Audiobooks narrated by Laura Hicks

Strongheart: The Lost Journals of May Dodd and Molly McGill

"Strongheart is the final installment to the One Thousand White Women trilogy, a novel about fierce women who are full of heart and the power to survive. In 1873, a Cheyenne chief offers President Grant the opportunity to exchange one thousand horses for one thousand white women, in order to marry them with his warriors and create a lasting peace. These women, 'recruited' by force in the penitentiaries and asylums of the country, gradually integrate the way of life of the Cheyenne, at the time when the great massacres of the tribes begin. After the battle of Little Big Horn, some female survivors decide to take up arms against the United States, which has stolen from the Native Americans their lands, their way of life, their culture and their history. This ghost tribe of rebellious women will soon go underground to wage an implacable battle, which will continue from generation to generation. In this final volume of the One Thousand White Women trilogy, Jim Fergus mixes with rare mastery the struggle of women and Native Americans in the face of oppression, from the end of the 19th century until today. With a vivid sense of the 19th century American West, Fergus paints portraits of women as strong as they are unforgettable. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Griffin"

Jim Fergus (Author), Erik Steele, Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Vengeance of Mothers: The Journals of Margaret Kelly & Molly McGill: A Novel

"'[Narrator Laura Hicks] captures the compelling emotions of these desperate women as they escape their former lives of hardship and dare to dream of a freedom they haven't yet known.' — Booklist, starred review The stunning sequel to Jim Fergus' award-winning One Thousand White Women. 9 March 1876 My name is Meggie Kelly and I take up this pencil with my twin sister, Susie. We have nothing left, less than nothing. The village of our People has been destroyed, all our possessions burned, our friends butchered by the soldiers, our baby daughters gone, frozen to death on an ungodly trek across these rocky mountains. Empty of human feeling, half-dead ourselves, all that remains of us intact are hearts turned to stone. We curse the U.S. government, we curse the Army, we curse the savagery of mankind, white and Indian alike. We curse God in his heaven. Do not underestimate the power of a mother’s vengeance... So begins the journal of Margaret Kelly, a woman who participated in the government's 'Brides for Indians' program in 1873, a program whose conceit was that the way to peace between the United States and the Cheyenne Nation was for One Thousand White Women to be given as brides in exchange for three hundred horses. These 'brides' were mostly fallen women; women in prison, prostitutes, the occasional adventurer, or those incarcerated in asylums. No one expected this program to work. The brides themselves thought it was simply a chance at freedom. But many of them fell in love with the Cheyenne's spouses and had children with them...and became Cheyenne themselves. The Vengeance of Mothers is an audiobook that explores what happens to the bonds between wives and husbands, children and mothers, when society sees them as 'unspeakable.' What does it mean to be white, to be Cheyenne, and how far will these women go to avenge the ones they love? As he did in One Thousand White Women, Jim Fergus brings to light a time and place in American history, and fills it with unforgettable characters who live and breathe with a passion we can relate to even today. Praise for Laura Hicks: 'Laura Hicks renders this imaginative work splendidly. She is vivacious and expressive as May Dodd...Her vocal characterizations, especially of the various immigrant women Dodd encounters, are lively. A work this unusual needs a performance that is versatile and out of the ordinary, both of which have been achieved.' -- AudioFile on One Thousand White Woman."

Jim Fergus (Author), Erik Steele, Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

Someone Always Knows

"Missing bearer bonds, a family tragedy, arson, and murder—it's all in a day's work for Sharon McCone in the new series installment from bestselling author Marcia Muller. Settled into their new home after they lost their house in a fire and fully established in their new shared offices, private investigator Sharon McCone and her business partner husband Hy are finally starting to feel comfortable. That calm is shattered when Hy's former colleague Gage Renshaw—a shady troublemaker who they presumed dead—reappears, and it's unclear what he wants from his prosperous former associate. Meanwhile, Sharon has a new client with a desire to get rid of the derelict house that's disturbing the local homeowners' association. However, the abandoned house holds its share of secrets, and soon Sharon is contending with more than a simple eyesore as she searches for the individual who is obsessed with destroying her life."

Marcia Muller (Author), Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Star Garden

"From the bestselling author of These Is My Words comes an exhilarating followup to the beloved Sarah’s Quilt. In the latest diary entries of pioneer woman Sarah Agnes Prine, Nancy E. Turner continues Sarah’s extraordinary story as she struggles to make a home in the Arizona Territory. Winter 1906. Nearing bankruptcy after surviving drought, storms, and the rustling of her cattle, Sarah remains a stalwart pillar to her extended family. Then a stagecoach accident puts in her path three strangers who will change her life. In sickness and in health, neighbor Udell Hanna remains a trusted friend, pressing for Sarah to marry. When he reveals a plan to grant Sarah her dearest wish, she is overwhelmed with passion and excitement. She soon discovers, however, that there is more to a formal education than she bargained for. Behind the scenes, Sarah’s old friend Maldonado has struck a deal with the very men who will become linchpins of the Mexican Revolution. Maldonado plots to coerce Sarah into partnership, but when she refuses, he devises a murderous plan to gain her land for building a railroad straight to Mexico. When Sarah’s son Charlie unexpectedly returns from town with a new bride, the plot turns into an all-out range war between the two families. Finally putting an end to Udell’s constant kindnesses, Sarah describes herself as “an iron-boned woman.” She wants more than to be merely a comfortable fill-in for his dead wife. It is only through a chance encounter that she discovers his true feelings, and only then can she believe that a selfless love has at last reached out to her."

Nancy E. Turner (Author), Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

Cattle Kate: A Novel

"Cattle Kate is the only woman ever lynched as a cattle rustler. History called it 'range-land justice' when she was strung up in Wyoming Territory on July 20, 1889, tarring her as a dirty thief and a filthy whore. But history was wrong. It was all a lie. Her real name was Ella Watson. She wasn't a rustler. She wasn't a whore. And she'd never been called Cattle Kate until she was dead and they needed an excuse. She was really a twenty-nine-year-old immigrant homesteader, lynched along with her husband by her rich and powerful cattle-baron neighbors, who wanted her land and its precious water rights. Some people knew the truth from the start. Their voices were drowned out by the all-powerful Wyoming Stock Growers Association. And those who dared speak out—including the eyewitnesses to the hangings—either disappeared or mysteriously died. There was no one left to testify against the vigilantes when the case eventually came to trial. Her six killers walked away scot-free. But the legend was stronger than the truth. For over a century, newspapers, magazines, books, and movies spread her ugly legacy. Now, on the 125th anniversary of her murder, the real Ella comes alive in Cattle Kate to tell her heartbreaking story. Jana Bommersbach's debut novel bares a legend central to the western experience."

Jana Bommersbach (Author), Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Night Searchers

"When new clients Jay and Camilla Givens come to Sharon McCone with Camilla's stories of devil worshippers performing human sacrifices in San Francisco, the detective is skeptical, to say the least. However, when she discovers that Jay is involved with the treasure hunting group the Night Searchers, she starts looking into what exactly he and the other participants are up to after dark. As she digs deeper into the Searchers, Sharon joins their ranks in order to find out more—while someone is searching for her."

Marcia Muller (Author), Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

Blackbird House

"With 'incantatory prose' that 'sweeps over the reader like a dream' (Philadelphia Inquirer), 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. From the writer that Time has said tells 'truths powerful enough to break a reader's heart' comes a glorious travelogue through time and fate, through loss and love and survival. Welcome to Blackbird House."

Alice Hoffman (Author), Amy Rubinate, Bernadette Dunne, Carrington Macduffie, Cassandra Campbell, Hillary Huber, John Lee, Kate Reading, Kirsten Potter, Laura Hicks, Richard Powers, Tavia Gilbert, Xe Sands (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Patron Saint of Ugly

"Born in Sweetwater, West Virginia, with a mop of flaming red hair and a map of the world rendered in port-wine stains on every surface of her body, Garnet Ferrari is used to being an outcast. With her sharp tongue, she has always known how to defend herself against bullies and aggressors but finds she is less adept at fending off the pilgrims who have set up a veritable tent city outside her hilltop home, convinced she is Saint Garnet, healer of skin ailments and maker of miracles. Her grandmother, the indelible Nonna Diamante, believes Garnet's mystical gift can be traced back to the family's origins in the Nebrodi Mountains of Sicily, and now the Vatican has sent an emissary to Sweetwater to investigate. Garnet, wanting nothing more than to debunk this 'gift' and send these desperate souls packing, reaches back into her family's tangled past and unspools for the church a tale of love triangles on the shores of the Messina Strait; a sad, beautiful maiden's gilded-cage childhood in blueblood Virginia; and the angelic, doomed boy Garnet could not protect. Saint or not, Garnet learns that the line between reality and myth is always blurred and that the aspects of ourselves we are most ashamed of can prove to be the source of our greatest strength, and even our salvation."

Marie Manilla (Author), Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Break with Charity: A Story about the Salem Witch Trials

"Susanna desperately wants to join the circle of girls who meet every week at the parsonage. What she doesn't realize is that the leader of the group, the malicious Ann Putnam, is about to set off a torrent of false accusations leading to the imprisonment and execution of countless innocent people. When Susanna puts the pieces together, she faces a painful choice. She can keep quiet and let the witch-hunt panic continue, or she can 'break charity' with the group—and risk having her family named as witches."

Ann Rinaldi (Author), Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

Orphan Train Rider: One Boy’s True Story

"Between 1854 and 1930, more than 200,000 orphaned or abandoned children were sent west on orphan trains to find new homes. Some were adopted by loving families; others were not as fortunate. In recent years, some of the riders have begun to share their stories. Andrea Warren alternates chapters about the history of the orphan trains with the story of Lee Nailling, who in 1926 rode an orphan train to Texas."

Andrea Warren (Author), Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

There’s Something in a Sunday

"It's a cold Sunday in San Francisco. Sharon McCone's alone on a routine surveillance job, following a man named Frank Wilkonson through the city's lush horticultural hot spots to the sere foothills of the Diablos. But when she returns to find her kindly, old client in a pool of blood, nothing she's learned explains it. The search of answers takes her from Wilkonson's sullen brood on Burning Oak Ranch, to the eccentric havoc of a household in the Haight, to Golden Gate Park and the desperate digs of the homeless. Unraveling the threads that link a homeless man, a pair of prominent activists, a wayward rancher, and a mysterious missing beauty, Sharon is plunged into the depths of domestic mayhem … entering a realm where dreams shatter and marriage leads to bloody murder."

Marcia Muller (Author), Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

To Trust A Stranger

"Karen Robards, who delivered 'a racy read' (Cosmopolitan) in her acclaimed bestseller Paradise County, once again electrifies the page with hardwired passion and thrilling suspense in this heart-pounding new novel. Suspicion burned within Julie Carlson—the heartbreaking, infuriating suspicion that her husband, a wealthy and powerful contractor, was having an affair. Not sure whom to trust, Julie turns to a handsome stranger... Private detective Mac McQuarry ignores his better judgment about not mixing women and work when he's hired by Julie Carlson. Not only is she drop-dead gorgeous, but Sid Carlson was a player in Mac's inglorious downfall from the Charleston P.D.—and revenge would be sweet indeed. But when Mac witnesses an explosive hit that targeted Julie, the tables are turned—and Mac and Julie become the hunted. With their fiery flirtation sparking into full-blown passion, they must crash their way through a maze of buried secrets and deadly deceptions."

Karen Robards (Author), Laura Hicks (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Laura Hicks