Audiobooks narrated by Katie Koster

Selling Vero Beach: Settler Myths in the Land of the Aís and Seminole

Themes of unspoiled paradise tamed by progress can be seen in stories about pioneer history across the US, especially in Florida. Selling Vero Beach explores how settlers from northern states created myths about the Indian River area on Florida's Atlantic Coast, importing ideas about the region's Indigenous peoples and marketing the land as an idyllic, fertile place of possibilities. Kristalyn Shefveland describes how the Indian River Farms Company and other boosters painted the region as a wild frontier, conveniently accessible by train via Henry Flagler's East Coast Railway. Shefveland provides an overview of local Aís and Seminole histories that were rewritten by salespeople, illustrates how agricultural companies used Native peoples as motifs on their fruit products, and includes never-before-published letters between Vero Beach entrepreneur Waldo Sexton and writer Zora Neale Hurston that highlight Sexton's interest in story-spinning and sales. Selling Vero Beach unpacks real and fabricated pasts, showing how the settler memory of Florida distorted or erased the fascinating actual history of the region. With a wide variety of stories invented to lure investors and tourists, many of which circulate to this day, Vero Beach is an intriguing example of why and how certain pasts were concocted to sell Florida land and products.

Kristalyn Marie Shefveland (Author), Katie Koster (Narrator)

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For God and Liberty: Catholicism and Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1790-1861

The Age of Revolution has traditionally been understood as an era of secularization, giving the transition from monarchy to independent republics through democratic movements a genealogy that assumes hostility to Catholicism. By centering the story on Spanish and Latin American actors, Pamela Voekel argues that at the heart of this nineteenth-century transformation in Spanish America was a transatlantic Catholic civil war. Voekel demonstrates Reform Catholicism's significance to the thought and action of the rebel literati who led decolonization efforts in Mexico and Central America, showing how each side of this religious divide operated from within a self-conscious intercontinental network of like-minded Catholics. For its central protagonists, the era's crisis of sovereignty provided a political stage for a religious struggle. Drawing on ecclesiastical archives, pamphlets, sermons, and tracts, For God and Liberty reveals how the violent struggles of decolonization and the period before and after Independence are more legible in light of the fault lines within the Church.

Pamela Voekel (Author), Katie Koster (Narrator)

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Eternally Yours

Give in to this irresistible paranormal romance anthology filled with tales of the mortal and the monstrous. In Eternally Yours, fifteen of today's bestselling writers explore love in its many forms . . . Contributors include Kalynn Bayron, Kendare Blake, Kat Cho, Melissa de la Cruz, Hafsah Faizal, Sarah Gailey, Chloe Gong, Alexis Henderson, Adib Khorram, Anna-Marie McLemore, Casey McQuiston, Sandhya Menon, Akshaya Raman, Marie Rutkoski, and Julian Winters. Vampires and merpeople, angels and demons-the stories in this anthology imagine worlds where the only thing more powerful than the supernatural, is love. A girl in a graveyard goes on an unexpected date, a shipwrecked sailor makes a connection on a forbidden island, a piano melody summons a soul mate. Creatures of folktales and legend, of land and sea, of centuries past and life after life, all wrapped into one spellbinding compendium. Once you sink into its pages, it'll never let you go.

Patrice Caldwell (Author), Amin El Gamal, André Santana, Annie Q, Carlotta Brentan, Catherine Ho, Elena Rey, James Fouhey, Jesse Vilinsky, Katie Koster, Keylor Leigh, Mehr Dudeja, Patrice Caldwell, Reena Dutt, Victoria Villarreal (Narrator)

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Another Vein

Meadow Sweeney’s future is entirely mapped out. Her younger brother Jonah will continue their family legacy, and Meadow will rule the ruthless Ruxton Springs, Colorado cluster. That is, it was until Jonah goes missing. Now, Meadow will do anything to get her brother back, including sacrificing the two pawns her mother brought from Fissure’s Whipp to track him down. Three weeks ago, Allie escaped a villain straight out of resurrectionist urban legends. She thought she and Ploy could leave their pasts behind and start a new life together. But with a young resurrectionist suffering the Doctor’s experiments in her place, walking away is no longer an option. Ploy knows once Allie sets her mind to something, there’s nothing to do but back her play. Now he has three goals: find the kid, get the reward money, and disappear with the girl he loves. But as they’re swept into a world of power, danger, and death, only one goal matters. Ploy will die before he lets Allie fall into the Doctor’s hands again—even if, this time, it’s permanent.

Leah Clifford (Author), Aaron Landon, Katie Koster, Rachel Leblang (Narrator)

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The Girls Are Never Gone

The Conjuring meets Sadie in this queer ghost story, when seventeen-year-old podcaster Dare finds herself in a life-or-death struggle against an evil spirit. Dare Chase doesn't believe in ghosts. But as the host of Attachments, her brand-new paranormal investigation podcast, she knows to keep her doubts to herself if she wants to win over listeners. Her first season's subject is the Arrington Estate-a sprawling manor rumored to be haunted by the spirit of Atheleen Bell, who drowned in its lake almost thirty years ago. Dare's more interested in investigating the suspicious circumstances of Atheleen's death, which she thinks point to a decades-old murder, not something supernatural. But Arrington is full of surprises. As Dare is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the estate, she'll have to rethink the boundaries of what is possible. Because if something is lurking in the lake…it might not be willing to let her go.

Sarah Glenn Marsh (Author), Katie Koster (Narrator)

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Something Grave

After killing the hunter who held her captive for her blood, Allie wants nothing more than to leave her resurrectionist abilities behind and settle into normalcy with Ploy, the boy she thinks she loves but isn't entirely sure she should trust. Before she can pass down her leadership responsibilities though, Allie's stab at a new life fades as she uncovers a direct threat to the resurrectionists of Fissure's Whipp that thrusts her into an ever-tightening snare of enemies. And some are closer than she thinks. For the chance at a happily-ever-after with Allie, Ploy would do almost anything, including using the dark past he hoped to forget to eliminate the new scheme against her. But when Allie forbids him from getting involved, Ploy must decide if helping the girl he loves is worth the cost of betraying her. Something Grave is the second book in the deliciously dark and riveting Resurrectionists series, perfect for fans of thrilling mysteries, forbidden romance, heart-pounding action, and feisty heroines with unique abilities.

Leah Clifford (Author), Aaron Landon, Katie Koster (Narrator)

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Babies Don't Make Small Talk (So Why Should I?): The Introvert's Guide to Surviving Parenthood

A baby can be a good excuse to skip a party, but . . . goodbye alone time, hello awkward new social obligations. All parents want the same things: to balance work and home life, to raise happy kids, to never attend a baby drumming class, and to build a secret room in their home where they can hide (preferably not the bathroom). Yes, an introverted parent would more keenly want to be free of the slew of attention and expectations that accompany both pregnancy and parenthood, but even the most outgoing person is sure to reach their limit eventually. Here, with laugh-out-loud humor and well-earned experience, Julie Vick offers coping mechanisms for everything from sharing the news that you are becoming a parent to the moment the baby is born (one way or another, it will happen), from managing doctor’s visits to handling playdates. She offers advice on finding childcare and ignoring the nursing versus formula conversation with strangers. Witty yet valuable, her tips, checklists, and the occasional chart focus on the time from pregnancy through preschool.

Julie Vick (Author), Katie Koster (Narrator)

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My Ride or Die: A Novel

A timely and hilarious millennial women’s fiction novel about two friends who decide to give up their search for a perfect man and devote their lives to each other—but their careful plan soon begins to unravel with unexpected consequences. Fall in love. Get married. Turn to your female friends to be truly understood. Friends for over a decade, Amanda and Sophie decide it’s time to flip the script. Why not spend their lives with each other and keep men on the side for fun, sex, and occasionally fixing things around the house? Amanda is a lawyer who excels in her professional life but crumbles at the slightest sign of a common cold. Sophie is an aspiring artist who has lived all over the world and doesn’t crumble, period. Together, they’ve been through it all. But when their romantic lives implode at the same time, they decide enough is enough. Enough pretending that traditional relationships work for everyone. Enough fantasizing about an old-fashioned ideal. They decide to form an alliance: They will rely on each other and give men the secondary role that they deserve. And much to their surprise, it actually works. They fix up a run-down brownstone and create the home they’ve always wanted. Soon, they have love and emotional support as well as a wide variety of male “crushes” on the side. But when one of their crushes becomes something more, Amanda and Sophie must reconsider the life they’ve begun to build and how far they’re willing to go to keep it. In this brilliantly funny novel, Leslie Cohen asks: must friendship always be second to love? This is female friendship at its finest. Smart. Witty. And no holds barred. “A delightful story of female friendship that will have you reaching for your phone to call your best friend.”--Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author

Leslie Cohen (Author), Katie Koster, Rachel Jacobs (Narrator)

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Kill It with Fire: Manage Aging Computer Systems (and Future Proof Modern Ones)

Kill It with Fire examines aging computer systems, the evolution of technology over time, and how organizations can modernize, maintain, and future-proof their current systems. "Kill it with fire," the typical first reaction to a legacy system falling into obsolescence, is a knee-jerk approach that often burns through tons of money and time only to result in a less efficient solution. This book offers a far more forgiving modernization framework, laying out smart value-add strategies and proven incremental techniques that work equally well for ancient systems and brand-new ones. Internationally known for restoring some of the world's oldest, messiest computer networks to operational excellence, software engineering expert Marianne Bellotti distills key lessons and insights from her experience into practical, research-backed guidance on topics from "chaos" testing solutions to building momentum-driven teams and effective communication structures. Using clear explanations and simple exercises, she'll help you determine when to modernize, how to organize, what migrations will add the most value, and where to focus your maintenance efforts for maximum impact. With witty, engaging prose, Bellotti explains why new doesn't always mean better, weaving in illuminating case studies and jaw-dropping anecdotes from her work in the field. You'll learn: • Tips and best practices for assessing architecture and testing assumptions • How to avoid trends and pick the right modernization solutions for your specific needs • How to determine whether your migrations will add value before you invest in them • Critical considerations every organization should weigh before moving data to the cloud • Team-based strategies and motivational tricks for keeping modernization plans on track • Key outcomes and checklists for determining when a project is finished Packed with resources, exercises, and flexible frameworks for organizations of all ages and sizes, Kill It with Fire will give you a vested interest in your technology's future.

Marianne Bellotti (Author), Katie Koster (Narrator)

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Story or Die: How to Use Brain Science to Engage, Persuade, and Change Minds in Business and in Life

"A practical, heartfelt manual for anyone who needs to change minds and actions. Lisa Cron shares the art of practical empathy with leaders who care enough to make a difference."-Seth Godin, author of The Practice A step-by-step guide to using the brain's hardwired need for story to achieve any goal, from the author of Wired for Story Whether you're pitching a product, saving the planet, or convincing your kids not to text and drive, story isn't just one way to persuade. It's the way. It's built into the architecture of the brain, and has been since early humans gathered around the camp fire, trying to figure out how to outsmart the lion next door. In Story or Die, story coach Lisa Cron sets out to decode the power of story, first by examining how the brain processes information, translates it into narrative, and then guards it as if your life depends on it. Armed with that insight, she focuses on how to find your real target audience and then pinpoint their hidden resistance. Finally, she takes you, step-by-step, through the creation of your own story, one that allows your audience to overcome their resistance and take up your call to action, not because you told them to, but because they want to. That is the power of story. Use it wisely.

Lisa Cron (Author), Katie Koster (Narrator)

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Allergic (Unabridged edition)

A coming-of-age middle-grade story featuring a girl with severe allergies who just wants to find the perfect pet! At home, Maggie is the odd one out. Her parents are preoccupied with the new baby they're expecting, and her younger brothers are twins and always in their own world. Maggie thinks a new puppy is the answer, but when she goes to select one on her birthday, she breaks out in hives and rashes. She's severely allergic to anything with fur! Can Maggie outsmart her allergies and find the perfect pet? With illustrations by Michelle Mee Nutter, Megan Wagner Lloyd uses inspiration from her own experiences with allergies to tell a heartfelt story of family, friendship, and finding a place to belong.

Megan Wagner Lloyd (Author), Dan Bittner, Greta Jung, Kathleen Mcinerney, Katie Koster, Matt Braver, Maxwell Glick, Nneka Okafor, Priya Ayyar, Ray Lee, Ulka Simone Mohanty (Narrator)

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Impact: A Step-by-Step Plan to Create the World You Want to Live In

If you've ever felt too overwhelmed to make a difference, or just unsure of how to apply your unique skills to a bigger purpose, this book is ready to unlock your potential. When you feel that pull to be part of social change, where do you start? How can you ensure that your good intentions create a positive impact? How do you focus your scattered efforts? And how do you sustain yourself throughout? Impact brings you the answers. Drawing on their network and experience as founders of She's the First, Christen Brandt and Tammy Tibbetts show you how to create your own impact strategy, one that fits into your life and allows you to match what you have with what the world needs. Their guidance, paired with interactive activities, will lead you to identify your North Star, find the right partners, and plug into movements for long-term, systemic change. Equally important, you'll learn how to address biases, practice allyship, and shift power to become more inclusive and effective in your journey.

Christen Brandt, Tammy Tibbetts (Author), Christen Brandt, Katie Koster, Tammy Tibbetts (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Katie Koster