Shannon McManus has narrated 137 audiobooks on Listento.it by 78 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 1,632 ratings. The most-rated is One of Us Is Lying.
The Gambler
Summary
Libby St. Clair believes in fate - so much so, she's willing to pin everything on a curse a fortune-teller placed on her and her two best friends when they were kids. The curse, that each of them will marry before 30, have a disaster of a wedding, and end up with a man other than her original fiancé, has come to fruition for both of her friends, who are now deliriously happy. But Libby's attempt to quick-start the curse by proposing to her wrong-for-her boyfriend ends in a wild dash from the altar. Having spent most of his adulthood fleeing responsibility and commitment, Noah McMillan is finally ready to grow up. Of course, figuring out how is still a work in progress. When he realizes that he's in love with his friend, Libby, he flies to Kansas City to put a stop to her wedding. But Libby's already pulled a runaway bride. Eager to cheer her up and prove that he can be the man she deserves, he takes her on a madcap car trip that will bring them all the way to the City of Sin. In Vegas, those who risk it all either win big or lose everything, so what will happen if Libby and Noah take a gamble on love?
©2015 Denise Grover Swank (P)2015 Tantor
Bone on Bone
Summary
Bone on Bone, the next powerful chapter in Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Keller's beloved Bell Elkins series, sends readers headlong into the thick of a mystery as young as today's headlines - but as old as the mountains that hold these lives in a tight grip. How far would you go for someone you love? Would you die? Would you kill? After a three-year prison sentence, Bell Elkins is back in Acker's Gap. And she finds herself in the white-hot center of a complicated and deadly case - even as she comes to terms with one last, devastating secret of her own. A prominent local family has fallen victim to the same sickness that infects the whole region: drug addiction. With mother against father, child against parent, and tensions that lead inexorably to tragedy, they are trapped in a grim, hopeless struggle with nowhere to turn. Bell has lost her job as prosecutor - but not her affection for her ragtag, hard-luck hometown. Teamed up with former Deputy Jake Oakes, who battles his own demons as he adjusts to life as a paraplegic, and aided by the new prosecutor, Rhonda Lovejoy, Bell tackles a case as poignant as it is perilous, as heartbreaking as it is challenging.
©2018 Julia Keller. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
The Game Changer
Summary
Hollis Bisbee used to be a big-city crime reporter. Now, she’s a small-town journalist, and she’s bored. She and a young mom, talented baker Daisy Mueller, start the Knock ‘Em Dead podcast - ”Where murder and muffins meet!” It’s all fun, games, and baking tips until murder comes to Parkwood. After a brutal homecoming game loss, the coach of the rival football team is the victim of a hit-and-run in the high school parking lot. The entire town is on edge, and the star quarterback - who happens to be the police chief’s son - may just look the guiltiest of all. With Hollis’ investigative skills and Daisy’s famous muffins...and in spite of the charming rookie police officer tasked with keeping Hollis out of the way...the podcasting duo sets out to solve their first real case. This cozy mystery includes a killer free recipe for Daisy's Cherry Chocolate Chunk Muffins.
©2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC
A Killing in the Hills
Summary
What’s happening in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia? Three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner, and seemingly half the town is there to witness the act. Still, it happened so fast, and no one seems to have gotten a good look at the shooter. Was it random? Was it connected to the spate of drug violence plaguing poor areas of the country just like Acker’s Gap? Or were Dean Streeter, Shorty McClurg, and Lee Rader targeted somehow? One of the witnesses to the brutal incident was Carla Elkins, teenaged daughter of Bell Elkins, the prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, West Virginia. Carla was shocked and horrified by what she saw, but after a few days, she begins to recover enough to believe that she might be uniquely placed to help her mother do her job. After all, what better way to repair their fragile, damaged relationship? But could Carla also end up doing more harm than good - in fact, putting her own life in danger? In this powerful, intricate debut from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Julia Keller, a mother and a daughter try to do right by a town and each other before it’s too late.
©2012 Julia Keller (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
When Summer Comes
Summary
One day, Callie Vanetta receives devastating news… She needs a liver transplant. But her doctors warn that, in her case, the chances of finding a compatible donor aren’t good. Determined to spend whatever time she has left on her own terms, she keeps the diagnosis to herself and moves out to her late grandparents’ farm. She’s always wanted to live there. But the farm hasn’t been worked in years and she begins to fear she can’t manage it, that she’ll have to return to town. One night, a stranger comes knocking at her door… He’s an attractive and mysterious drifter by the name of Levi McCloud, and he offers to trade work for a few nights’ shelter. Callie figures she doesn’t have anything to lose. He needs a place to stay until he can fix his motorcycle; she needs an extra pair of hands. The arrangement seems ideal until what was supposed to be temporary starts to look more and more permanent. Then she realizes she does have something to lose - her heart. And, although he doesn’t yet know it, Levi stands to lose even more.
©2013 Brenda Novak (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Bookshop at Water's End
Summary
The women who spent their childhood summers in a small Southern town discover it harbors secrets as lush as the marshes that surround it.... Bonny Blankenship's most treasured memories are of idyllic summers spent in Watersend, South Carolina, with her best friend, Lainey McKay. Amid the sand dunes and oak trees draped with Spanish moss, they swam and wished for happy ever afters, then escaped to the local bookshop to read and whisper in the glorious cool silence. Until the night that changed everything, the night that Lainey's mother disappeared. Now in her early 50s, Bonny is desperate to clear her head after a tragic mistake threatens her career as an emergency room doctor, and her marriage crumbles around her. With her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, in tow, she goes back to the beloved river house, where she is soon joined by Lainey and her two young children. During lazy summer days and magical nights, they reunite with bookshop owner Mimi, who is tangled with the past and its mysteries. As the three women cling to a fragile peace, buried secrets and long ago loves return like the tide.
©2017 Patti Callahan Henry (P)2017 Penguin Audio
Silent Tears
Summary
When her family relocated to rural China in 2003, Kay Bratt was thrust into a new world, one where boys were considered more valuable than girls and poverty and the one-child policy had created an epidemic of abandoned infants. As a volunteer at a local orphanage, Bratt witnessed conditions that were unfathomable to a middle-class mother of two from South Carolina. Based on Bratt’s diary of her four years at the orphanage, Silent Tears offers a searing account of young lives rendered disposable. In the face of an implacable system, Bratt found ways to work within (and around) the rules to make a better future for the children, whom she came to love. The book offers no easy answers. While often painful in its clear-sightedness, Silent Tears balances the sadness and struggles of life in the orphanage with moments of joy, optimism, faith, and victory. It is the story of hundreds of children - and of one woman who never planned on becoming a hero but became one anyway.
©2011 Kay Bratt (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
A Cry in the Dark
Summary
When doing the right thing goes horribly wrong... Caroline Blakely is certain of two things: She was happy with her life as a first grade school teacher, and she can never, ever return to it. After discovering a shocking truth about her father, the wealthy businessman at the helm of Blakely Oil, she’s on the run - a difficult feat given her father’s endless resources and connections. With the help of friends, Carly is able to secure a new identity, but her attempts to keep a low profile are blown to bits when she gets stuck in Drum, Tennessee. When she investigates a cry in the parking lot outside her motel room, she finds herself the lone witness to a murder. Stranded in the small Appalachian Mountain town, she soon realizes that Drum is as riddled with secrets as her own past. A huge chunk of the intrigue centers around the Drummond family, ancestors of the town’s founders, and their oldest son, Wyatt - an ex-con. She knows she’d do best to stay away from the Drummonds, especially Wyatt, and from the mystery she’s stumbled upon, but Carly’s sense of right and wrong demands that she help, even if it means risking her own secrets...and her life.
©2019 Bramagioia Enterprises (P)2020 Bramagioia Enterprises
Thirty-Four and a Half Predicaments
Summary
Rose Gardner hates seeing her normally flamboyant best friend Neely Kate struggle with depression. So when Rose stumbles onto a piece of evidence indicating her birth mother might have been involved in a crime, she does the one thing guaranteed to cheer Neely Kate. She convinces her friend to help her solve a mystery. Though their penchant for investigating has gotten them into plenty of pickles in the past, what can go wrong if they’re looking into a case that went cold a quarter of a century ago? But the deeper they dig, the more dirt they unearth. While she’s busy unraveling the past, Rose must also reprise her role as the Lady in Black as part of her ongoing agreement with the king of the Fenton County underworld. In so doing, she discovers a mysterious enemy is intent on attacking her friends, and her assistant DA boyfriend might be next on the list. As both situations reach a boiling point, Rose must face the possibility that certain secrets were meant to remain buried and not even her special talent can get her out of every predicament.
©2015 Denise Grover Swank (P)2015 Denise Grover Swank
Winter Cottage
Summary
An Amazon Charts bestseller. A gripping novel about family secrets...and coming home for the first time. Still grieving the loss of her wandering, free-spirited mother, Lucy Kincaid leaves Nashville for the faded town of Cape Hudson, Virginia. She goes to see the house she’s inherited - one she never knew existed, bequeathed to her by a woman she’s never even met. At the heart of this mystery is the hope that maybe - just maybe - this “Winter Cottage” will answer the endless questions about her mother’s past...including the identity of her birth father. Rather than the quaint Virginian bungalow Lucy expected, Winter Cottage is a grand old estate of many shadows - big enough to hold a century of secrets, passions, and betrayals. It also comes with a handsome and enigmatic stranger, a man next in line to claim Lucy’s inheritance. Now, as Lucy sifts through the past, uncovering the legacy of secrets that Winter Cottage holds, she’ll come to discover as much about her family history as she does about herself. In searching, she could finally find the one thing she’s never really had: a home.
©2018 Mary Burton (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
For All She Knows
Summary
Two mothers face the consequences of their choices in a gripping novel about friendship, family, and forgiveness by Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Jamie Beck. Grace first met Mimi when she blew into their sons’ toddler playgroup like a warm bay breeze that loosened Grace’s tight spaces. Despite differing approaches to life and parenting, the fast friends raised their kids together while cementing a sisterlike bond that neither believed could be broken. But when a string of ill-fated decisions results in a teen party with a tragic outcome for Grace’s son, the friendship is ripped apart and an already-splintered community explodes. Accusations are leveled, litigation ensues, and the people of Potomac Point take sides, all of which threatens Mimi’s business and her current custody agreement. Her sole salvation is a young cop who just might be her second chance at love. That fact only antagonizes Grace, whose marriage is crumbling beneath the weight of blame and the echo of past mistakes. With their lives unraveling, the former friends stand to lose everything they love unless they learn to forgive - both themselves and each other.
©2020 Write Ideas, LLC. (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Cold Waters
Summary
An Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestseller. From USA Today bestselling author Debbie Herbert comes a thrilling story of murder and madness set in the darkest corner of Alabama. Everyone thinks fourteen-year-old Violet is a murderer. After a summer-night swim with her best friend, Ainsley, Violet is found confused, wandering in the forest - and Ainsley’s never seen again. But without a body, murder charges won’t stick, so Violet is sent away. After more than a decade in a psychiatric ward, Violet returns to her broken-down hometown of Normal, Alabama, to claim her dead mother’s inheritance and help her overworked sister care for their unstable, alcoholic father. Violet, still haunted by that night eleven years ago, endures horrific flashbacks and twisted hallucinations while townsfolk spit accusations - and for all she knows, they’re right. As the summer heats up, details of Ainsley’s fate appear like a beast’s wild eyes, watching in the darkness, and grim revelations about Violet’s family threaten to devour her. Already on the edge of madness, Violet must fight to keep her sanity long enough for the terrible truth to burst from the cold, dark waters.
©2019 by Debbie Herbert. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Not One of Us
Summary
From the bestselling author of Cold Waters comes a brooding thriller about a woman who must decide if safeguarding her family is worth burying a truth that will haunt her forever. Thirteen years ago, Jori Trahan’s boyfriend vanished without a trace. Now, after moving back home to Alabama to care for her ailing grandmother and autistic brother, she comes face-to-face with the deadly mystery behind his disappearance. Jori has a rare form of synesthesia, meaning she can “hear” colors; to her, tones of voice are as unique as fingerprints. With the help of this ability and a sympathetic cop, Jori comes dangerously close to uncovering the truth. But those responsible will go to any length - including murder - to keep their dark secrets buried. Soon, it seems that no one in the sleepy bayou town is safe, and after Jori’s brother is kidnapped, she knows she must drop the investigation or risk losing her family. But when protecting them means letting an evil deed go unpunished, putting family first may be the last thing she’ll ever do.
©2021 Debbie Herbert (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Hidden Secrets
Summary
Kim Brewster's ill-fated marriage was annulled so quickly that she thought she could keep the whole thing a secret...until she found out she was pregnant. But before her confession can blow a hole in the seemingly perfect lives of the Brewster women, her great-grandmother, Hannah, drops a bomb of her own. She's selling her hotel and moving to a farm in Oklahoma - and all the Brewsters are coming with her. Kim is sure her grandmother, Karen, and mother, Sue, won't go along with the plan, but Hannah can be very convincing. Soon the women are working the farm, selling their wares from a roadside stand, and finally feeling like a family. And as the Brewster women's lives take shape in ways they never expected, Kim may have found another shot at love. Luke thought he'd washed his hands of women, but when he stops by the vegetable stand and meets Kim, he's instantly smitten. To find love, though, they'll both have to dig past their hidden secrets.
©2012 Carolyn Brown (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
An Order of Coffee and Tears
Summary
Angela's Diner has the reputation of a safe haven where patrons find a moment of peace as they linger over coffee and tears. For one young runaway, Angela's is more than a place to tell your tale - it's a place where with the magic of chicken and waffles, and a little bit of trust, may just save your life. Gabriella Santiago used to be a typical teenager who enjoyed the usual teenage things. That is until a single tragic day ended who she was and within hours she ran from home, never to look back. Only when Gabby is cold, hungry and at her lowest, does she find Angela's Diner. Gabby embraces her new life and the family she has found in the midst of strangers and obscurity. Acceptance is what she craves, but before long, Gabby realizes she's not the only one in the diner with something to hide. Her new family has a secret too, and some secrets refuse to stay buried.
©2013 Brian Spangler (P)2013 Brian Spangler
Wuthering Heights
Summary
Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Aimee Lou Wood, star of Netflix's Sex Education. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Pauline Nestor. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before: of the intense passion between the foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and her betrayal of him. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.
Public Domain (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Currency
Summary
Inequality. Influence. Fraud. Sabotage. These are the themes of great fiction and our modern economy. In this collection of short stories by some of today’s most scintillating writers, the rich get poorer and the poor get richer. Yeah, right! From the heartbreaking to the hilarious, here are eight instantly classic battles over currency, class, privilege - and social distance. SIMPLEXITY by Kiley Reid, read by Arden Cho A twenty-eight-year-old entry-level worker at a design firm navigates the microaggressive corporate landscape in a quick and delicious satire by Kiley Reid, the New York Times bestselling author of Such a Fun Age. I WOULD BE DOING THIS ANYWAY by Jia Tolentino, read by Kelly Marie Tran A razor-sharp short story about anonymity, mutual deception, and the perils of overexposure—debut fiction by Jia Tolentino, the New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror. REWARDS by Emma Cline, read by Helen Hunt Two women reflect on the value of their lives in a wry short story of male privilege and undeserved rewards by Emma Cline, the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls. CREWELWORK by Justin Torres, read by Wilson Cruz Poised between his lush introversion and the brutal realm of his every day, a young artist considers the price of precarity in this powerful short story by Justin Torres, the author of We the Animals. THE TOMORROW BOX by Curtis Sittenfeld, read by Eric Dane An unnervingly funny and sharply observant story about the privilege, class division, and purposeful lives of old friends by Curtis Sittenfeld, the New York Times bestselling author of Rodham. IF YOU ARE LONELY AND YOU KNOW IT by Yiyun Li, read by Malcolm Hillgartner He tends to his garden and bees. He keeps quiet. He avoids drama. Until one transgression causes an emotional adventure in this heartfelt short story by Yiyun Li, a PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author. ME AND CARLOS by Tom Perrotta, read by Jackson White A darkly comic short story about American class divides and coming-of-age regrets by Tom Perrotta, the New York Times bestselling author of Election and The Leftovers. THE SUMMER HOUSE BY Cristina Henríquez, read by Thom Rivera Accustomed to being used, a jack-of-all-odd-jobs is torn between desire and duty in a short story about loneliness and wounded love by Cristina Henríquez, the author of The Book of Unknown Americans.
©2020, 2021 Simplexity © 2021 by Kiley Reid. I Would Be Doing This Anyway © 2021 by Jia Tolentino. Rewards © 2020 by Emma Cline. Crewelwork © 2021 by Justin Torres. The Tomorrow Box © 2021 by Curtis Sittenfeld. If You Are Lonely and You Know It © 2021 by Yiyun Li. Me and Carlos © 2020 by Tom Perrotta. The Summer House © 2021 by Cristina Henríquez. (P)2020, 2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.