Audiobooks by Dane Huckelbridge

Queen of All Mayhem: The Blood-Soaked Life and Mysterious Death of Belle Starr, the Most Dangerous W

A riveting, deeply researched, blood-on-the-spurs biography of Belle Starr, the most legendary female outlaw of the American West. On February 3, 1889, just two days shy of her forty-first birthday, Myra Maybelle Shirley—better known at that point by her outlaw sobriquet “Belle Starr”—was blown from her horse saddle and killed by a pair of shotgun blasts, delivered by an unseen assailant, only a few miles away from her home in the Indian Territory of present-day Oklahoma. Thus ended the life of one of the most colorful, authentic, and dangerous women in the history of the American West. While today’s household names like Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane had dubious criminal bona fides, Belle’s were not in any doubt. She led a gang of horse thieves (a very serious crime in an era when horses were often the basis of one’s livelihood); was romantically involved with two of the West’s most legendary outlaws, Cole Younger and Jim Reed (her first husband); and participated in stickups and robberies across present-day Texas and Oklahoma. When Reed was murdered, Belle crossed into Indian Territory, where she assimilated into the Cherokee tribe, a matrilineal society, and soon married Sam Starr, a direct descendant of Nanye’hi, the greatest female warrior in Cherokee history. Dane Huckelbridge, acclaimed author of No Beast So Fierce, probes a life rich in contradictions and intrigue. Why did a woman who had considerable advantages in life—a good family, a decent education, solid marriage prospects, a clear path to financial security—choose to pursue a life of crime? The life of Belle Starr is one of almost endless trauma: the horrors of the Civil War, which destroyed her hometown and killed her beloved brother, Bud; the untimely deaths of her first two husbands, both of them murdered; a stint in Detroit’s notorious women’s prison. Her career coincided with those of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and yet Belle Starr was a very different sort of feminist icon. Queen of All Mayhem is a triumph of biography, revealing one of the most-mythologized figures of Western lore as she truly was.

Dane Huckelbridge (Author), George Newbern (Narrator)

Audiobook

No Beast So Fierce: The Champawat Tiger and Her Hunter, the First Tiger Conservationist

The deadliest animal of all time meets the world's most legendary hunter in a classic battle between man and wild. But this pulse-pounding narrative is also a nuanced story of how colonialism and environmental destruction upset the natural order, placing man, tiger and nature on a collision course. In Champawat, India, circa 1900, a Bengal tigress was wounded by a poacher in the forests of the Himalayan foothills. Unable to hunt her usual prey, the tiger began stalking and eating an easier food source: human beings. Between 1900 and 1907, the Champawat Man-Eater, as she became known, emerged as the most prolific serial killer of human beings the world has ever known, claiming an astonishing 436 lives. Desperate for help, authorities appealed to renowned local hunter Jim Corbett, an Indian-born Brit of Irish descent, who was intimately familiar with the Champawat forest. Corbett, who would later earn fame and devote the latter part of his life to saving the Bengal tiger and its habitat, sprang into action. Like a detective on the tail of a serial killer, he tracked the tiger's movements, as the tiger began to hunt him in return. This was the beginning of Corbett's life-long love of tigers, though his first encounter with the Champawat Tiger would be her last.

Dane Huckelbridge (Author), Corey Snow (Narrator)

Audiobook

Castle of Water: A Novel

For Sophie Ducel, her honeymoon in French Polynesia was intended as a celebration of life. For Barry Bleecker, the same trip was meant to mark a new beginning-turning away from his dreary existence in Manhattan finance to seek creative inspiration. But when their small plane is downed in the middle of the South Pacific, the sole survivors of the wreck are left with one common goal: survival. Stranded hundreds of miles from civilization on an island the size of a large city block, the two castaways must reconcile their differences and learn how to draw on one another's strengths. If they don't, they may never make it home.

Dane Huckelbridge (Author), Max Winter (Narrator)

Audiobook

Castle of Water

Barry Bleecker wanted to trade in his dreary life for one of adventure and art. Until he finds himself washed up on a deserted beach with only four pairs of contact lenses to his name...Sophie Ducel was meant to be having the honeymoon of a lifetime. Then the plane goes down and her world becomes a speck of sand in an endless ocean.They have one task: to survive. These two very different people must find a way to reconcile their differences and make their home a castle, on an island, surrounded by water...

Dane Huckelbridge (Author), Max Winter (Narrator)

Audiobook

The United States of Beer: A Freewheeling History of the All-American Drink

From the author of Bourbon, "the definitive history" (Sacramento Bee), comes the rollicking and revealing story of beer in America, in the spirit of Salt or Cod. In The United States of Beer, Dane Huckelbridge, the author of Bourbon: A History of the American Spirit-a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance bestseller-charts the surprisingly fascinating history of Americans' relationship with their most popular alcoholic beverage. Huckelbridge shows how beer has evolved along with the country-from a local and regional product (once upon a time every American city has its own brewery and iconic beer brand) to the rise of global mega-brands like Budweiser and Miller that are synonymous with U.S. capitalism. We learn of George Washington's failed attempt to brew beer at Mount Vernon with molasses instead of barley, of the 19th century "Beer Barons" like Captain Frederick Pabst, Adolphus Busch, and Joseph Schlitz who revolutionized commercial brewing and built lucrative empires-and the American immigrant experience-and of the advances in brewing and bottling technology that allowed beer to flow in the saloons of the Wild West. Throughout, Huckelbridge draws connections between seemingly remote fragments of the American past, and shares his reports from the frontlines of today's craft-brewing revolution.

Dane Huckelbridge (Author), Corey Snow (Narrator)

Audiobook