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.
Life and Other Inconveniences
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling author of Good Luck with That comes a new novel about a blue-blood grandmother and her black-sheep granddaughter who discover they are truly two sides of the same coin. Emma London never thought she had anything in common with her grandmother Genevieve London. The regal old woman came from wealthy and bluest-blood New England stock, but that didn't protect her from life's cruelest blows: the disappearance of Genevieve's young son, followed by the premature death of her husband. But Genevieve rose from those ashes of grief and built a fashion empire that was respected the world over, even when it meant neglecting her other son. When Emma's own mother died, her father abandoned her on his mother's doorstep. Genevieve took Emma in and reluctantly raised her - until Emma got pregnant her senior year of high school. Genevieve kicked her out with nothing but the clothes on her back...but Emma took with her the most important London possession: the strength not just to survive but to thrive. And indeed, Emma has built a wonderful life for herself and her teenage daughter, Riley. So what is Emma to do when Genevieve does the one thing Emma never expected of her and, after not speaking to her for nearly two decades, calls and asks for help?
©2019 Kristan Higgins (P)2019 Recorded Books
The Destroyer
Summary
The country of Nia has fallen to the Ancients and circumstances are grim for the humans. Kaiyer must return to the broken castle to save his friends, reconcile his past, and find a way to break the hold that the enemy agents have over the country. Contains mature themes.
©2016 Michael-Scott Earle (P)2018 Tantor
Secondhand Spirits
Summary
Lily Ivory hopes for a normal life when she opens Aunt Cora's Closet. With her magical knack for vintage fashion - she can sense vibrations of the past from clothing and jewelry - her store becomes a big hit. But when a client is murdered and children start disappearing from the Bay Area, Lily may be the only one who can unravel the crime. She tries to keep her identity a secret while investigating, but it's not easy - especially under the spells of sexy "mythbuster" Max Carmichael and powerful witch Aidan Rhodes. Will Lily's witchy ways be forced out of the closet?
©2009 Juliet Blackwell (P)2012 Tantor
The Atomic City Girls
Summary
In the best-selling tradition of Hidden Figures and The Wives of Los Alamos, comes this riveting novel of the everyday people who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. "What you see here, what you hear here, what you do here, let it stay here." In November 1944, 18-year-old June Walker boards an unmarked bus, destined for a city that doesn't officially exist. Oak Ridge, Tennessee has sprung up in a matter of months - a town of trailers and segregated houses, 24-hour cafeterias, and constant security checks. There, June joins hundreds of other young girls operating massive machines whose purpose is never explained. They know they are helping to win the war, but must ask no questions and reveal nothing to outsiders. The girls spend their evenings socializing and flirting with soldiers, scientists, and workmen at dances and movies, bowling alleys and canteens. June longs to know more about their top-secret assignment and begins an affair with Sam Cantor, the young Jewish physicist from New York who oversees the lab where she works and understands the end goal only too well, while her beautiful roommate Cici is on her own mission: to find a wealthy husband and escape her sharecropper roots. Across town, African-American construction worker Joe Brewer knows nothing of the government's plans, only that his new job pays enough to make it worth leaving his family behind, at least for now. But a breach in security will intertwine his fate with June's search for answers. When the bombing of Hiroshima brings the truth about Oak Ridge into devastating focus, June must confront her ideals about loyalty, patriotism, and war itself.
©2018 Janet Beard (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
The Destroyer: Book 4
Summary
The Empress almost has control of the world she was promised and soon her enemies will not be able to thwart her. There is just one man keeping her from her prize: Kaiyer. Contains mature themes.
©2016 Michael-Scott Earle (P)2018 Tantor
Now That You Mention It
Summary
Following the success of If You Only Knew and On Second Thought comes the highly anticipated new novel by New York Times best-selling author Higgins - a funny and bittersweet story of a woman who returns to her hometown after a decade's absence hoping to resuscitate her relationship with her family, only to discover that her homecoming is not as welcome as she had imagined. It's been over a decade since Nora left her hometown of Scupper Island, Maine, and very seldom looked back. She's carved out a successful life in Boston, where no one knows her as the awkward girl with the delinquent sister and the dad who left, but a not-as-dramatic-as-it-sounds brush with death has her taking stock of her life. Inspired to reconnect with her prickly mother and snarky teenage niece, Nora returns home for the summer, where she's forced to face the people she's spent the last ten years trying to avoid and where some revelations about her family could either heal her or send her scrambling back to Boston on the next ferry.
©2017 Kristan Higgins (P)2017 Recorded Books
The Romanov Sisters
Summary
They were the Princess Dianas of their day - perhaps the most photographed and talked about young royals of the early 20th century. The four captivating Russian Grand Duchesses - Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia Romanov - were much admired for their happy dispositions, their looks, the clothes they wore, and their privileged lifestyle. Over the years, the story of the four Romanov sisters and their tragic end in a basement at Ekaterinburg in 1918 has clouded our view of them, leading to a mass of sentimental and idealized hagiography. With this treasure trove of diaries and letters from the grand duchesses to their friends and family, we learn that they were intelligent, sensitive, and perceptive witnesses to the dark turmoil within their immediate family and the ominous approach of the Russian Revolution - the nightmare that would sweep their world away and them along with it. The Romanov Sisters sets out to capture the joy as well as the insecurities and poignancy of those young lives against the backdrop of the dying days of late Imperial Russia, World War I, and the Russian Revolution. Helen Rappaport aims to present a new and challenging take on the story, drawing extensively on previously unseen or unpublished letters, diaries, and archival sources, as well as private collections. It is a book that will surprise people, even aficionados.
©2014 Helen Rappaport (P)2014 Macmillan Audio
If You Only Knew
Summary
Sisterhood in all its drama, hilarity, and tears is at the heart of New York Times best-selling author Kristan Higgins' thoroughly captivating new novel, featuring the wit and romance that listeners have come to expect from the much-loved creator of the Blue Heron series. Wedding-dress designer Jenny Tate understands the happily ever after business, yet somehow she's still involved in her ex-husband's life. In fact Owen's new wife may - inexplicably - be Jenny's new best friend. Sensing this, well, relationship isn't helping her move on, Jenny trades the Manhattan skyline for her hometown up the Hudson, where she'll be able to bask in her sister Rachel's picture-perfect family life...and hopefully make one of her own. Her timing couldn't be more perfect, since Rachel will need her younger sister. Her idyllic marriage has just fallen to pieces in spectacular fashion after she discovers her husband sexting with one of his colleagues. Second chances aren't in Rachel's nature, but the desire for an intact family has her rethinking her stance on adultery, much to Jenny's surprise. Rachel points to their parents' "perfect" marriage as a shining example. But to protect her sister, Jenny may have to tarnish that memory - and their relationship - and reveal a secret about their family she's been keeping since childhood. During this summer of secrets and lies, temptation and revelation, Jenny and Rachel will rely on each other to find the humor in their personal catastrophes, the joy in their triumphs...and the strength to keep hanging on.
©2015 Kristan Higgins (P)2015 Recorded Books
If Walls Could Talk
Summary
Melanie Turner has made quite a name for herself remodeling historic houses in the San Francisco Bay Area. But now her reputation may be on the line. At her newest project, a run-down Pacific Heights mansion, Mel is visited by the ghost of a colleague who recently met a bad end with power tools. Mel hopes that by nailing the killer, she can rid herself of the ghostly presence of the murdered man - and not end up a construction casualty herself....
©2010 Julie Goodson-Lawes (P)2013 Tantor
Death & Honey
Summary
Death & Honey contains three new novellas by New York Times best sellers Delilah S. Dawson, Kevin Hearne, and Chuck Wendig. In The Buzz Kill by Kevin Hearne, Oberon the Irish wolfhound, and Starbuck the Boston Terrier sink their teeth into a new Meaty Mystery when they discover a body underneath a beehive in Tasmania. It’s been badly stung, but the bees aren’t at fault: This is homicide. The hounds recruit the help of their Druid, Atticus O’Sullivan, and the Tasmanian police to track down the killer in the interest of a reward - but this time, they want more than food, and justice. Grist of Bees, by Delilah S. Dawson writing as Lila Bowen, follows Rhett Walker, who has given up his destiny as the monster-hunting Shadow to settle down with his beloved Sam. But when the call to action grows too strong, Rhett saddles up to follow a peculiar bee into the unforgiving desert. The bee leads him to a weeping mother in a strangely prosperous valley, and Rhett has no choice but to hunt the creature that's stolen her child - even if it destroys a land of milk and honey. Interlude: Tanager by Chuck Wendig returns us to the world of Miriam Black. Lauren “Wren" Martin is a young psychic woman who can see the stained souls of killers; it is her gift, or as she sees it, her curse. And up until now, it has been her mission to kill those killers, to remove them from the pattern so that they may not murder again. But now, after a death that may not have been deserved, she’s left rudderless, without plan or purpose, until a woman with a strange power of her own takes her in and gives her a new mission - and a new target.
©2019 Kevin Hearne, Chuck Wendig, D.S. Dawson (P)2018 Luke Daniels, Xe Sands
Dead Bolt
Summary
Turner Construction's latest restoration project is a historic Queen Anne Victorian in San Francisco. This time, general contractor Mel Turner has to work around the owners, who insist on sticking around-along with some ghosts that insist in their own way that the work stops. The ghosts aren't the only ones standing in the way of the renovations. A crotchety neighbor, Emile Blunt, secretly wants this house and could be behind some of the disturbances. But when Emile is found dead, it's Mel who appears guilty. Now she must restore the building-and her reputation-before it's too late.
©2011 Juliet Goodson-Lawes (P)2013 Tantor
Hexes and Hemlines
Summary
With her vintage clothing store taking off, Lily Ivory is finding that life in San Francisco suits her just fine. But her ability to sense vibrations from the past, so useful in locating secondhand gems, has landed her in the middle of a new mystery.... Lily gets called away from Aunt Cora's Closet when the police need a witch's take on a strange case. Malachi Zazi was stabbed to death in his apartment, under a ladder, surrounded by the number thirteen, a broken mirror, and a black cat-superstitions that the victim, as head of a rationalist society, was devoted to discrediting. When the police identify a suspect from the Serpentarian Society, Lily is shocked to learn it's someone she knows. But with bad luck plaguing all its members, she begins to wonder if there's more at work than mere coincidence. And while there aren't many clues from the crime scene, Lily finds evidence of dark witchcraft and a hex on her friend's doorstep. With her friend's safety at stake, Lily is determined to use magic to find the murderer before everyone's luck runs out.
©2011 Juliet Blackwell (P)2012 Tantor
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Summary
Library Journal Editors' Pick It's the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is about to take a walk. As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents to be in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest paid advertising woman in America - a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown. A love letter to city life - however shiny or sleazy - Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic, the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.
©2016 Kathleen Rooney (P)2017 Macmillan Audio
Walk Among Us
Summary
One of the most popular role-playing properties in the world gets new life with this trio of horror novellas set in Vampire: The Masquerade's World of Darkness by three brilliant talents: Genevieve Gornichec, Cassandra Khaw, and Caitlin Starling The subtle horror and infernal politics of the World of Darkness are shown in a new light in Vampire: The Masquerade: Walk Among Us, an audio-first collection of three novellas that show the terror, hunger, and power of the Kindred as you've never seen them before. In Genevieve Gornichec's A Sheep Among Wolves, performed by Erika Ishii, depression and radicalization go hand in hand as a young woman finds companionship in the darkness.... In Cassandra Khaw's Fine Print, performed by Neil Kaplan, an arrogant tech bro learns the importance of reading the fine print in the contract for immortality.... And in Caitlin Starling's The Land of Milk and Honey, performed by Xe Sands, ideals and ethics bump heads with appetite on a blood farm. Three very different stories from three amazing, distinct voices, but all with one thing in common: The hunger never stops, and for someone to experience power, many others are going to have to feel pain.
©2020 Cassandra Khaw, Genevieve Gornichec, and Caitlin Starling (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
Bewitched and Betrothed
Summary
A supernatural force on the loose in San Francisco and a family reunion keep witch and vintage storeowner Lily Ivory on her toes as she prepares to walk down the aisle.... When Lily Ivory stumbles on the uniform of a former prisoner from Alcatraz and SFPD inspector Carlos Romero's cousin is kidnapped, Lily suspects something dangerous has been unleashed on the ghost-ridden island of Alcatraz. She'll have to sleuth out the culprit - when she's not busy entertaining her visiting relatives and resolving romantic conflicts as her wedding date approaches. Could recent omens be pointing to the magical threat in her adopted city? If so, she'll have to line up her allies to change the fate of the Bay Area. Because no matter what, Lily's determined to celebrate her marriage with her friends by her side - even if it means battling a demonic foe before she can make it to the altar.
©2019 Julie Goodson-Lawes (P)2019 Tantor
The Books of Blood: Volume 3
Summary
The Books of Blood combine the ordinary with the extraordinary while radiating the eroticism that has become Barker's signature. Weaving tales of the everyday world transformed into an unrecognizable place, where reason no longer exists and logic ceases to explain the workings of the universe, Clive Barker provides the stuff of nightmares in packages too tantalizing to resist. Never one to shy away from the unimaginable or the unspeakable, Clive Barker breathes life into our deepest, darkest nightmares, creating visions that are at once terrifying, tender, and witty. The Books of Blood confirm what horror fans everywhere have known for a long time: We will be hearing from Clive Barker for many years to come.
©1984 Clive Barker (P)2013 David Wilson
Jacob
Summary
Since time began, there have been Nightwalkers - the races of the night who live in the shadows of the moonlight. Love with humans is absolutely forbidden, and one man makes certain to uphold this ancient law: Jacob, the Enforcer. For 700 years, he has resisted temptation. But not tonight... Jacob knows the excuses his people give when the madness overtakes them and they fall prey to their lust for humans. He's heard every one and still brought the trespassers to justice. Immune to forbidden desires, uncontrollable hungers, or the curse of the moon, his control is total... until the moment he sees Isabella on a shadowy New York City street. Saving her life wasn't in his plans. Nor were the overwhelming feelings she arouses in him. But the moment he holds her in his arms and feels the soft explosion of her body against his, everything changes. Their attraction is undeniable, volatile, and completely against the law. Suddenly everything Jacob has ever believed is inflamed by the heat of desire. Bring on the night.
©2006 Jacquelyn Frank (P)2011 Tantor
Take Me Apart
Summary
"What a clever, visceral thriller. A raw, unfiltered twist on gaslighting that challenges how society treats women. It made me sad, angry, and fired up." (Araminta Hall, author of Our Kind of Cruelty) "I loved this novel so much that I blew off all my responsibilities, turned off my phone, and blistered through the whole thing in one sitting. Unforgettable and thought-provoking, Take Me Apart has my highest recommendation." (Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek) A spellbinding novel of psychological suspense that follows a young archivist's obsession with her subject's mysterious death as it threatens to destroy her fragile grasp on sanity When the famed photographer Miranda Brand died mysteriously at the height of her career, it sent shock waves through Callinas, California. Decades later, old wounds are reopened when her son Theo hires the ex-journalist Kate Aitken to archive of his mother's work and personal effects. As Kate sorts through the vast maze of material and contends with the vicious rumors and shocking details of Miranda's private life, she pieces together a portrait of a vibrant artist buckling under the pressures of ambition, motherhood, and marriage. But Kate has secrets of her own, including a growing attraction to the enigmatic Theo, and when she stumbles across Miranda's diary, her curiosity spirals into a dangerous obsession. A seductive, twisting tale of psychological suspense, Take Me Apart draws listeners into the lives of two darkly magnetic young women pinned down by secrets and lies. Sara Sligar's electrifying debut is a chilling, thought-provoking take on art, illness, and power, from a spellbinding new voice in literary suspense. Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year - 2020 A Macmillan Audio production from MCD
©2020 Sara Sligar (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
Plain Bad Heroines
Summary
“Full of Victorian sapphic romance, metafictional horror, biting misandrist humor, Hollywood intrigue, and multiple timeliness - all replete with evocative illustrations that are icing on a deviously delicious cake.” (O, The Oprah Magazine) “Brimming from start to finish with sly humor and gothic mischief. Brilliant.” (Sarah Waters) Named a Most Anticipated Book by: O, The Oprah Magazine Buzzfeed Harper's Bazaar Vulture Parade Popsugar Bustle Goodreads Autostraddle Literary Hub And more! The award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered around a cursed New England boarding school for girls - a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love, and the rebellious female spirit. Our story begins in 1902, at the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous best-selling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, the Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever - but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. More than a century later, the now-abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer Merritt Emmons publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded Age institution. Her best-selling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled - or perhaps just grimly exploited - and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story, Plain Bad Heroines is a devilishly haunting, modern masterwork of metafiction that manages to combine the ghostly sensibility of Sarah Waters with the dark imagination of Marisha Pessl and the sharp humor and incisive social commentary of Curtis Sittenfeld into one laugh-out-loud funny, spellbinding, and wonderfully luxuriant listen. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Emily M. Danforth (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
A Vision in Velvet
Summary
As soon as Lily opens her recently purchased trunk of old clothes, she feels strange vibrations emanating from a mysterious velvet cloak. When she tries it on, Lily sees awful visions from the past. And when the antiques dealer who sold her the cape is killed, Lily suspects a supernatural force might be behind his death. Then Lily's familiar, Oscar the potbellied pig, disappears. Lily will do anything to get him back - including battling the spirit of a powerful witch reaching out from the past. But even with the aid of her grandmother, unmasking a killer and saving Oscar might be more than one well-intentioned sorceress can handle.
©2014 Julie Goodson-Lawes (P)2014 Tantor Media