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.
The Vineyards of Champagne
Summary
Beneath the cover of France's most exquisite vineyards, a city of women defy an army during World War I, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Lost Carousel of Provence... Deep within the labyrinth of caves that lies below the lush, rolling vineyards of the Champagne region, an underground city of women and children hums with life. Forced to take shelter from the unrelenting onslaught of German shellfire above, the bravest and most defiant women venture out to pluck sweet grapes for the harvest. But wine is not the only secret preserved in the cool, dark cellars... In present day, Rosalyn Acosta travels to Champagne to select vintages for her Napa-based employer. Rosalyn doesn't much care for champagne - or France, for that matter. Since the untimely death of her young husband, Rosalyn finds it a challenge to enjoy anything at all. But as she reads through a precious cache of World War I letters and retraces the lives lived in the limestone tunnels, Rosalyn will unravel a mystery hidden for decades...and find a way to savor her own life again.
©2020 Julie Goodson-Lawes (P)2020 Tantor
Making Motherhood Work
Summary
The work-family conflict that mothers experience today is a national crisis. Women struggle to balance breadwinning with the bulk of parenting, and stress is constant. Social policies don't help. Of all Western industrialized countries, the US ranks dead last for supportive work-family policies: No federal paid parental leave. The highest gender wage gap. No minimum standard for vacation and sick days. Can American women look to European policies for solutions? Drawing on interviews with 135 working mothers in Sweden, Germany, Italy, and the US, Caitlyn Collins shows that mothers' desires and expectations depend heavily on context. In Sweden - renowned for its gender-equal policies - mothers assume they will receive support from their partners, employers, and the government. In the former East Germany, with its history of mandated employment, mothers don't feel conflicted about working, but some curtail their work hours and ambitions. Mothers in Western Germany and Italy, where maternalist values are strong, are stigmatized for pursuing careers. Meanwhile, American working mothers stand apart for their guilt and worry. Policies alone, Collins discovers, cannot solve women's struggles. Easing them will require a deeper understanding of cultural beliefs about gender equality, employment, and motherhood.
©2019 Princeton University Press (P)2019 HighBridge Company
Hold Me
Summary
Jay na Thalang is a demanding, driven genius. He doesn't know how to stop or even slow down. The instant he lays eyes on Maria Lopez, he knows that she is a sexy distraction he can't afford. He's done his best to keep her at arm's length, and he's succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Maria has always been cautious. Now that her once-tiny, apocalypse-centered blog is hitting the mainstream, she's even more careful about preserving her online anonymity. She hasn't sent so much as a picture to the commenter she's interacted with for 18 months - not even after emails, hour-long chats, and a friendship that is slowly turning into more. Maybe one day they'll meet and see what happens. But unbeknownst to them both, Jay is Maria's commenter. They've already met. They already hate each other. And two determined enemies are about to discover that they've been secretly falling in love.
©2016 Courtney Milan (P)2017 Courtney Milan
What to Do When You're Having Two
Summary
The creator of Twiniversity.com delivers the ultimate survival guide for parents of twins. There's no doubt that having twins is challenging. First, there's the pregnancy. But after the twins arrive, the real work begins: coordinating sleep schedules, feeding two babies at the same time, buying five hundred diapers a month while saving enough to send two kids to college in 18 years, and maintaining your own sanity throughout. But it's also incredibly rewarding - if you're well prepared! In What to Do When You're Having Two, national twins guru and founder of Twiniversity - and mother of twins herself! - Natalie Diaz provides a no-holds-barred resource about life with twins, from pregnancy and birth all the way through your duo's first year of life. Funny, reassuring, and full of stories and advice, this life-saving book covers making a birth plan checklist; overcoming the challenges of premature delivery and the neonatal intensive care unit; sticking to one sleep schedule; double-duty breastfeeding; must-have gear, including a guide to double strollers; keeping your sanity and your finances under control; and building one-on-one relationships with each child early. Packed with tried-and-true tips from the trenches, this is the must-have survival guide for parents of twins.
©2018 Natalie Diaz (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Blood Water Paint
Summary
"Haunting ... teems with raw emotion, and McCullough deftly captures the experience of learning to behave in a male-driven society and then breaking outside of it." (The New Yorker) "I will be haunted and empowered by Artemisia Gentileschi's story for the rest of my life." (Amanda Lovelace, best-selling author of The Princess Saves Herself in This One) A William C. Morris Debut Award Finalist2018 National Book Award Longlist Her mother died when she was 12, and suddenly Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice: a life as a nun in a convent or a life grinding pigment for her father's paint. She chose paint. By the time she was 17, Artemisia did more than grind pigment. She was one of Rome's most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost. He will not consume my every thought. I am a painter. I will paint. Joy McCullough's bold novel in verse is a portrait of an artist as a young woman, filled with the soaring highs of creative inspiration and the devastating setbacks of a system built to break her. McCullough weaves Artemisia's heartbreaking story with the stories of the ancient heroines, Susanna and Judith, who become not only the subjects of two of Artemisia's most famous paintings but sources of strength as she battles to paint a woman's timeless truth in the face of unspeakable and all-too-familiar violence. I will show you what a woman can do. "A captivating and impressive." (Booklist, starred review) "Belongs on every YA shelf." (SLJ, starred review) "Haunting." (Publishers Weekly, starred review) "Luminous." (Shelf Awareness, starred review)
©2018 Joy McCullough (P)2018 Listening Library
Tarnished and Torn
Summary
When Lily arrives at an antique jewelry fair, her bargain sensors go off left and right - but she also picks up a faint vibration of magic. Could the hard-bargaining merchant Griselda be a fellow practitioner? It certainly seems that way when a sudden fire sends panic through the crowd, and Lily discovers Griselda murdered in a way that nods to an old-fashioned witch hunt. A crime that hits close to home turns into an unwelcome flash from the past when the police bring in their lead suspect - Lily's estranged father. Though he may not deserve her help, Lily is determined to clear her father's name and solve a murder that's anything but crystal clear.
©2013 Julie Goodson-Lawes (P)2013 Tantor
Elijah
Summary
Some feelings you just can't fight. He is known as the Warrior Captain - a master of every weapon, a fierce soldier sworn to protect his kind. Powerful, relentless, merciless, Elijah has always won every battle he's ever taken on - until now. Ambushed by necromancers, he is left for dead only to be discovered by the woman who could very well deliver the final blow: Siena, the Lycanthrope Queen. With three centuries of warring, little more than a decade of uneasy peace has existed between the Lycanthropes and Elijah's people. Now, after a lifetime of suspicion, the warrior in Elijah is consumed with a different battle - winning Siena's heart by giving her pleasure beyond all boundaries. What starts as attraction and arousal soon burns into a passion with consequences that will echo through the ages for both their people. And as would-be enemies become inseparable lovers, another threat approaches, one with the power to destroy them all.
©2007 Jacquelyn Frank (P)2011 Tantor
Unequal Childhoods
Summary
Class does make a difference in the lives and futures of American children. Drawing on in-depth observations of black and white middle-class, working-class, and poor families, Unequal Childhoods explores this fact, offering a picture of childhood today. Here are the frenetic families managing their children's hectic schedules of "leisure" activities; and here are families with plenty of time but little economic security. Lareau shows how middle-class parents, whether black or white, engage in a process of "concerted cultivation" designed to draw out children's talents and skills, while working-class and poor families rely on "the accomplishment of natural growth," in which a child's development unfolds spontaneously-as long as basic comfort, food, and shelter are provided.
©2003; revised 2011 Annette Lareau (P)2011 Tantor
The Last Curtain Call
Summary
A new ghoulish mystery from the New York Times best-selling author of A Ghostly Light, featuring Mel Turner, a ghost-whispering contractor. Mel Turner can't resist the chance to bring the Crockett Theater, a decrepit San Francisco art nouveau movie palace, back to life. But there's a catch for Turner Construction: Several artists are currently squatting in the building, and they aren't the only ones haunting the once-grand halls of the historic theater.... When one of the squatters is found dead, the police department has a long list of suspects to investigate. Meanwhile, Mel and her fiance, Landon, are remodeling an old house for themselves, and Mel finds it more challenging than she expected to be on the other side of a home renovation project. When Mel discovers that the original owner of the Crockett Theater died under mysterious circumstances, and that there just might be a connection to the ghost haunting her own attic, the case takes a new turn - one that could bring down the curtain for the last time.
©2020 Julie Goodson-Lawes (P)2020 Tantor
Catastrophic Care
Summary
A visionary investigation that will change the way we think about health care: how and why it is failing, why expanding coverage will actually make things worse, and how our health care can be transformed into a transparent, affordable, successful system. In 2007, David Goldhill’s father died from infections acquired in a hospital - one of more than two hundred thousand avoidable deaths per year caused by medical error. The bill was enormous - and Medicare paid it. These circumstances left Goldhill angry and determined to understand how world-class technology and personnel could coexist with such carelessness - and how a business that failed so miserably could be paid in full. Catastrophic Care is the eye-opening result. Blending personal anecdotes and extensive research, Goldhill presents us with cogent, biting analysis that challenges the basic preconceptions that have shaped our thinking for decades. Contrasting the Island of health care with the Mainland of our economy, he demonstrates that high costs, excess medicine, terrible service, and medical error are the inevitable consequences of our insurance-based system. He explains why policy efforts to fix these problems have invariably produced perverse results, and how the new Affordable Care Act is more likely to deepen than to solve these issues. Goldhill steps outside the incremental and wonkish debates to question the conventional wisdom blinding us to more fundamental issues. He proposes a comprehensive new way, where the customer (the patient) is first - a system focused on health and maintaining it, a system strong and vibrant enough for our future. If you think health care is interesting only to institutes and politicians, think again: Catastrophic Care is surprising, engaging, and brimming with insights born of questions nobody has thought to ask. Above all it is an audiobook of new ideas that can transform the way we understand a subject we often take for granted.
©2013 David Goldhill (P)2013 Random House Audio
The Book of Joan
Summary
The best-selling author of The Small Backs of Children offers a vision of our near extinction and a heroine - a reimagined Joan of Arc - poised to save a world ravaged by war, violence, and greed and forever change history in this provocative new novel. In the near future, world wars have transformed the earth into a battleground. Fleeing the unending violence and the planet's now-radioactive surface, humans have regrouped on a mysterious platform known as CIEL, hovering over their erstwhile home. The changed world has turned evolution on its head: The surviving humans have become sexless, hairless, pale-white creatures floating in isolation, inscribing stories upon their skin. Out of the ranks of the endless wars rises Jean de Men, a charismatic and bloodthirsty cult leader who turns CIEL into a quasicorporate police state. A group of rebels unite to dismantle his iron rule - galvanized by the heroic song of Joan, a child warrior who possesses a mysterious force that lives within her and communes with the earth. When de Men and his armies turn Joan into a martyr, the consequences are astonishing. And no one - not the rebels, Jean de Men, or even Joan herself - can foresee the way her story and unique gift will forge the destiny of an entire world for generations. A riveting tale of destruction and love found in the direst of places - even at the extreme end of posthuman experience - Lidia Yuknavitch's The Book of Joan raises questions about what it means to be human, the fluidity of sex and gender, and the role of art as a means for survival.
©2017 Lidia Yuknavitch (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Freeing Your Child From Anxiety
Summary
Anxiety is the number one mental health problem facing young people today. Childhood should be a happy and carefree time, yet more and more children today are exhibiting symptoms of anxiety, from bedwetting and clinginess to frequent stomach aches, nightmares, and even refusing to go to school. Parents everywhere want to know: All children have fears, but how much is normal? How can you know when a stress has crossed over into a full-blown anxiety disorder? Most parents don't know how to recognize when there is a real problem and how to deal with it when there is. In Freeing Your Child from Anxiety, a childhood anxiety disorder specialist examines all manifestations of childhood fears, including social anxiety, Tourette's Syndrome, hair-pulling, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and guides you through a proven program to help your child back to emotional safety. No child is immune from the effects of stress in today's media-saturated society. Fortunately, anxiety disorders are treatable. By following these simple solutions, parents can prevent their children from needlessly suffering today-and tomorrow.
©2004 Tamar E. Chansky (P)2012 Tantor
Blackbird House
Summary
Hoffman follows her celebrated bestseller The Probable Future with an evocative work that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred years. In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late. From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family's lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House. These interconnected narratives are as intelligent as they are haunting, as luminous as they are unusual. Inside Blackbird House more than a dozen men and women learn how love transforms us and how it is the one lasting element in our lives. The past both dissipates and remains contained inside the rooms of Blackbird House, where there are terrible secrets, inspired beauty, and, above all else, a spirit of coming home. Narrated by John Lee, Se Sands, Amy Rubinate, Paul Michael Garcia, Bernadette Dunne, Tavia Gilbert, Cassandra Campbell, Hillary Huber, Kirsten Potter, Carrington McDuffie, Kate Reading, and Laura Hicks.
©2004 Alice Hoffman (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Pain, Parties, Work
Summary
"I dreamed of New York; I am going there." On May 31, 1953, 23-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City for a one-month stint at "the intellectual fashion magazine" Mademoiselle to be a guest editor for its prestigious annual college issue. Over the next 26 days, the bright, blond New England collegian lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended Balanchine ballets, watched a game at Yankee Stadium, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. She typed rejection letters to writers from The New Yorker and ate an entire bowl of caviar at an advertising luncheon. She stalked Dylan Thomas and fought off an aggressive diamond-wielding delegate from the United Nations. She took hot baths, had her hair done, and discovered her signature drink (vodka, no ice). Young, beautiful, and on the cusp of an advantageous career, she was supposed to be having the time of her life. Drawing on in-depth interviews with fellow guest editors whose memories infuse these pages, Elizabeth Winder reveals how these 26 days indelibly altered how Plath saw herself, her mother, her friendships, and her romantic relationships, and how this period shaped her emerging identity as a woman and as a writer. Pain, Parties, Work - the three words Plath used to describe that time - shows how Manhattan's alien atmosphere unleashed an anxiety that would stay with her for the rest of her all-too-short life. Thoughtful and illuminating, this captivating portrait invites us to see Sylvia Plath before The Bell Jar, before she became an icon - a young woman with everything to live for.
©2013 Elizabeth Winder (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers
Gideon
Summary
As a healer, he knows her body. But it's her heart he wants. For a thousand years, Gideon has healed his people. And as the oldest surviving male of his race, his wisdom has always been respected without question. But Gideon knows that even he is vulnerable to the powerful, primitive desires that befall his kind during Hallowed moons---and nine years ago that truth was hammered home when he found himself claiming Magdalena, the Demon King's sister, in a wild embrace. Horrified by his lack of control, he left her wanting and furious---and then exiled himself for the better part of a decade. Now, with necromancers threatening his people---and Magdalena nearly their victim---Gideon must face another truth. He and the beautiful, stubborn Magdalena are destined to be together, to share a love as deep and old as time itself. But first he needs to regain her trust. Then he'll have to save her life.
©2007 Jacquelyn Frank (P)2011 Tantor
Beyond All Dreams
Summary
Anna O'Brien leads a predictable and quiet life as a map librarian at the illustrious Library of Congress until she stumbles across the baffling mystery of a ship disappeared at sea. Thwarted in her attempts to uncover information, her determination outweighs her shyness and she turns to a dashing congressman for help. Luke Callahan was one of the nation's most powerful congressmen before his promising career was shadowed in scandal. Eager to share in a new cause and intrigued by the winsome librarian, he joins forces with Anna to solve the mystery of the lost ship. Opposites in every way, Anna and Luke are unexpectedly drawn to each other despite the strict rules forbidding Anna from any romantic entanglements with members of Congress. From the gilded halls of the Capitol where powerful men shape the future of the nation, to the scholarly archives of the nation's finest library, Anna and Luke are soon embroiled in secrets much bigger and more perilous than they ever imagined. Is bringing the truth to light worth risking all they've ever dreamed for their futures?
©2015 Dorothy Mays (P)2018 Two Words Publishing LLC
Adam
Summary
For 400 years he was lost to her, but he is hers tonight... From their first tantalizing touch, Jasmine knows he is different. What other lover could unlock her tight control, flood Vampire senses jaded by a lifetime of decadent self-indulgence? Centuries ago, when he disappeared without a trace, she had given up hope of ever fulfilling the promise of incomparable passion. But here he is, against the very laws of nature, ready to bring down their most vicious enemy, ready to bring her blood to the boiling point...if she will only let him.
©2011 Jacquelyn Frank (P)2011 Tantor
The Lightkeepers
Summary
In The Lightkeepers, we follow Miranda, a nature photographer who travels to the Farallon Islands, an exotic and dangerous archipelago off the coast of California, for a one-year residency capturing the landscape. Her only companions are the scientists studying there, odd and quirky refugees from the mainland living in rustic conditions; they document the fish populations around the island, the bold trio of sharks called the Sisters that hunt the surrounding waters, and the overwhelming bird population that, at times, creates the need to wear hard hats as protection from their attacks. Shortly after her arrival, Miranda is assaulted by one of the inhabitants of the islands. A few days later, her assailant is found dead, perhaps the result of an accident. As the novel unfolds, Miranda gives witness to the natural wonders of this special place as she grapples with what has happened to her and deepens her connection to (and her suspicions of) her companions, all while falling under the thrall of the legends of the place nicknamed "the Islands of the Dead". And when more violence occurs, each member of this strange community falls under suspicion. The Lightkeepers upends the traditional structure of a mystery novel - an isolated environment, a limited group of characters who might not be trustworthy, a death that may or may not have been accidental, a balance of discovery and action - while also exploring wider themes of the natural world, the power of loss, and the nature of recovery. It is a luminous debut novel from a talented and provocative new writer.
©2016 Abby Geni (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Damien
Summary
He'd never loved. But she was irresistible. As reigning Vampire Prince, Damien has tasted every pleasure the world has to offer - consorting with kings and queens and delighting in sensual adventure. Now, tired of such pursuits, he devotes his energies to protecting his people. The war between human necromancers and Nightwalkers has escalated, and when the enemy makes a daring move, kidnapping Syreena, a Lycanthrope Princess, Damien boldly follows. He succeeds in rescuing her, but is unprepared for the erotic longing her lush sensuality awakens in him. Gifted with rare abilities, Syreena grew up in a cloistered setting and was forbidden to form attachments to others, yet the connection Damien feels with her is immediate, intoxicating, and impossible for either to resist. But claiming Syreena as his mate could have shattering repercussions for every Nightwalker - and leave their enemies more dangerous than ever before.
©2008 Jacquelyn Frank (P)2011 Tantor
Heart of Atlantis
Summary
Alaric, Poseidon's High Priest, has made a vow to Quinn, the woman he loves and the leader of the Resistance: to save her friend Jack before his last bit of humanity has been drained. Should Alaric succeed, there's one danger - he may lose Quinn to the love of the man whose life he saved....
©2012 Alesia Holliday (P)2012 Tantor