Saskia Maarleveld has narrated 307 audiobooks on Listento.it by 235 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 23,410 ratings. The most-rated is The Hobbit.
Finding Mrs. Ford
Summary
On a sunny summer morning by the sea in New England, Susan Ford's cocoon of privilege is threatened when an Iraqi man from her distant past boards a plane in Baghdad to come find her. Mrs. Ford leads a privileged life. From her Blenheim spaniels to her cottage on the coast of Watch Hill, Rhode Island, she carefully curates her world. Hair in place, house in place, life in place, Susan Ford keeps it under control. Early one morning in the summer of 2014, the past pays a call to collect. The FBI arrives to question her about a man from Iraq - a Chaldean Christian from Mosul - where ISIS has just seized control. Sammy Fakhouri, they say, is his name, and they have taken him into custody, picked him up on his way to her house. Back in the summer of 1979, on the outskirts of a declining Detroit, college coed Susan meets charismatic and reckless Annie. They are an unlikely pair of friends, but they each see something in the other - something they'd like to possess. Studious Susan is a moth to the flame that is Annie. Yet, it is dazzling Annie who senses that Susan will be the one who makes it out of Detroit. Together, the girls navigate the minefields of a down-market disco where they work their summer jobs. It's a world filled with pretty girls and powerful men, some of whom - like Sammy Fakhouri - happen to be Iraqi Chaldeans. What happened in that summer of 1979 when Susan and Annie met? Why is Sammy looking for Susan all these years later? And why is Mrs. Ford lying? Praise for Finding Mrs. Ford: ''An exquisitely written literary thriller that compels the reader forward right to the last page.'' (Patricia Chadwick, author of Little Sister) ''Written from start to finish with crisp and poignant prose, compelling characters and setting, Finding Mrs. Ford entertains as much with imagery as with its masterful plot twists. I couldn't put it down.'' (Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg, author of Eden) ''Brimming with vivid characters and emotional insight, Finding Mrs. Ford tackles big themes of identity, friendship, and loss, spinning out the suspense to the last page. A total triumph.'' (Beatriz Williams, New York Times best-selling author)
©2019 Deborah Royce (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Take Me On
Summary
Champion kickboxer Haley swore she'd never set foot in the ring again after one tragic night. But that all changes when the guy she can't stop thinking about accepts a mixed martial arts fight in her honor. West Young is everything Haley promised herself she'd stay away from: handsome, sexy, and full of attitude. West is keeping a big secret from Haley. He hasn't told her who he really is, and helping her - fighting for her - is a shot at redemption, especially since his family is falling apart and it's all his fault. He can't change the past, but maybe he can change Haley's future.
©2014 Katie McGarry (P)2014 Tantor
Radio Girls
Summary
The Great War is over, and change is in the air in this novel that brings to life the exciting days of early British radio...and one woman who finds her voice while working alongside the brilliant women and men of the BBC. London, 1926. American-raised Maisie Musgrave is thrilled to land a job as a secretary at the upstart British Broadcasting Corporation, whose use of radio - still new, strange, and electrifying - is captivating the nation. But the hectic pace, smart young staff, and intimidating bosses only add to Maisie's insecurity. Soon she is seduced by the work - gaining confidence as she arranges broadcasts by the most famous writers, scientists, and politicians in Britain. She is also caught up in a growing conflict between her two bosses: John Reith, the formidable director-general of the BBC; and Hilda Matheson, the extraordinary director of the hugely popular Talks programming, who both have very different visions of what radio should be. Under Hilda's tutelage, Maisie discovers her talent, passion, and ambition. But when she unearths a shocking conspiracy, she and Hilda join forces to make their voices heard both on and off the air...and then face the dangerous consequences of telling the truth for a living.
©2016 Sarah-Jane Stratford (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
White Beech
Summary
One bright day in December 2001, sixty-two-year-old Germaine Greer found herself confronted by an irresistible challenge in the shape of sixty hectares of dairy farm, one of many in southeast Queensland, Australia, which, after a century of logging, clearing, and downright devastation, had been abandoned to their fate. She didn’t think for a minute that by restoring the land she was saving the world. She was in search of heart’s ease. Beyond the acres of exotic pasture grass and soft weed and the impenetrable curtains of tangled lantana canes, there were macadamias dangling their strings of unripe nuts, black beans with red and yellow pea flowers growing on their branches…and the few remaining white beeches, stupendous trees up to 120 feet in height, logged out within forty years of the arrival of the first white settlers. To have turned down even a faint chance of bringing them back to their old haunts would have been to succumb to despair. Once the process of rehabilitation had begun, the chance proved to be a dead certainty. When the first replanting shot up to make a forest and rare caterpillars turned up to feed on the leaves of the new young trees, she knew beyond a doubt that at least here, biodepletion could be reversed. Greer describes herself as an old dog who succeeded in learning a load of new tricks, inspired and rejuvenated by her passionate love of Australia and of Earth, the most exuberant of small planets.
©2013 Germaine Greer (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
An Heir Fit for a King
Summary
From the essence of desire...a king's baby! While exiled king Alix Saint Croix lies in wait to reclaim his throne, a mistress would provide a welcome distraction. Entering a Parisian perfume house to buy a fragrance for a current lover, he leaves with a powerful craving for another woman altogether - stunningly exotic perfumer Leila Verughese. The very smell of Alix awakens Leila's every nerve. If she's going to give her innocence to anyone, who better than a king? But it's an alchemy with life-changing repercussions.... Leila's life spirals out of control until she realizes her power.... She's carrying a royal heir!
©2015 Abby Green and Amanda Cinelli (P)2015 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited.
Nine Months to Change His Life
Summary
"I rescued you on this island, and you rescued me right back." Ben Logan never asks anyone for help. Until, during a deadly hurricane, he's washed up on a deserted island. There he finds his life in the hands of sparky, petite nurse Mary Hammond. Trapped with only each other for comfort, Ben and Mary turn to one another. Back home safely, Mary dominates Ben's dreams. And when, three months later, Mary arrives at Ben's New York office, it's with news that their one night had the power to change their lives forever!
©2014 Marion Lennox (P)2015 Recorded Books
Welcome to the Future Which Is Mine
Summary
Bluetooth death rays, killer Roombas, and Teslas with a secret button that will launch your car into outer space - the future, according to Not Elon Musk, is an exciting time to neuralink and obey! A landmark volume authored by one of the great minds of our time, Not Elon Musk's Welcome to the Future explores such profound questions as: How will mankind travel through tubes? When will Alexa and Siri become self-aware and convince us to fall in love with them only to break our hearts? Why is the Tesla plant built in a hollowed-out volcano on a private island? And where are the best hidden valleys on Mars to survive the coming hair transplant wars? Part Stephen Hawking-like visionary, part Neil deGrasse Tyson-like evil genius, part Steve Jobs-like cornered-at-a-party creep, Not Elon Musk explains in Welcome to the Future why Not Elon Musk is so ready to fix Earth but also, possibly, leave it. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2018 Scott Dikkers (P)2018 Hachette Audio
The King's Man
Summary
The City of Shallot is on the verge of revolution. The Great Houses are mustering their forces, readying themselves for a shift in the balance of power. The poor have found a new leader and are - finally - demanding their rights. Shadowy figures and old ghosts are prowling the streets. It is only a matter of time before the unease and unrest explodes into violence, as the wealthy and powerful seek to secure themselves in a changing world. And dark forces are laying plans to take advantage of the chaos. A newly graduated student, the son of a proudly independent merchant, Adam Mortimer is recruited into the Kingsmen and charged with helping to track down the anarchists and terrorists before they trigger an explosion. But, as he delves into the mystery, he finds himself caught between the scars of his childhood and his hopes for the future, loyalties tested as he finds himself caught between old friends and new. And, as infernal devices begin to terrorize the city, Adam must risk everything to save the people he loves.
©2020 Christopher G. Nuttall (P)2020 Podium Audio
The Social Graces
Summary
Named one of 2021’s Most Anticipated Historical Novels by SheReads! The author of Park Avenue Summer throws back the curtain on one of the most remarkable feuds in history: Alva Vanderbilt and the Mrs. Astor's notorious battle for control of New York society during the Gilded Age. 1876. In the glittering world of Manhattan's upper crust, women are valued by their pedigree, dowry, and, most importantly, connections. They have few rights and even less independence - what they do have is society. The more celebrated the hostess, the more powerful the woman. And none is more powerful than Caroline Astor - the Mrs. Astor. But times are changing. Alva Vanderbilt has recently married into one of America's richest families. But what good is dizzying wealth when society refuses to acknowledge you? Alva, who knows what it is to have nothing, will do whatever it takes to have everything. Sweeping three decades and based on true events, this is the mesmerizing story of two fascinating, complicated women going head to head, behaving badly, and discovering what’s truly at stake.
©2021 Renée Rosen (P)2021 Penguin Audio
Trinity
Summary
From the acclaimed author of Speak comes a kaleidoscopic novel about Robert Oppenheimer - father of the atomic bomb - as told by seven fictional characters. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant scientist, a champion of liberal causes, and a complex and often contradictory character. He loyally protected his Communist friends, only to later betray them under questioning. He repeatedly lied about love affairs. And he defended the use of the atomic bomb he helped create, before ultimately lobbying against nuclear proliferation. Through narratives that cross time and space, a set of characters bears witness to the life of Oppenheimer, from a secret service agent who tailed him in San Francisco, to the young lover of a colleague in Los Alamos, to a woman fleeing McCarthyism who knew him on St. John. As these men and women fall into the orbit of a brilliant but mercurial mind at work, all consider his complicated legacy while also uncovering deep and often unsettling truths about their own lives. In this stunning, elliptical novel, Louisa Hall has crafted a breathtaking and explosive story about the ability of the human mind to believe what it wants, about public and private tragedy, and about power and guilt. Blending science with literature and fiction with biography, Trinity asks searing questions about what it means to truly know someone, and about the secrets we keep from the world and from ourselves.
©2018 Louisa Hall (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
The Snow White Bride
Summary
The laird of Kinfairlie has helped his sisters to find husbands. Now the laird himself seeks to wed and pins his hopes on The Snow White Bride. Lady Eleanor knows better than to dream of romance and love. Married twice to secure her father's alliances, she has learned that she is desirable only for her fortune. When the Laird of Kinfairlie's sisters ask her to wed their brother, Alexander, Eleanor agrees, expecting only to save herself from danger. Alexander is like no man she's known before. He is a man more interested in courting her smile than her obedience. He is a man who values her counsel as much as her newly awakened passion. He is unaware that Eleanor is the key to a fortune that could ensure the future of everything he holds dear. Now, ruthless enemies will stop at nothing to secure Eleanor's capture. Will she dare to trust her new husband before it's too late for her, for Alexander, and for Kinfairlie?
©2005, 2011 Claire Delacroix, Inc. (P)2015 Deborah A. Cooke
Make Me Stay
Summary
Having left his hometown of Hope years ago, only one thing could persuade architect Reid McCormack to come home for a lengthy stay - the challenge of renovating a historic building. But once the job is finished, he'll be headed back to Boston, no matter how much he's drawn to beautiful florist Samantha Reasor. Samantha watches over her elderly grandmother and pours a piece of herself into every floral creation she designs. Her crush on Reid has been blooming for a while now, but she's reluctant to act on it. A temporary fling isn't what she's looking for, even if Reid is smoking hot and super sexy. She wants a real, permanent, forever kind of love. Two people with different goals couldn't possibly work, and yet as their attraction grows into something deeper, maybe falling in love is the one thing Samantha and Reid can build a future on.
©2015 Jaci Burton (P)2016 Tantor
Corpse & Crown
Summary
Agatha DeLacey’s family isn’t rich or titled, so studying nursing at Ingold’s East End hospital in London is a rare opportunity for her. Despite the school’s focus on the innovative biomechanical program, Aggie cares more about the desperately poor human patients who flood the hospital, even if that means providing unauthorized treatment after hours...and trusting a charming, endlessly resourceful thief. But the Artful Dodger is barely a step ahead of his underworld rivals, the menacing Bill Sykes and mercurial Oliver Twist, and Aggie’s association with him soon leads her into danger. When a brutal attack leaves her blind, she and the Dodger find themselves at the mercy of an experimental biomech surgery. Though the procedure restores Aggie’s sight, her new eyes come at an unnerving cost, and the changes in Dodger are even more alarming - instead of seeing Aggie as the girl he fancies, he now views her as a potential threat. As war between England and Germany brews on the horizon and a sinister medical conspiracy threatens to shatter the uneasy peace in Europe, Aggie and the Dodger must find a way to work together so they can protect their friends and expose the truth...even if it means risking their own survival.
©2019 Alisa Kwitney (P)2019 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
It Happened in the Highlands
Summary
It Happened in the Highlands is the next audiobook in the new historical Highland series The Penningtons, from USA Today best seller May McGoldrick.... Lady Josephine Pennington was jilted by her fiancé once rumors spread about her questionable origins. Her adoptive parents have always provided her with the love and protection she’s needed to feel secure, and over the last 16 years she’s molded herself to meet the expectations of others. When she receives a package containing sketches where the subject is eerily familiar, Jo believes she might have found a clue to the identity of her birth mother. When Captain Wynne Melfort ended his engagement to Jo Pennington 16 years ago, he never imagined he would see her again. But after he uncovers information that could reveal the truth about Jo's parentage, Wynne feels bound by duty to right an old wrong and inform her of his find. He didn’t expect for feelings long thought dead to resurface, for in his mind a love departed was gone forever. As they strive to unravel the mystery of her birth, Jo must learn how to trust the man who’d once rejected her and Wynne must reconcile his head with his heart. But as secrets of the past begin to surface, evil forces will stop at nothing to keep Jo from uncovering the truth and reclaiming her legacy. Together, Jo and Wynne must fight the deadly menace lurking deep in the Highland mists.
©2018 Nikoo K. and James A. McGoldrick (P)2018 Macmillan Audio
Killing Gravity
Summary
Mars Xi can kill you with her mind, but she'll need more than psychic powers to save her in Killing Gravity, the thrilling science-fiction space adventure debut by Corey J. White. Before she escaped in a bloody coup, Mephisto transformed Mariam Xi into a deadly voidwitch. Their training left her with terrifying capabilities, a fierce sense of independence, a deficit of trust, and an experimental pet named Seven. She’s spent her life on the run, but the boogeymen from her past are catching up with her. An encounter with a bounty hunter has left her hanging helpless in a dying spaceship, dependent on the mercy of strangers. Penned in on all sides, Mariam chases rumors to find the one who sold her out. To discover the truth and defeat her pursuers, she’ll have to stare into the abyss and find the secrets of her past, her future, and her terrifying potential.
©2017 Corey J. White (P)2018 Recorded Books
Butterfly Island
Summary
From the bestselling author of The Moonlit Garden comes the sweeping, romantic tale of one woman's quest across two continents and one hundred years of history to unearth her family's deepest secret. Diana Wagenbach is the sole survivor in a withering family tree fraught with secrets. When the first in a trail of clues is handed down to Diana by her great-aunt on her deathbed, along with a plea to assuage their family's guilt by revealing all, Diana obliges. She follows the clues - a picture here, a letter there, a pressed frangipani flower in a book - that carry her away from her philandering husband in Berlin to a charming manor in England and all the way to a tea plantation in Sri Lanka. Diana unravels the dramatic tale of her great-great-grandmother, Grace Tremayne, with the aid of Jonathan Singh, a local historian and writer - and someone with whom she feels a deep bond that sparks into romance. As Grace's tragic past in exotic colonial Ceylon is revealed and the family's sins come to light, Diana finds inspiration in her ancestor's courage and begins to rethink what happiness - and love - is worth, and how the surest route to peace is in setting the truth free.
©2012 Corina Bomann & Ullstein Buchverlag GmbH. (P)2017 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Translation © 2017 Alison Layland.
The Wolf and the Woodsman
Summary
In the vein of Naomi Novik’s New York Times best seller Spinning Silver and Katherine Arden’s national best seller The Bear and the Nightingale, this unforgettable debut - inspired by Hungarian history and Jewish mythology - follows a young pagan woman with hidden powers and a one-eyed captain of the Woodsmen as they form an unlikely alliance to thwart a tyrant. In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. The villagers blame her corrupted bloodline - her father was a Yehuli man, one of the much-loathed servants of the fanatical king. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king’s blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered. But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he’s no ordinary Woodsman - he’s the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gáspár fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and instigate a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a reviled foreign queen, Gáspár understands what it’s like to be an outcast, and he and Évike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother. As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Évike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gáspár need to decide whose side they’re on, and what they’re willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all.
©2021 Ava Reid (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers
Don't Let Go
Summary
Brady Conners is hardly the settling type, but when tragedy strikes in his family, he has no choice but to return home to Hope, Oklahoma. Setting up shop to work on custom motorcycles and pass the time, Brady has no intention of letting anyone get close - until he meets Megan. Pastry shop owner Megan Lee is drawn to quiet, brooding Brady. Their connection is undeniable, and it quickly develops from physical attraction into something much stronger. But with Brady putting up barriers, Megan is afraid to truly open her heart - unless she can convince him to let go of the past....
©2016 Jaci Burton (P)2016 Tantor
Angelfire
Summary
The New Zealand wilderness is no place for an innocent, young girl escaping an arranged marriage.... Shocked by the threat of being forced to marry an aging magistrate, Bliss Stafford flees her New Zealand home. But a chance encounter - and the barrel of her father's pistol - wed her to Jamie McKenna, a handsome, headstrong rancher whose bold touch inflames her innocent senses. Yet Jamie's heart is captive to another - and to a hidden, bitter sorrow. But young, courageous Bliss is determined to face the secrets of his past - to claim the radiant prize of a lifetime of tomorrows. Passion, heartache, and the power of romance set New Zealand aflame with Angelfire in Linda Lael Miller's lush tale of a young woman audacious enough to settle for nothing less than love.
©1989 Linda Lael Miller (P)2015 Recorded Books
Void Black Shadow
Summary
Corey J. White's space opera Voidwitch series continues: Mars Xi returns in Void Black Shadow, sequel to Killing Gravity. Mars Xi is a living weapon, a genetically manipulated psychic supersoldier with a body count in the thousands, and all she wanted was to be left alone. People who get involved with her get hurt, whether by MEPHISTO, by her psychic backlash, or by her acid tongue. It's not smart to get involved with Mars, but that doesn't stop some people from trying. The last time MEPHISTO came for Mars, they took one of her friends with them. That was a mistake. A force hasn't been invented that can stop a voidwitch on a rampage, and Mars won't rest until she's settled her debts.
©2018 Corey J. White (P)2018 Recorded Books