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.
A Russian Sister
Summary
In this witty and colorfully peopled novel, Caroline Adderson effortlessly plunges the listener into a 19th-century Russian tragicomedy. Aspiring painter Masha C. is blindly devoted to Antosha, her famous writer-brother. Through the years Antosha takes up with numerous women from Masha’s circle of friends, yet none of these relationships threaten the siblings’ close ties until the winter he falls into a depression. Then Masha invites into their Moscow home a young woman who teaches with her - the beautiful, vivacious and deeply vulnerable Lika Mizanova - with the express hope she might help Antosha recover. The appearance of Lika sets off a convolution of unrequited love, jealousy, and scandal that lasts for seven years. If the famously unattainable writer has lost his heart to Lika as everyone claims, why does he undertake a life-threatening voyage to Sakhalin Island? And what will happen to Masha if she is demoted from “woman of the house” to “spinster sister”? While Antosha and Lika push and pull, Masha falls in love herself - with a man and with a mongoose - only to have her dreams crushed twice. From her own heartbreak she comes to recognize - too late for Lika - the harm that she has done to her friends by encouraging their involvement with Antosha. She prepares both to sacrifice herself for love and to be immortalized as the model for Nina in Chekhov’s The Seagull. A Russian Sister offers a clever commentary on the role of women as prey for male needs and inspiration, a role they continue to play today. At the same time the novel is a plea for sisterhood, both familial and friendly. Chekhov’s The Seagull changed the theater. A Russian Sister gives the listener a glimpse behind the curtain to the fascinating real-life people who inspired it and the tragedy that followed its premiere.
©2020 Caroline Adderson (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
Burnout
Summary
Jessie Black's successful prosecution of a serial murderer and rapist put her on the path to stardom at the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. Public defender Jack Ackerman represented the opposition, and his spectacular public breakdown after the trial put him in a mental institution and gave Frank Ramsey a second chance at freedom. When Ramsey petitions the court for a new trial with a claim that Ackerman was ineffective, Black must step up to defend him. To keep a convicted killer off the streets, she'll need to prove Ackerman's sanity - a fact she's far from sure of. As she prepares for trial, powerful forces conspire to put Ramsey back on the streets. Black has one chance to keep Ramsey behind bars, and it'll be the toughest fight of her career.
©2013 Larry A. Winters (P)2017 Tantor
Fake Like Me
Summary
At once a twisted psychological portrait of a woman crumbling under unimaginable pressure and a razor-sharp satire of the contemporary art scene, FAKE LIKE ME is a dark, glamorous, and addictive story of good intentions gone awry, from the critically acclaimed author of I'll Eat When I'm Dead. Carey Logan was the art world's genius wild child. FAKE I was a no-name painter clawing my way up behind her. LIKE When Carey died, she left a space that couldn't be filled. Except, maybe, by ME After a fire rips through her loft, destroying the seven billboard-size paintings meant for her first major exhibition, a young painter is left with an impossible task: recreate the lost artworks in just three months without getting caught - or ruin her fledgling career. Homeless and desperate, she begs her way into Pine City, an exclusive retreat in upstate New York notorious for three things: outrageous revelries, glamorous artists, and the sparkling black lake where brilliant prodigy Carey Logan drowned herself. Taking up residence in Carey's former studio, the painter works with obsessive, delirious focus. But when she begins to uncover strange secrets at Pine City and falls hard for Carey's mysterious boyfriend, a single thought shadows her every move: What really happened to Carey Logan? "A smart, satirical take on fashion and media that will have readers snorting with laughter." (The New York Post on I'll Eat When I'm Dead)
©2019 Barbara Bourland (P)2019 Grand Central Publishing
Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense
Summary
The book opens with a woman, naked except for her high-heeled shoes, seated in front of the window in an apartment she cannot, on her own, afford. In this exquisitely tense narrative reimagining of Edward Hopper's Eleven A.M., 1926, the reader enters the minds of both the woman and her married lover, each consumed by alternating thoughts of disgust and arousal, as he rushes, amorously, murderously, to her door. In "The Long-Legged Girl", an aging, jealous wife crafts an unusual game of Russian roulette involving a pair of Wedgwood teacups, a strong Bengal brew, and a lethal concoction of medicine. Who will drink from the wrong cup, the wife or the dance student she believes to be her husband's latest conquest? In "The Sign of the Beast", when a former Sunday school teacher's corpse turns up, the blighted adolescent she had by turns petted and ridiculed confesses to her murder - but is he really responsible? Another young outsider, Horace Phineas Love Jr., is haunted by apparitions at the very edge of the spectrum of visibility after the death of his tortured father in "Night-Gaunts", a fantastic ode to H. P. Lovecraft.
©2018 The Ontario Review, Inc. (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Bookburners: The Complete Season 1
Summary
Magic is real, and hungry. It’s trapped in ancient texts and artifacts, and only a few who discover it survive to fight back. Detective Sal Brooks is a survivor. She joins a Vatican-backed black-ops anti-magic squad - Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultorum - and together they stand between humanity and the magical apocalypse. Some call them the Bookburners. They don’t like the label. Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in a fast-paced, kickass character driven novel chock-full of magic, mystery, and mayhem, written collaboratively by a team of some of the best writers working in fantasy. Originally presented serially in 16 episodes, this omnibus collects all installments of Bookburners Season One into one edition. This audio edition is narrated by Xe Sands.
©2015 Serial Box (P)2018 Serial Box
Say No More
Summary
Say No More: the thrilling next installment in Hank Phillippi Ryan's award-winning Jane Ryland series! When Boston reporter Jane Ryland reports a hit-and-run, she soon learns she saw more than a car crash - she witnessed the collapse of an alibi. Working on an exposé of sexual assaults on college campuses for the station's new documentary unit, Jane's just convinced a date rape victim to reveal her heartbreaking experience on camera. However, a disturbing anonymous message - "SAY NO MORE" - has Jane really and truly scared. Homicide detective Jake Brogan is on the hunt for the murderer of Avery Morgan, a hotshot Hollywood screenwriter. Her year as a college guest lecturer just ended at the bottom of her swimming pool in the tight-knit and tight-lipped Boston community called The Reserve. As Jake chips his way through a code of silence as shatterproof as any street gang, he'll learn that one newcomer to the neighborhood may have a secret of her own. A young woman faces a life-changing decision - should she go public about her assault? Jane and Jake, now semisecretly engaged and beginning to reveal their relationship to the world, are both on a quest for answers as they try to balance the consequences of the truth.
©2016 Hank Phillippi Ryan (P)2016 Macmillan Audio
Daylight Marriage
Summary
Over the years, Lovell and Hannah's conversations have become charged with resentments and unspoken desires. She's become withdrawn and directionless. His work affords him a convenient distraction. The children can sense the tension, which they've learned to mostly ignore. Until, after one explosive argument, Hannah vanishes. And Lovell, for the first time, is forced to examine the trajectory of his marriage through the lens of memory - and the eyes of his children. As he tries to piece together what happened to his wife - and to their lives together - listeners follow Hannah through that single day when the smallest of decisions takes her to places she never intended to go. With the intensity of The Lovely Bones, the balance of wit and heartbreak of The Descendants, and the emotional acuity of Anne Tyler, The Daylight Marriage is at its heart a novel about what happens when our intuitions override our logic and with a plot that doesn't reveal its secrets until the very end.
©2015 Heidi Pitlor (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Stolen Things
Summary
With one call, her daughter’s life is on the line. Laurie Ahmadi has worked as a 911 police dispatcher in her quiet Northern California town for nearly two decades. She considers the department her family; her husband, Omid, is its first Arab American chief, and their teenage daughter, Jojo, has grown up with the force. So when Laurie catches a 911 call and, to her horror, it’s Jojo, the whole department springs into action. Jojo, drugged, disoriented, and in pain, doesn’t remember how she ended up at the home of Kevin Leeds, a pro football player famous for his on-the-field activism and his work with the CapB - “Citizens Against Police Brutality” - movement. She doesn’t know what happened to Kevin’s friend and trainer, whose beaten corpse is also discovered in the house. And she has no idea where her best friend Harper, who was with her earlier in the evening, could be. But when Jojo begins to dive into Harper’s social media to look for clues to her whereabouts, Jojo uncovers a shocking secret that turns everything she knew about Harper - and the police department - on its head. With everything they thought they could rely on in question, Laurie and Jojo begin to realize that they can't trust anyone to find Harper except themselves...and time is running out.
©2019 R. H. Herron (P)2019 Penguin Audio
Metamorphica
Summary
A brilliant and daring novel that reimagines Ovid's Metamorphoses In the tradition of his best-selling debut novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason's Metamorphica transforms Ovid's epic poem of endless transformation. It reimagines the stories of Narcissus, Pygmalion and Galatea, Midas, and Atalanta and strings them together like the stars in constellations - even Ovid becomes a story. It's as though the ancient mythologies had been rewritten by Borges or Calvino. Metamorphica is an archipelago in which to linger for a while; it reflects a little light from the morning of the world.
©2018 Zachary Mason (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Home Again
Summary
Dallas MacGregor is living the Hollywood dream. At thirtysomething, she's an award-winning actress beloved by the public and bound for even bigger success. But when her soon-to-be-ex-husband, producer Emilio Baird, is caught in a sex scandal, Dallas's charmed life turns tabloid nightmare. Determined to shield her young son, Cody, from the ugly uproar, Dallas seeks refuge in sleepy St. Dennis, Maryland-the Chesapeake Bay town where her happiest childhood days were spent. Reunited with her boisterous great-aunt, Dallas wants nothing more than to leave her Hollywood days behind. And when she crosses paths with local veterinarian Grant Wyler, her high school summer love, she finds he's everything she remembers, and more. But Dallas's promising new life takes a troubling turn when the unimaginable happens and she finds herself living a mother's worst nightmare-and Emilio storms into St. Dennis to save the day, along with his damaged career. Trapped in the unwanted glare of the limelight once again, Dallas discovers that it's coolheaded Grant who is willing to risk everything to protect her and her son, and to secure the future they were always meant to share.
©2010 Marti Robb (P)2012 Tantor
At the River's Edge
Summary
After taking stock of her life, Sophie Enright has decided it's time for a break. Between a law career that's become criminally dull and a two-timing boyfriend she's done with once and for all, Sophie desperately needs some time to think and some space to breathe. The perfect place to do both is easygoing St. Dennis, Maryland, where Sophie can visit with her brother while she figures out her options. Once in St. Dennis, she discovers a shuttered restaurant and makes a bold move that is also a leap of faith. Sophie buys the fixer-upper in order to finally pursue her dream career. But Sophie's labor of love becomes a bone of contention for her new neighbor, Jason Bowers. The local landscaper has big plans for growing his business-until Sophie scoops up the property he's got his eye on. And no amount of buyout offers or badgering from him will get her to budge. It's hardly the start of a beautiful friendship. But when they're paired up to work on a community project, they agree to put their differences aside, and sparks begin to fly. Then Sophie's cheating ex suddenly shows up, looking for a second chance-and threatening to make Jason a third wheel just when his hotheaded feelings about Sophie were turning decidedly warmhearted. All Sophie wants is a new life and a true love. But what are the odds of having both?
©2014 Marti Robb (P)2014 Tantor
The Days When Birds Come Back
Summary
June is in transition, reeling from her divorce, trying to stay sober, and faced with a completely stalled career. She returns to the beautiful Oregon coast where she grew up and must decide what to do with her late and much-loved grandparents' charming cedar-shingled home, a place haunted by memories of her childhood. Jameson comes highly recommended to renovate the old house to sell, and from their first contact, his curiosity is piqued by June. He, too, is unmoored as he struggles to redefine his marriage in the aftermath of tragic loss, and over the course of the summer, his conversations with June about the house quickly turn to the personal - of secrets hidden in walls and of stories from the past half told. Sensing connection, June and Jameson can't seem to stop circling each other, shying away from hurt. But what can the future hold as long as they are gripped so firmly by the past? Brimming with empathy, The Days When Birds Come Back, like the house itself, is a graceful testament to endurance, rebuilding, and the possibilities of coming home.
©2018 Deborah Reed (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Truly Sweet
Summary
When the one you've always wanted... At 16 Annabelle Morgan hoped her crush on Jake Wilder was just a passing phase. Now she's 29, and nothing has changed - except Jake. The once-carefree marine has come home with a giant chip on his shoulder. He insists a single mom like Annie deserves more than he can offer. Yet no matter how gruff his gorgeous exterior may be, Jake's toe-curling kisses convince her that this attraction is definitely mutual. Becomes the one who wants you back... Butting heads with feisty Annie was always a thrill. Add other body parts to the mix, and Jake is in serious trouble. He can't be a forever-and-family guy - and Annie's not a friends-with-benefits kind of woman. But love has a way of changing the best-laid plans, and surrender has never been so tempting.... The outcome is truly sweet.
©2015 Candis Terry (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers
Home for the Summer
Summary
Some of Lucy Sinclair's best days were those spent growing up in small town St. Dennis - working at the family inn and enjoying summers filled with swimming, sailing, tennis, and the company of Clay Madison, her best friend. But Lucy's darkest day, the one that shattered her innocence with violence and fear, also happened in St. Dennis. And the town she once loved became the place she gladly left behind-along with the terrible secret she's kept for 20 years. While Lucy headed off for college and a career, Clay remained-more than satisfied with the life St. Dennis had to offer. But now, even after inheriting his family's thriving farm and starting up an organic brewery, he can't help feeling that something's missing. And when Lucy comes back to town to plan a celebrity wedding at the Sinclair family inn, she and Clay reconnect, and find themselves reevaluating their long-sleeping friendship that could blossom into something deeper. Like a bookend to those distant childhood days, this summer will be Lucy's chance to finally confront her hidden pain, make peace with the past, and plan her own whole new future.
©2012 Marti Robb (P)2012 Tantor
The Long Way Home
Summary
As the only child of a wealthy investment manager, Ellie Chapman has never known anything other than a life of perfect privilege. But her years of good fortune come to an abrupt end when her father is exposed for swindling billions of dollars from innocent investors in a massive Ponzi scheme. And just like that, Ellie loses everything: money, job, home - even her fiancé, who's jailed as her father's partner in crime. With no job prospects on the horizon, no cash, and her family name in tatters, Ellie has only one place to go. Sleepy St. Dennis, Maryland, is hardly where Ellie intends to stay, however. Keeping her identity a secret, she plans to sell the house her late mother left her in the small town and use the proceeds to move on with her life. Unfortunately, her ticket to a new beginning is in dire need of a laundry list of pricey improvements, many of which she'll have to do herself. And until the house on Bay View Road is fit to be sold, the sole place Ellie will be traveling is the hardware store. But as the many charms of St. Dennis - not to mention Cameron O'Connor, the handsome local contractor who has secrets of his own - begin to work their magic, what begins as a lesson in do-it-yourself renovations might just end up as Ellie's very own rejuvenation.
©2013 Marti Robb (P)2013 Tantor
Coming Home
Summary
In the wake of his wife's murder, agent Grady Shields turned his back on the FBI - and everything else-to retreat into the vast solitude of Montana, grieve for his lost love, and forget the world. But after years in seclusion, his sister's wedding draws him to St. Dennis, a peaceful town on the Chesapeake Bay. Though he swears he isn't interested in finding love again, Grady can't ignore the mutual sparks that fly when he meets Vanessa Keaton. Although her past was marked by bad choices, Vanessa has found that coming to St. Dennis is the best decision she's ever made. Bling, her trendy boutique, is a success with tourists as well as with the townspeople. She's made friends, has a home she loves, and has established a life for herself far from the nightmare she left behind. The last thing she's looking for is romance, but the hot new man in town is hard to resist. And when Vanessa's past catches up with her, Grady finds that he's unwilling to let her become a victim again. As they fight her demons together, Grady and Vanessa discover that life still holds some surprises and that love doesn't always have to hurt.
©2010 Marti Robb (P)2012 Tantor
Vivian in Red
Summary
Famed Broadway producer Milo Short steps out of his Upper West Side brownstone on one exceptionally hot morning, he's not expecting to see the impossible: a woman from his life 60 years ago, winking at him on a New York sidewalk. The sight causes him to suffer a stroke. And when he comes to, the renowned lyricist discovers he has lost the ability to communicate. Milo believes he must unravel his complicated history with Vivian Adair in order to win back his words. But he needs help - in the form of his granddaughter Eleanor, a failed journalist and family misfit. Tapped to write her grandfather's definitive biography, Eleanor must dig into Milo's colorful past to discover the real story behind Milo.
©2016 Kristina Riggle (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC
A Healing Justice
Summary
From the best-selling author of Earnest and An Unexpected Grace comes a novel about a woman, a dog, and the hope and love that can emerge from tragedy.... Two years ago, police officer Andrea Brady fell madly in love with a black-muzzled, slightly rumpled German shepherd who showed up at her house one misty autumn day. Now, with the brave and intuitive Justice as her expert K-9 drug sniffer, she's found an unbeatable partner. Then the unthinkable happens. A savage attack leaves a teenager dead and Andie trapped in every cop's worst nightmare. Placed on administrative leave, she's pursued by media and investigated by a deputy sheriff whose handling of the high-profile case could earn him a coveted promotion. Haunted by self-doubt, Andie is in danger of losing everything - her career, her freedom, and the critically injured dog who's her soul mate. But as she finds kind allies in her Puget Sound island community, the road back becomes a journey of healing for both Andie and her canine companion. And Andie learns important lessons about justice - and about Justice - as she struggles to find the courage to forgive herself and reclaim the gift of her life....
©2018 Kristin von Kreisler (P)2018 Tantor
A Story that Ends with a Scream
Summary
In his second collection of short stories, James Leo Herlihy explores a landscape of people living on the fringes of normal society as the pleasures of daily life fade. Men and women search for the missing fragment of meaning from their existence with Herlihy’s signature humor and deft dialogue. In the titular story, Mary Ellen McClure is trapped in a dull, unfulfilled life in a trailer park, suspecting her husband of having an affair. Together with her neighbor Ivy, she dabbles with a Ouija board which spells out the name Ezra and implies that Mary Ellen will have an affair. She becomes enamored with the fantasy of this unknown man - at first falling deep into the escapism of the imagined affair, then resolving to find him for real to save her from her stale life. Herlihy’s other gothic tales tell of Consilada Rector, who can’t get people to believe in the leprechaun that presides over her husband’s bar; Mrs. Dorothy Fitzpatrick, who records of the existence of a ghostly mail delivery truck; and a dying man who comes to stay with a mother and her blessed son William.
©1957, 1963, 1965 James Leo Herlihy (P)2018 Audible Studios
Hometown Girl
Summary
Life was always just about perfect for Brooke Madison Bowers. She was the prettiest, most popular girl in small-town St. Dennis, Maryland. She was prom queen, a local pageant star, and the pride and joy of her loving parents. She even married the man of her dreams. But the promise of happily ever after fell to pieces when her husband was killed while serving in Iraq. Brokenhearted and longing for the solace of better days, she returns to the idyllic world of St. Dennis, and the familiar comfort of the family farm. Surrounded by her loving family and friends, she's determined to build a new life, complete with her own cupcake bakery. She's equally determined never to fall in love again.For Jesse Enright, life has been a challenge. A fourth-generation attorney, he's spent his life fighting to escape the shadow of his irresponsible father. Now he's moved to St. Dennis to run the family law practice, and he's ready to find the right girl, get married, and settle down. But his carefully laid plans go out the window when he meets Brooke and finds himself caught between the unbreakable law of attraction and Brooke's resolve to go her way alone-despite the undeniable feelings Jesse stirs in her. But just like catching lightning in a bottle, is it possible to fall head-over-heels, heart-and-soul in love all over again?
©2011 Marti Robb (P)2012 Tantor