round. But Joe's not quite all he seems....
©2004 Jill Mansell (P)2016 Headline Digital
A Dark Matter
Summary
Meet the Skelfs: well-known Edinburgh family, proprietors of a long-established funeral-home business, and private investigators.... When patriarch Jim dies, it's left to his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah to take charge of both businesses, kicking off an unexpected series of events. Dorothy discovers mysterious payments to another woman, suggesting that Jim wasn't the husband she thought he was. Hannah's best friend Mel has vanished from university, and the simple adultery case that Jenny takes on leads to something far darker than any of them could have imagined. As the women struggle to come to terms with their grief, and the demands of the business threaten to overwhelm them, secrets from the past emerge, which change everything....
©2020 Doug Johnstone (P)2020 Isis Publishing Ltd
What You Pay For
Summary
Thirteen years ago, DI Helen Birch's little brother Charlie disappeared. Two days ago, Birch was part of a raid on one of Scotland's most feared criminal organisations. Yesterday, Charlie came back.... Now Birch has a choice: save her career, or save Charlie? As she interrogates her brother, we see his story, in a brilliantly tense and clever story about what people will do to survive and the lines they'll cross to protect those they love.
©2019 Claire Askew (P)2019 Bonnier Publishing
All the Hidden Truths
Summary
A wrenching, gripping, unforgettable debut crime novel for fans of Susie Steiner and Kate Atkinson. This is a fact: Ryan Summers walked into Three Rivers College and killed 13 women, then himself. But no one can say why. The question is one that cries out to be answered - by Ryan's mother, Moira; by Ishbel, the mother of Abigail, the first victim; and by DI Helen Birch, put in charge of the case on her first day at her new job. But as the tabloids and the media swarm, as the families' secrets come out, as the world searches for someone to blame...the truth seems to vanish. A stunningly moving novel from an exciting new voice in crime, All Hidden Truths will cause you to question your assumptions about the people you love and reconsider how the world reacts to tragedy.
©2018 Claire Askew (P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Flesh Wounds
Summary
When her father’s killer, Glen Fallan, is arrested for another murder, PI Jasmine Sharp enters an underworld where violence is a way of life and vengeance spans generations. DS Catherine McLeod has one major Glaswegian gangster in the mortuary and another in the cells for killing him - which ought to be cause for celebration. But this case is far more dangerous than it appears on the surface; deeper than skin, darker than blood.…
©2013 Christopher Brookmyre (P)2013 W F Howes Ltd
When the Devil Drives
Summary
Private investigator Jasmine Shar has been hired to find Tessa Garrion, a young woman who has vanished without trace. What begins as a simple search awakens a malevolence that has lain dormant for three decades. As Jasmine uncovers a hidden history of sex, drugs, ritualism, and murder, she realises she may need a little help from the dark side herself if she's going to get to the truth.
©2012 Chris Brookmyre (P)2012 W F Howes Ltd
Coming Home to Winter Island
Summary
Wrap up warm and prepare to explore the breathtaking beauty of a remote Scottish island and an old house waiting to unlock enchanting family secrets. Fans of Jill Mansell and Milly Johnson will love this irresistible new winter novel from Jo Thomas. Do you need to find out where you've come from before you can know what the future holds? Ruby's singing career is on the verge of hitting the big time when her voice breaks. Fearing her career is over, she signs up for a retreat in Tenerife to recover. But an unexpected call from a stranger on a remote Scottish island takes her on a short trip to sort out some family business. It's time to go and see the grandfather she's never met. City girl Ruby knows she will be happy to leave the windswept beaches behind as quickly as she can, especially as a years-old family rift means she knows she won't be welcome at Teach Mhor. But as she arrives at the big house overlooking the bay, she finds things are not as straightforward as she might have thought. There's an unexpected guest in the house, and he's not planning on going anywhere any time soon....
©2019 Jo Thomas (P)2019 Headline Publishing Group Ltd
Rough Cut
Summary
The death of a young Pakistani bride in Glasgow gets Rosie Gilmour's antennae twitching. She is sure this tragic accident was anything but - but she is not prepared for where her investigation will take her.... Rosie has her hands full navigating the sensitivities of this case - the girl's grieving family and the tensions between the white and Pakistani communities in the city - when she is contacted by two prostitutes in serious trouble. One of their clients has died on the job, and they've gone on the run - with his briefcase. The briefcase contains dozens of rough diamonds, and now some thoroughly brutal people are on their trail. On the surface this has nothing to do with the death of the young girl. But Rosie has spent years looking beneath Glasgow's surface into its murky depths, and if anyone can discover the connection between one girl's forced marriage and a ring of diamond smugglers, it's her.
©2016 Anna Smith (P)2016 WF Howes
Cover Your Tracks
Summary
Claire Askew won the Scottish Debut Crime Award with her debut All the Hidden Truths, praised as 'A meticulous and compelling novel' by Ian Rankin. 'What if I told you,' he said, 'that I believe my mother's life to be in danger?' Robertson Bennet returns to Edinburgh after a 25-year absence in search of his parents and his inheritance. But both have disappeared. A quick, routine police check should be enough - and Detective Inspector Helen Birch has enough on her plate trying to help her brother, Charlie, after an assault in prison. But all her instincts tell her not to let this case go. And so she digs. George and Phamie Bennet were together for a long time. No one can ever really know the secrets kept between husband and wife. But as Birch slowly begins to unravel the truth, terrible crimes start to rise to the surface. Beautifully written and ingeniously plotted, Cover Your Tracks confirms Claire Askew as a major new talent in crime fiction.
©2020 Claire Askew (P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Screams in the Dark
Summary
Crime reporter Rosie Gilmour has learned to be tough. The places she’s been and the stories she’s covered, she’s had to be. Her experience stands her in good stead for a grisly new investigation: the body of a refugee in a Glasgow canal, missing limbs and vital organs. He’s not the first person to go missing – are there vigilantes at work or is there something far more sinister going on? It’s up to Rosie to find out – but will what she discovers leave her with murder on her hands?
©2013 Anna Smith (P)2014 WF Howes Ltd
Where the Bodies are Buried
Summary
In Glasgow, aspiring actress Jasmine Sharp is reluctantly - and incompetently - earning a crust working for her Uncle Jim's private investigation business. When Jim goes missing, Jasmine has to take on the investigator mantle for real. Soon she stumbles into a web of corruption and decades-hidden secrets that could tear apart an entire police force - if she can stay alive long enough to tell the tale...
©2011 Christopher Brookmyre (P)2011 WF Howes Ltd
Thunder Bay
Summary
When reporter Rebecca Connolly is told of Roddie Drummond's return to the island of Stoirm she senses a story. Fifteen years before he was charged with the murder of his lover, Mhairi. When he was found Not Proven, Roddie left the island. Now he has returned for his mother's funeral - and it will spark an explosion of violence.
Rebecca joins forces with local photographer Chaz Wymark to dig into the secrets surrounding Mhairi's death, and her mysterious last words of Thunder Bay, where, according to local lore, the souls of the dead set off into the afterlife. When another murder takes place, she is ideally placed to uncover the truth about what happened that night 15 years before.
©2019 Douglas Skelton (P)2019 Isis Publishing Ltd
The Big Chill
Summary
Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors’ and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral that matriarch Dorothy is conducting, she can’t help looking into the dead driver’s shadowy life. While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter, Jenny, and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny’s ex-husband, Craig, is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women’s lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.
©2020 Doug Johnstone (P)2020 Isis Publishing Ltd
Deity
Summary
When pop megastar Zach Crystal dies in a fire at his remote mansion, his mysterious demise rips open the bitter divide between those who adored his music and his endless charity work, and those who viewed him as a despicable predator who manipulated and abused young and vulnerable girls. Online journalist Scott King, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the accusations of sexual abuse and murder that were levelled at Crystal before he died. But as Scott begins to ask questions and rake over old graves, some startling inconsistencies emerge: was the fire at Crystal’s remote home really an accident? Are reports of a haunting really true? Why was he never officially charged?
©2021 Matt Wesolowski (P)2021 Isis Publishing Ltd
To Tell The Truth
Summary
A three-year-old girl is snatched from a beach. Nobody heard a sound. Nobody saw a thing.Rosie Gilmour's much-needed holiday is cut short when the abduction story breaks and she's sent to cover it. Her instincts tell her something's wrong: such a crime must surely have witnesses, and the girl's mother's story doesn't add up.With a child's life at stake, Rosie must dig deeper into the seedy depths of the area, making dangerous enemies.As she closes in on the truth, she realises the penalty for missing this particular deadline could be her own demise.
©2012 Anna Smith (P)2013 WF Howes Ltd