Xe Sands has narrated 231 audiobooks on Listento.it by 179 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 3,703 ratings. The most-rated is Silent Child.
Practicing Normal
Summary
The houses in Pine Estates are beautiful McMansions filled with high-achieving parents, children on the fast track to top colleges, all of the comforts of modern living, and the best security systems money can buy. Welcome to normal upper-middle-class suburbia. The Turners know in their hearts that they're anything but normal. Jenna is a high schooler dressed in black who is fascinated with breaking into her neighbors' homes, security systems be damned. Everett genuinely believes he loves his wife...he just loves having a continuing stream of mistresses more. JT is a genius kid with Asperger's who moves from one obsession to the next. And Kate tries to manage her family, manage her mother (who lives down the street), and avoid wondering why her life is passing her by. And now everything is changing for them. Jenna suddenly finds herself in a boy-next-door romance she never could have predicted. Everett's secrets are beginning to unravel on him. JT is getting his first taste of success at navigating the world. And Kate is facing truths about her husband, her mother, and her father that she might have preferred not to face.
©2016 Cara Sue Achterberg (P)2017 Tantor
Bad Girl
Summary
Sydney Richardson already has her hands full running two successful Madison, Wisconsin, eateries and enjoying the company of handsome blues bar owner Clay Hawthorne. She doesn't have the time or patience for his ex's homecoming. Two decades ago, Miranda Greer abandoned Clay with their infant child. Now she claims she wants to make amends, reconnect with her son, and settle down. None of which is to Sydney's liking, because behind Miranda's chic, saccharine façade, Sydney senses something very bad. Bad quickly turns to worse when Miranda is found brutally murdered, with hard evidence pointing to Clay as the killer. Determined to clear him, Sydney launches her own investigation. But as Sydney digs into Miranda's past, she soon runs afoul of an enigmatic corporation that's part church, part business, and all-powerful when it comes to keeping its secrets buried - and its enemies silent.
©2018 T. E. Woods (P)2018 Tantor
What You See
Summary
What You See: another thrilling installment in Hank Phillippi Ryan's award-winning Jane Ryland mystery series. Why would a father abduct his own child? A wedding is planned in Jane Ryland's family, but there's a disaster instead. Nine-year-old Gracie - supposed to be the flower girl - has been taken by her stepdad. Where are they? Is the girl in danger? Reporter Jane Ryland learns there's a limit to the bonds of family - and learns to her peril what happens when loved ones are pushed too far. Meanwhile, Detective Jake Brogan's got a doozy of a case. At Boston's historic Faneuil Hall, a man is stabbed to death in front of a crowd of tourists snapping photos of the murder on their cell phones. Solving the case should be easy, but the pictures and surveillance video lead him to a dark conspiracy of extortion and stolen lives. Jane and Jake must explore where their loyalties lie - to each other? To their families? To their careers? If they make the wrong decision, the consequences could be fatal.
©2015 Hank Phillippi Ryan (P)2015 Macmillan Audio
The Songbird Sisters
Summary
A full-length standalone, a great entry into the world of international best seller Rachael Herron's sexy and hilarious books. When their world-famous band, The Darling Songbirds, split up acrimoniously, sisters Adele, Molly, and Lana went their separate ways. A decade on, Adele and Molly have finally reconciled. However, Lana has remained stubbornly estranged - until now. Lana Darling’s bank account is finally filled to the top, thanks to the song she sold to another singer, but she’s never made it as a solo artist. Is it finally time to give it all up? But when she heads home to Darling Bay, she has country music super-mega-star Taft Hill hot on her heels. The sexy star isn’t prepared to let her call it quits - especially when he desperately needs new songs for his album. Lana and Taft have a history - and both have secrets to hide. But when events take an unexpected turn, will Lana choose her career or Taft? Or will she chose the long-awaited chance to get back in harmony with her songbird sisters? "Rachael Herron seamlessly blends romance, friendship, and laughter." - Barbara Bretton, USA Today best-selling author "Relationships are at the heart of women's fiction, and Herron could teach a master class on creating them." - Chicklit Central
©2017 Rachael Herron (P)2017 Rachael Herron
Girls' Weekend
Summary
Dani, Meg, and Charlotte have bonded over babies, barbeques, and backyards, but when they escape for a girls' weekend away, they can't bring themselves to return to lives that don't seem to fit anymore. Harried Dani can't explain why she feels so discontented until she meets a young gallery owner who inspires her to rediscover the art that once made her happy. Dependable Meg faces up to a grief that threatens to swallow her whole and confronts a marriage built on expectations. Flamboyant Charlotte, frustrated with her stagnated life and marriage, pursues a playboy Irish singer and beachside business opportunities. All three of these women thought they would be different. None of them thought they'd be facing down 40 and still wondering when life starts. What they do when they realize where they're headed is both inspiring and wildly entertaining. Girls' Weekend is a fun, yet poignant romp through the universal search of who we are, why we love, and what makes us happy by an author who is quickly emerging as one of our most incisive storytellers.
©2016 Cara Sue Achterberg (P)2017 Tantor
The Darling Songbirds Trilogy
Summary
A hilarious and heartwarming romance series about three sisters trying to find their love songs, from the best-selling author of Pack Up the Moon. Adele, Molly, and Lana were once the world-famous country band The Darling Songbirds. The sisters were tighter than string wrapped around sticks of dynamite, but they stopped talking, and like the dynamite songwriters they were, their relationship exploded. Dive deep into the world of hilarious reconciliation, country music, and steamy romance, all set in a quaint and cozy coastal California town. Enjoy the entire three-book series today! “Rachael Herron seamlessly blends romance, friendship, and laughter.” (Barbara Bretton, USA Today best-selling author) “Relationships are at the heart of women’s fiction, and Herron could teach a master class on creating them.” (Chicklit Central)
©2016 Rachael Herron (P)2021 Rachael Herron
Houses Under the Sea
Summary
Since H. P. Lovecraft first invited colleagues such as Frank Belknap Long and Robert Bloch (among others) to join in his creation of what has come to be known as “The Cthulhu Mythos” (over Lovecraft’s less invocative name of “Yog-Sothery”), dozens of authors have tried their hand at adding to this vast tapestry with varying degrees of success. Some, like the then-teenage Ramsey Campbell, used the Mythos as a starting point to his own career while still finding his own authorial voice. Others, like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman, did so at the height of their careers, paying homage to an author who had been such a tremendous inspiration to them. But no one, absolutely no one, has contributed such a body of brilliant and profoundly original work to the Mythos as has Caitlín R. Kiernan. In this remarkable collection the author has selected over two dozen of her best Lovecraftian tales ranging from 2000s “Valentia” to her more recent classic “A Mountain Walked” as well as including the complete Dandridge Cycle, as well as a new story, “M Is for Mars.” In short, this is a cornerstone volume for Kiernan fans and Mythos devotees alike.
©2018 Caitlín R. Kiernan (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing
Born to the Blade: The Complete Season 1
Summary
For centuries the Warders' Circle on the neutral islands of Twaa-Fei has given the countries of the sky a way to avoid war, settling their disputes through formal, magical duels. But the Circle's ability to maintain peace is fading: The Mertikan Empire is preparing for conquest, and the trade nation of Quloo is sinking, stripped of the aerstone that keeps both ships and island a-sky. When upstart Kris Denn tries to win their island a seat in the Warder’s Circle and colonial subject Oda no Michiko discovers that her conquered nation's past is not what she's been told, they upset the balance of power. The storm they bring will bind all the peoples of the sky together...or tear them apart.
©2018 Michael R. Underwood, Malka Older, Cassandra Khaw, Marie Brennan (P)2018 Serial Box
After the Affair, Third Edition
Summary
“Full of juicy, concrete advice to heal from an affair.” (Esther Perel, MA, LMFT, New York Times best-selling author of Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs) From a clinical psychologist who served as a clinical supervisor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University, received the CPA’s award for Distinguished Contribution to the Practice of Psychology, and has treated couples and trained therapists for over four decades, this newly updated, award-winning book provides concrete, proven strategies for those who seek to survive their partner’s infidelity and to rebuild the relationship after an affair. There is nothing quite like the devastation caused when a partner has been unfaithful. Hurt partners often experience a profound shattering of their familiar and valued sense of self and fall into a depression that can last for years. For the relationship, infidelity is often a death blow. This new third edition of After the Affair, with more than 600,000 copies sold, helps guide both hurt and unfaithful partners through three stages of healing: normalizing the crisis, deciding whether to recommit to their partner, and rekindling trust and sexual intimacy. It includes a new section in which patients ask questions not addressed in previous editions, and the author provides concrete strategies for earning trust and forgiveness.
©1996, 2013, 2020 Janis A. Spring (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers
Irish Girl
Summary
In this award-winning collection, listeners will find spellbinding stories of loss, absence, and the devastating effects of chance - of what happens when the unthinkable bad luck of other people, of other towns, becomes our bad luck, our town. Taut, lucid, and engrossing, provocative and dark - and often darkly funny - these stories have much to offer the lover of literary fiction as well as the listener who just loves a great story.
©2009 Tim Johnston (P)2019 Tantor
Sisters
Summary
Experience three novellas about the joys and trials of sisterhood! The Sea Glass Sisters A mother-daughter road trip is the last thing Elizabeth Gallagher needs. But with an impending hurricane, they are determined to convince Aunt Sandy to abandon her seaside store and return home. Instead, they discover that sisterhood can change hearts, lives, and futures...often in unpredictable ways. The Tidewater Sisters Tandi Reese and her sister Gina have complicated ties. Faced with legal papers for a fraud she didn’t commit, Tandi heads to the North Carolina Tidewater for a reckoning. But to unravel lies from truth, she must first confront strained sibling bonds and uncover a dark family secret. The Sandcastle Sister New York editor Jen Gibbs has not only acquired Evan Hall’s blockbuster book deal - she’s also accepted his engagement proposal. Now she’s scared to death. In Jen’s family history, marriage represents the death of every dream a woman holds. Will her mother’s long-held secret change Jen’s belief’s about life and love?
©2015 Wingate Media, LLC (P)2018 Two Words Publishing LLC
The AfterGrief
Summary
A validating new approach to the long-term grieving process that explains why we feel “stuck”, why that’s normal, and how shifting our perception of grief can help us grow - from the New York Times best-selling author of Motherless Daughters. “This is perhaps one of the most important books about grief ever written. It finally dispels the myth that we are all supposed to get over the death of a loved one.” (Claire Bidwell Smith, author of Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief) Aren’t you over it yet? Anyone who has experienced a major loss in their past knows this question. We’ve spent years fielding versions of it, both explicit and implied, from family, colleagues, acquaintances, and friends. We recognize the subtle cues - the slight eyebrow lift, the soft, startled “Oh! That long ago?” - from those who wonder how an event so far in the past can still occupy so much precious mental and emotional real estate. Because of the common but false assumption that grief should be time-limited, too many of us believe we’re grieving “wrong” when sadness suddenly resurges sometimes months or even years after a loss. The AfterGrief explains that the death of a loved one isn’t something most of us get over, get past, put down, or move beyond. Grief is not an emotion to pass through on the way to “feeling better”. Instead, grief is in constant motion; it is tidal, easily and often reactivated by memories and sensory events and is re-triggered as we experience life transitions, anniversaries, and other losses. Whether we want it to or not, grief gets folded into our developing identities, where it informs our thoughts, hopes, expectations, behaviors, and fears, and we inevitably carry it forward into everything that follows. Drawing on her own encounters with the ripple effects of early loss, as well as on interviews with dozens of researchers, therapists, and regular people who’ve been bereaved, New York Times best-selling author Hope Edelman offers profound advice for reassessing loss and adjusting the stories we tell ourselves about its impact on our identities. With guidance for reframing a story of loss, finding equilibrium within it, and even experiencing renewed growth and purpose in its wake, she demonstrates that though grief is a lifelong process, it doesn’t have to be a lifelong struggle. This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF with diagrams from the book. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Hope Edelman (P)2020 Random House Audio
Walking with Henry
Summary
Just when you think it's the end of your story...grace shows up. Sometimes it arrives as a moment of joy in the middle of despair. Sometimes you find it next to a trusted friend along an old, well-trodden path. And sometimes, grace has fuzzy ears, a bristled mane, and hope for a new start. Join Rachel Anne Ridge, author of the beloved memoir Flash, in a journey back to the pasture. As she adopts a second rescue donkey as a little brother for Flash - a miniature named Henry - she finds that walking with donkeys has surprising lessons to teach us about prayer, renewing our faith, and connecting to God in fresh ways. Fans all over the world fell in love with Flash and with Rachel's thoughtful, funny, and poignant stories about what life with a donkey can teach you. Now, meet Henry, and join him on a walk that could change everything about how you hope, trust, and move forward from past regrets.
©2019 Rachel Anne Ridge (P)2019 Tantor
My Misspent Youth
Summary
An essayist in the tradition of Joan Didion, Meghan Daum is one of the most celebrated nonfiction writers of her generation, widely recognized for her fresh, provocative approach with which she unearths the hidden fault lines in the American landscape. From her well-remembered New Yorker essays about the financial demands of big-city ambition and the ethereal, strangely old-fashioned allure of cyber relationships to her dazzlingly hilarious riff in Harper's about musical passions that give way to middle-brow paraphernalia, Daum delves into the center of things while closely examining the detritus that spills out along the way. With precision and well-balanced irony, Daum implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and horrify her.
©2001 Meghan Daum (P)2015 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Deadly Evidence
Summary
A school shooting. A city in mourning. A prosecutor out for justice. When a massacre at an elite private high school leaves 17 dead and a city reeling with horror, Philadelphia assistant district attorney Jessica Black will stop at nothing to find justice for the victims. But doing so will require facing an adversary even more terrifying than the teenage shooter. The Internet can be as deadly as a gun. Lurking in secrecy is an evil voice known only as True_Man. True_Man haunts the Internet, befriending the lonely and the frustrated, turning adolescent emotions toward destruction. Jessie believes True_Man is just as guilty of murder as the teenager he manipulated, but proving it - and bringing True_Man to justice - will take all of Jessie's formidable legal skills and more.
©2016 Larry A. Winters (P)2017 Tantor
Another Good Dog
Summary
When Cara felt her teenaged children slipping away and saw an empty nest on the horizon, she decided the best way to fill that void was with dogs - lots of them - and so her foster journey began. In 2015, her Pennsylvania farm became a haven for Operation Paws for Homes. There were the nine puppies at once, which arrived with less than a day's notice; a heart-worm positive dog; a deeply traumatized stray pup from Iraq; and countless others who just needed a gentle touch and a warm place to sleep. Operation Paws for Homes rescues dogs from high-kill shelters in the rural south and shuttles them north to foster homes like Cara's on the way to their forever homes. What started as a search for a good dog, led to an epiphany that there wasn't just one that could fill the hole left in her heart from her children gaining independence - she could save dozens along the way. The stories of these remarkable dogs-including an 80-pound bloodhound who sang arias for the neighbors - and the joy they bring to Cara and her family (along with a few chewed sofa cushions) fill this touching and inspiring new book that reveals the wonderful rewards of fostering. When asked how she can possibly say goodbye to that many loveable pups, Cara says, "If I don't give this one away, I can't possibly save another."
©2018 Cara Sue Achterberg (P)2018 Tantor
The Sweet Taste of Muscadines
Summary
A woman returns to her small Southern hometown in the wake of her mother’s sudden death - only to find the past upended by stunning family secrets - in this intimate debut novel, crafted with deep compassion and sharp wit. “A deeply moving work of Southern fiction that will appeal to fans of Where the Crawdads Sing...a story to remember long after the last page is turned.” (Susan Wiggs, number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Lost and Found Bookshop) Lila Bruce Breedlove never quite felt at home in Wesleyan, Georgia, especially after her father’s untimely demise when she was a child. Both Lila and her brother, Henry, fled north after high school, establishing fulfilling lives of their own. In contrast, their younger sister, Abigail, opted to remain behind to dote on their domineering, larger-than-life mother, Geneva. Yet despite their independence, Lila and Henry know deep down that they’ve never quite reckoned with their upbringing. When their elderly mother dies suddenly and suspiciously in the muscadine arbor behind the family estate, Lila and Henry return to the town that essentially raised them. But as they uncover more about Geneva’s death, shocking truths are revealed that overturn the family’s history as they know it, sending the pair on an extraordinary journey to chase a truth that will dramatically alter the course of their lives. The Sweet Taste of Muscadines reminds us all that true love never dies.
©2021 Pamela Terry (P)2021 Random House Audio
Hush Money
Summary
The mayor is smart, funny, and loved by all. Except for the person who leaves him in a pool of his own blood.... Madison is booming with dreamers and drifters, visionaries and entrepreneurs. Among them is Sydney Richardson, the daughter of a cop who died on these streets and now the proud, stressed-out owner of Hush Money, one of the city's top new restaurants. Like everyone else in town, Sydney is shocked when Madison's popular mayor - a crusty, charismatic man of the people - is shot to death in his own home. But the news hits especially close to home for Sydney because one of her own stands accused of the brutal crime. Sydney's the one person that Wanda Fields, a quiet, hardworking waitress and single mother, can think to call after her arrest. Now she might be Wanda's only hope. As Sydney gets wrapped up in the case, she runs up against powerful people with secrets to hide-and a mayor who wasn't the person everyone thought he was. After Wanda divulges a bombshell of her own, Sydney's sure the real killer is still out there, hiding among Madison's elite, perhaps even dining in her beloved restaurant... with more than enough motive to kill again.
©2017 T. E. Woods (P)2018 Tantor
Break in Case of Emergency
Summary
“A funny and moving commentary on that point in a woman's life when everything seems to come into question." (Camille Perri, The New York Times) "It's the superb insights and penetrating writing that make this book remarkable... An extraordinary debut." (The Guardian) "Enthralling, sharply observed" (Marie Claire) One of Elle Magazine's 19 Summer Books That Everyone Will Be Talking About One of Cosmo's Reads for July One of Refinery29's Two New Books to Read in July by Brilliant Debut Authors An irreverent and deeply moving comedy about friendship, fertility, and fighting for one's sanity in a toxic workplace. Jen has reached her early 30s and has all but abandoned a once-promising painting career when, spurred by the 2008 economic crisis, she takes a poorly defined job at a feminist nonprofit. The foundation's ostensible aim is to empower women, but staffers spend all their time devising acronyms for imaginary programs, ruthlessly undermining one another, and stroking the ego of their boss, the larger-than-life celebrity philanthropist Leora Infinitas. Jen's complicity in this passive-aggressive hellscape only intensifies her feelings of inferiority compared to her two best friends - one a wealthy attorney with a picture-perfect family, the other a passionately committed artist - as does Jen's apparent inability to have a baby, a source of existential panic that begins to affect her marriage and her already precarious status at the office. As Break in Case of Emergency unfolds, a fateful art exhibition, a surreal boondoggle adventure in Belize, and a devastating personal loss conspire to force Jen to reckon with some hard truths about herself and the people she loves most. Jessica Winter's ferociously intelligent debut novel is a wry satire of celebrity do-goodism as well as an exploration of the difficulty of navigating friendships as they shift to accommodate marriage and family and the unspoken tensions that can strain even the strongest bonds.
©2016 Jessica Winter (P)2016 Random House Audio
The Removes
Summary
As the first wave of pioneers travel westward to settle the American frontier, two women discover their inner strength when their lives are irrevocably changed by the hardship of the wild west in The Removes, a historical audiobook from New York Times best-selling and award-winning author Tatjana Soli. Spanning the years of the first great settlement of the west, The Removes tells the intertwining stories of 15-year-old Anne Cummins, frontierswoman Libbie Custer, and Libbie’s husband, the Civil War hero George Armstrong Custer. When Anne survives a surprise attack on her family’s homestead, she is thrust into a difficult life she never anticipated - living among the Cheyenne as both a captive and, eventually, a member of the tribe. Libbie, too, is thrown into a brutal, unexpected life when she marries Custer. They move out to the territories with the US Army, where Libbie is challenged daily and her worldview expanded: the pampered daughter of a small-town judge, she transforms into a daring camp follower. But when what Anne and Libbie have come to know - self-reliance, freedom, danger - is suddenly altered through tragedy and loss, they realize how indelibly shaped they are by life on the treacherous, extraordinary American plains. With taut, suspenseful writing, Tatjana Soli tells the exhilarating stories of Libbie and Anne, who have grown like weeds into women unwilling to be restrained by the strictures governing 19th-century society. The Removes is a powerful, transporting audiobook about the addictive intensity and freedom of the American frontier.
©2018 Tatjana Soli (P)2018 Macmillan Audio