Contemporary Women Audiobooks | Fiction & Literature

Best of Women's Short Stories Volume 2 Audiobook

This second volume of stories celebrating key female writers from the 19th and 20th centuries, includes such icons as Kate Chopin, Mary Shelley and Virginia Woolf. The collection also includes the exclusive first-ever recording of The Watsons, an early work by Jane Austen. STORY Listings: 1.THE WATSONS by Jane Austen 2. THE HALF BROTHERS by Elizabeth Gaskell 3. A PAIR OF SILK STOCKINGS by Kate Chopin 4. THE WRONGED WOMAN by Winifred Holtby 5. THE RED ROOM by L.M.Montgomery 6. THE PARVENUE by Mary Shelley 7. BLISS by Katherine Mansfield 8. THE LEGACY by Virginia Woolf.

Elizabeth Gaskell, Jane Austen, Kate Chopin, Katherine Mansfield, L. M. Montgomery, L.M. Montgomery, Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Various Authors, Virginia Woolf, Winifred Holtby (Author), Harriet Walter (Narrator)

Audiobook

Club Sandwich

Author Lisa Samson is the Christy Award-winning author of Songbird, which touched the hearts of readers across the country. In Club Sandwich, Samson introduces a likeable cast of women struggling to be everything for everybody, all the time. Feeling overwhelmed, Ivy Schneider reaches out into the community hoping that she might find other women like herself to talk to. Soon, a group whose members dub themselves "Club Sandwich" begins to offer each other spiritual guidance and support.

Lisa Samson (Author), Barbara McCulloh (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Hot Flash Club Chills Out

Since opening up their day spa, The Haven, the wonderful women of the Hot Flash Club have been busy indulging the beleaguered, nerve-frazzled throngs. Now, in Nancy Thayer’s hilarious new Hot Flash novel, it’s the friends’ turn to grab some soothing, and much-deserved R&R. When a long-time Haven client asks the gals to housesit her Nantucket hideaway for the summer, they’re beyond thrilled; the cozy island enclave is the perfect place to shop, swim, chill, and plan Marilyn’s upcoming wedding to Ian, her Scottish fiancé. And Marilyn desperately needs the break, since Ian’s grown son has crashed at the couple’s place with no departure date in sight. Soon after they arrive, the other hot flashers surrender to their own summer flings: Shirley entertains a steamy dalliance with a scruffy, sexy local fisherman that could lead to something deeper; Faye finds her dream house, but restoring it could be a costly nightmare; craft-maven Polly is enthralled by the island’s bounty, from shell art to lightship baskets; and even hardboiled Alice swoons with romantic adventure–or is it seasickness? But this lovefest among the sand and ocean breezes is not without its consequences. Each woman must determine for herself what she is willing to give up in order to hold onto what she has found–and all of them fear that Shirley is on the brink of making a huge mistake, one that threatens their harmony and their business. But these concerns may be eclipsed by the mystery surrounding the disappearance of family heirlooms at the house where they are staying, and rumors that the place harbors spirits other than Grey Goose and Tanqueray. Nancy Thayer continues her hugely successful Hot Flash series with this wickedly funny, delightfully bawdy tale. These irresistible women spring to life–along with their passions, their sorrows, their joys, and, most importantly, their friendship. So pack your bags and join these fabulous five for a season of fun, sun, love, sex, and estrogen therapy.

Nancy Thayer (Author), Carrington MacDuffie (Narrator)

Audiobook

Coming Out

Olympia Crawford Rubinstein has a busy legal career, a solid marriage, and a way of managing her thriving family with grace, humor, and boundless energy. With twin daughters finishing high school, a son at Dartmouth, and a kindergartner from her second marriage, there seems to be no challenge to which Olympia cannot rise. Until one sunny day in May, when she opens an invitation for her daughters to attend the most exclusive coming-out ball in New York-and chaos erupts all around her. One twin's excitement is balanced by the other's outrage; her previous husband's profound snobbism is in sharp contrast to her current husband's flat refusal to attend. For Olympia's husband, Harry, whose parents survived the Holocaust, the idea of a blue-blood debutante ball is abhorrent. Her daughter Veronica, a natural-born rebel, agrees- while Veronica's identical twin, Virginia, is already shopping for the perfect dress. Then there's Olympia's ex, an insufferable snob, who sees the ball as the perfect opportunity for a family feud. And amid all the hubbub, Olympia's college-age son, Charlie, is facing a turning point in his life-and may need his mother more than ever. But despite it all, Olympia is determined to steer her family through the event until, just days before the cotillion, things begin to unravel with alarming speed. From a son's crisis to a daughter's heartbreak, from a case of the chicken pox to a political debate raging in her household, Olympia is on the verge of surrender. And that is when, in a series of startling choices and changes of heart, family, friends, and even a blue-haired teenager all find a way to turn a night of calamity into an evening of magic. As old wounds are healed, barriers are shattered and new traditions are born, and a debutante ball becomes a catalyst for change, revelation, acceptance, and love. In a novel that is by turns profound, poignant, moving, and warmly funny, Danielle Steel tells the story of an extraordinary family-finding new ways of letting go, stepping up, and coming out...in the ways that matter most. From the Hardcover edition.

Danielle Steel (Author), David Garrison (Narrator)

Audiobook

Queen of Babble

What's an American girl with a big mouth, but an equally big heart, to do? Lizzie Nichols has a problem, and it isn't that she doesn't have the slightest idea what she's going to do with her life, or that she's blowing what should be her down payment on a cute little Manhattan apartment on a trip to London to visit her long-distance boyfriend, Andrew. What's the point of planning for the future when she's done it again? See, Lizzie can't keep her mouth shut. And it's not just that she can't keep her own secrets, she can't keep anything to herself. This time when she opens her big mouth, her good intentions get Andrew in major hot water. Now Lizzie's stuck in London with no boyfriend and no place to stay until the departure date written on her non-changeable airline ticket. Fortunately, Lizzie's best friend and college roommate is spending her summer in the south of France, catering weddings in a chateau. One call and Lizzie's on a train to Paris. Who cares if she speaks only rudimentary French? One glimpse of gorgeous Chateau Mirac -- not to mention gorgeous Luke, Chateau Mirac's owner -- and she's smitten. But while most caterers can be trusted to keep a secret, Lizzie's the exception. And no sooner has the first cork been popped than Luke hates her, the bride is in tears, and it looks like Chateau Mirac is in danger of becoming a lipo-recovery spa. As if things aren't bad enough, ex-boyfriend Andy shows up looking for "closure" (or at least a loan), threatening to ruin everything, especially Lizzie's chance at ever finding real love -- unless she can figure out a way to use that big mouth of hers to save the day.

Meg Cabot (Author), Kadushin Ilyana (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Undomestic Goddess

My name is Samantha. I am twenty-nine years old. I have never baked a loaf of bread in my life. I don't know how to unfold an ironing board. What I do know is how to construct a contract exploiting European corporate tax harmonisation and save my client £3 million. Samantha is a high-powered lawyer in London. She works all hours, has no home life, and cares only about getting a partnership She thrives on pressure and adrenalin. Until one day ... she makes a mistake. A mistake so huge, it will wreck her career. She goes into meltdown, walks right out of the office, gets on the first train she sees, and finds herself in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big, beautiful house, she is mistaken for the interviewee housekeeper and finds herself being offered the job. They have no idea they've hired a Cambridge educated lawyer with an IQ of 158 - Samantha has no idea how to work the oven. Gradually Samantha starts to learn. She learns how to bake bread, she learns how to slow down. But then her old life threatens to catch up with her. And when it does ...will she want it back?

Sophie Kinsella (Author), Morwenna Banks (Narrator)

Audiobook

Lost And Found: A Novel

What do a suburban mom and her troubled daughter, two recently divorced brothers, a pair of former child stars, born-again Christian newlyweds, and a couple of young millionaires have in common? They have all been selected to compete on Lost and Found, a daring new reality TV show. In teams of two, they will race across the globe, from Egypt to Japan, from Sweden to England, to battle for a million-dollar prize. They must decipher encrypted clues, recover mysterious artifacts, and outwit their opponents to stay in play.What starts as a lark turns deadly serious as the number of players is whittled down, temptations beckon, and the bonds between partners strain and unravel. Before long the question is not only who will capture the final prize, but at what cost.

Carolyn Parkhurst (Author), Blair Brown (Narrator)

Audiobook

Coming Home

Born in Colombo, Judith Dunbar spends her teenage years at boarding school, while her beloved mother and younger sister live abroad with her father. When her new friend Loveday Carey-Lewis invites Judith home for the weekend to Nancherrow, the Carey-Lewises' beautiful estate on the Cornish coast, it is love at first sight. She falls in love too with the generous Carey-Lewises themselves. With their generosity and kindness, Judith grows from naive girl to confident young woman, basking in the warm affection of a surrogate family whose flame burns brightly. But it is a flame soon to be extinguished in the gathering storm of war. And Judith herself has far to travel before at last . . . coming home.

Rosamunde Pilcher (Author), Lynn Redgrave, Rosamunde Pilcher (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Whole World Over

From the author of the beloved novel Three Junes comes a rich and commanding story about the accidents, both grand and small, that determine our choices in love and marriage. Greenie Duquette, openhearted yet stubborn, devotes most of her passionate attention to her Greenwich Village bakery and her four–year–old son, George. Her husband, Alan, seems to have fallen into a midlife depression, while Walter, a traditional gay man who has become her closest professional ally, is nursing a broken heart. It is at Walter’s restaurant that the visiting governor of New Mexico tastes Greenie’s coconut cake and decides to woo her away from the city to be his chef. For reasons both ambitious and desperate, she accepts—and finds herself heading west without her husband. This impulsive decision will change the course of several lives within and beyond Greenie’s orbit. Alan, alone in New York, must face down his demons; Walter, eager for platonic distraction, takes in his teenage nephew. Yet Walter cannot steer clear of love trouble, and despite his enforced solitude, Alan is still surrounded by women: his powerful sister, an old flame, and an animal lover named Saga, who grapples with demons all her own. As for Greenie, living in the shadow of a charismatic politician leads to a series of unforeseen consequences that separate her from her only child. We watch as folly, chance, and determination pull all these lives together and apart over a year that culminates in the fall of the twin towers at the World Trade Center, an event that will affirm or confound the choices each character has made—or has refused to face. Julia Glass is at her best here, weaving a glorious tapestry of lives and lifetimes, of places and people, revealing the subtle mechanisms behind our most important, and often most fragile, connections to others. In The Whole World Over she has given us another tale that pays tribute to the extraordinary complexities of love.

Julia Glass (Author), Ann Marie Lee (Narrator)

Audiobook

Wicked!

At Bagley Hall, a notoriously wild, but increasingly academic, independent, crammed with the children of the famous, trouble is afoot. The ambitious and fatally attractive headmaster, Hengist Brett-Taylor, hatches a plan to share the facilities of his school with Larkminster Comprehensive - known locally, as 'Larks'. His reasons for doing so are purely financial, but he is encouraged by the opportunities the scheme gives him for frequent meetings with Janna Curtis, the dynamic new head of Larks, who has been drafted in to save what is a fast-sinking school from closure. Janna is young, pretty, enthusiastic and vastly brave - and she will do anything to rescue her demoralised, run-down and cash-strapped school. Neither parents nor staff of either school are too keen on this radical move, although some can see the possible financial advantages. For the students, however, it offers great opportunities to get up to even more mayhem than usual.

Jilly Cooper (Author), Samantha Bond (Narrator)

Audiobook

Savannah Breeze

Southern belle BeBe Loudermilk loses all her worldly possessions to the gorgeous Reddy who turns out to be a con man. All that's left is a ramshackle 1950s motor court on Tybee Island -- an eccentric beach town that calls itself a drinking village with a fishing problem. Breeze Inn is a place where the very classy BeBe wouldn't normally be caught dead but, with no alternative, she vows to make magic out of mud. The work is grueling, especially dealing with the cantankerous caretaker, a fishing captain named Harry who's trying to earn enough dough to get his boat out of hock. With the help of Harry, BeBe soon has the motel spiffed up and attracting paying guests. Then there's a sighting of Reddy in Fort Lauderdale, and BeBe decides to go after him. The plan is to carry out a sting that may be just a little bit outside the law but with any luck at all, will retrieve BeBe's fortune and put the dastardly Reddy in jail where he belongs. And maybe Harry, who's looking more hunky every day, will finally get his boat back. Performed by Isabel Keating

Mary Kay Andrews (Author), Isabel Keating (Narrator)

Audiobook

Breakfast in Bed

Hurt one too many times in the past, Sloan Fairchild isn't interested in love.Instead, she pours all her energy into running her elegant bed-and-breakfastinn. But when her best friend asks her to house her fiancé for a month, Sloan opens the doors of Fairchild House to Carter Madison...and meets a manwho turns her world--and her concept of herself--upside down. Sloan tries to ignore the feelings this handsome man stirs in her...tries tostop herself from dreaming dreams that can never be. Yet when Carter revealshis own desire, Sloan will find herself facing a heart-wrenching decision: tolove for the moment, to walk away forever, or to fight to have it all.

Sandra Brown (Author), Robin Mattson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Contemporary Women Audiobooks in Fiction & Literature