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.
Hour of the Witch
Summary
A Read It Forward Most Anticipated Book of 2021 A young Puritan woman - faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul - plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive historical thriller from the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Flight Attendant. Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is 24 years old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary - a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony - soon becomes herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows. A twisting, tightly plotted thriller from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt.
©2021 Chris Bohjalian (P)2021 Random House Audio
Flowers of Darkness
Summary
From New York Times best-selling author Tatiana de Rosnay, Flowers of Darkness is a riveting and emotionally intense novel, set in a near future Paris, where a woman confronts past betrayal and present mystery. Author Clarissa Katsef is struggling to write her next book. She’s just snagged a brand new artist residency in an ultra-modern apartment, with a view of all of Paris, a dream for any novelist in search of tranquility. But since moving in, she has had the feeling of being watched. Is there reason to be paranoid? Or is her distraction and discomfort the result of her husband’s recent shocking betrayal? Or is that her beloved Paris lies altered outside her windows? A city that will never be quite the same, a city with a scar at its center? Stuck inside, in the midst of a sweltering heat wave, Clarissa enlists her beloved granddaughter in her investigation of the mysterious, high-tech building even as she finds herself drawn back into the orbit of her first husband who is still the one who knows her most intimately, who shares the past grief that she has never quite let go. Staying true to her favorite themes - the imprint of the place, the weight of secrets - de Rosnay weaves an intrigue of thrilling suspense and emotional power. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
©2021 Tatiana de Rosnay (P)2021 Macmillan Audio
Women in Clothes
Summary
Women in Clothes is a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities - famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old - on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives. It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than 50 questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style. Writers, activists, and artists including Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Tavi Gevinson, Miranda July, Sasha Grey, Lena Dunham, and Molly Ringwald answered these questions with photographs, interviews, personal testimonies, and illustrations. Even our most basic clothing choices can give us confidence, show the connection between our appearance and our habits of mind, express our values and our politics, bond us with our friends, and function as armor or disguise. They are the tools we use to reinvent ourselves and to transform how others see us. Women in Clothes embraces the complexity of women's style decisions, revealing the sometimes funny, sometimes strange, always telling impulses that influence our daily ritual of getting dressed. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2018 Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
The Last Bookshop in London
Summary
Inspired by the true World War II history of the few bookshops to survive the Blitz, The Last Bookshop in London is a timeless story of wartime loss, love, and the enduring power of literature. August 1939: London is dismal under the weight of impending war with Germany as Hitler’s forces continue to sweep across Europe. Into this uncertain maelstrom steps Grace Bennett, young and ready for a fresh start in the bustling city streets she’s always dreamed of - and miles away from her troubled past in the countryside. With aspirations of working at a department store, Grace never imagined she’d wind up employed at Primrose Hill, an offbeat bookshop nestled in the heart of the city - after all, she’s never been much of a reader. Overwhelmed with organizing the cluttered store, she doesn’t have time to read the books she sells. But when one is gifted to her, what starts as an obligation becomes a passion that draws her into the incredible world of literature. As the Blitz rains down bombs on the city night after night, a devastating attack leaves the libraries and shops of London’s literary center in ruins. Miraculously, Grace’s bookshop survives the firestorm. Through blackouts and air raids, Grace continues running the shop, discovering a newfound comfort in the power of words and storytelling that unites her community in ways she never imagined - a force that triumphs over even the darkest nights of war-torn London.
©2021 Madeline Martin (P)2021 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
Break Me
Summary
I had a plan, and it was solid. Track down what was hidden away and take pleasure in toying with it. Toying with her. That plan, it worked like a charm. Until it didn't. Turned out, the feisty little thing I found was far from what I hoped for. She was different from all I knew and more than I expected. She was light, and I'm the bastard who led her into darkness. But this girl...she followed with a smile. I told her I break pretty things. She asked me to promise.
©2020 Meagan Brandy (P)2021 Audible, Inc.
Vera Brittain and the First World War
Summary
Vera Brittain and the First World War tells the remarkable story of the author behind Testament of Youth while charting the book's ascent to become one of the most loved memoirs of the First World War period. Such interest is set to expand even more in this centenary year of the war's outbreak. In the midst of her studies at Oxford when war broke out across Europe, Vera Brittain left university in 1915 to become a VAD (voluntary aid detachment) nurse. There she treated soldiers in London, Malta, and Etaples. The events of the First World War were to have an enormous impact on her life. Four of Brittain's closest friends, including her fiancé, Roland Leighton, and her brother, Edward Brittain, MC, were killed in action, sparking a lifelong commitment to pacifism. In 1933 she published Testament of Youth, the first of three books dealing with her experience of war. In equal measures courageous, tragic, and deeply fascinating, Testament of Youth is one of the most compelling and important works of war literature ever to have been written by a British woman. Mark Bostridge's Vera Brittain and the First World War, published to coincide with the film of Testament of Youth, explores the effects of the First World War on Vera Brittain both in terms of her personal life and in terms of its effect on her development as a writer and her eventual decision to become a pacifist.
©2014 Mark Bostridge (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
Love in Lockdown
Summary
A joyful love story set against the backdrop of lockdown - perfect for fans of The Flatshare. Do you believe in love before first sight? Lockdown is putting Sophia’s life on pause - just as she planned to put herself out there and meet someone. When the first clap for the keyworkers rings out around her courtyard, she’s moved to tears for all kinds of reasons. Jack is used to living life to the fullest. He’s going stir-crazy after just days isolating. Until the night he hears a woman crying from the balcony under his. He strikes up a conversation with the stranger and puts a smile on her face. Soon their balcony meetings are the highlight of Jack and Sophia’s days. But even as they grow closer together, they’re always kept apart. Can they fall in love during a lockdown?
©2021 Chloe James (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited