Audiobooks narrated by Mia Barron

Spirit Sleuths: How Magicians and Detectives Exposed the Ghost Hoaxes

The latest from acclaimed author Gail Jarrow reveals how magicians—including Harry Houdini and his team of investigators—exposed fake mediums who exploited the vulnerable and gullible in the early twentieth century. After millions of people died during World War I and from the 1918 influenza pandemic, the popularity of Spiritualism soared. Desperate to communicate with their dead loved ones, the bereaved fell prey to extortion by fraudulent mediums and fortune-tellers. But magician Harry Houdini wasn't fooled. He recognized the scammers' methods as no more than conjurer's tricks. Angered by the way people were exploited, Houdini set out to expose the ghost hoaxes. In his stage show, he revealed the fraudsters’ techniques, and he used a team of undercover investigators to collect proof of séance deceptions. His head secret agent was a young New York private detective and disguise expert, Rose Mackenberg—a woman who continued her ghost-busting career for decades, long after Houdini's death in 1926. Ideal for young readers and adults who are drawn to the worlds of psychics and magicians, this riveting book uncovers a little-known chapter in American history and details the ways people were (and still are) deceived by mediums and fortune-tellers.

Gail Jarrow (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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Threading the Needle

A NEW START—OR AN OLD CALLING? Talia Merritt, a former military sniper once known as Death’s Handmaiden, is a woman haunted by her past. Her cybernetic arm and her phantom—the implant that allows her to control it—serve as a constant reminder of what she’s lost. But Talia is hoping to leave her past and her reputation behind and start anew on the colony world of Goruden, a hardscrabble planet of frontier-minded people seeking a better life. And she’s finally earned enough to start to make that dream come true. In the bucolic town of Tsuri, she interviews for a job as a marksmanship instructor for local bigwig Signore Ferran Contesti. But Contesi is not what he seems. A recent arrival on Goruden, he hopes to mold the colony world in his own image—an image at odds with the unencumbered life free of government and corporate meddling that Talia has come to find. Soon, Talia finds herself thrust into the start of another conflict. Talia desperately wants to stay out of it, but she may not have that luxury. With the fate of a planet and her own peace of mind hanging in the balance, Talia must decide whether or not to once again take up the mantle of Death’s Handmaiden. …

Monalisa Foster (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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Childhood Narcissism: Strategies to Raise Unselfish, Unentitled, and Empathetic Children

Notice the signs of narcissism in your child, and act to curb them before it's too late Raising empathetic and unselfish young people in today’s “all about me” world might seem impossible, but parents can take meaningful action to protect children from these harmful influences. Written by a psychologist with decades of clinical experience, Childhood Narcissism: Strategies to Raise Unselfish, Unentitled, and Empathetic Children explains how selfish, entitled behavior can take root in a child and shows parents how to stop it before it’s too late. Mary Ann Little identifies the early warning signs that can result in a full-blown narcissistic disorder in adulthood and explores what nurtures a child’s healthy, realistic selfconcept and provides a positive model of love and relationships. Based on the latest research and theory, Childhood Narcissism also identifies four parent types that promote narcissistic development. By recognizing these traits in themselves, parents can work on their own shortcomings to build a stronger family and raise caring, empathetic children.

Mary Ann Little Phd (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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Juniper Wiles and the Ghost Girls

Anyone who knows her wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Jilly sees the world through a prism of faerie tales. It was years before I came to understand that she wasn’t just being whimsical when she talked so easily about hobs and brownies and various kinds of faerie creatures. They were real. Faerieland, otherworlds, and all the denizens and creatures you might imagine to live there. It was all real. And so were ghosts. I remember when I first realized this. I felt like my head was going to explode. *** Juniper should have known better after her last foray into the otherworld. But when she’s asked to look into a mysterious box full of poltergeists she ends up making a promise to seven teenage ghosts that puts here directly in the crosshairs of a blood witch’s deadly ire.

Charles De Lint (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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Star Bringer

Firefly meets The Breakfast Club in this snarky, new adult romance. The sun is dying … and it’s happening way too damn fast. With the clock ticking, the Nine Planets’ only hope of survival rests on a fancy space station and the alien artifact it’s carrying. Which is why it really sucks when some jackass doesn’t want the universe saved and blows that station up—while you’re still on it. So if your only choices are flaming death or stealing a flying hunk of space junk—you pick that busted-ass spaceship. Even if it leaves seven strangers with deadly secrets trapped together: a princess, a prisoner, a con artist, a warrior, a priestess, a mercenary, and an asshole in charge of us all. Now every faction in the galaxy is hunting this ship—from the Sisterhood to the Corporation, and the rebellion’s joining in on the fun, too. We just need to stop drinking, fighting, and screwing long enough to evade them all and save the freaking universe … somehow. Because apparently the only thing standing between a dying sun and ultimate salvation is seven unlikely misfits … ahem, heroes.

Nina Croft, Tracy Wolff (Author), Liv Anderson, Mia Barron, Ruffin Prentiss, Samara Naeymi (Narrator)

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The Creative Business Handbook: Follow Your Passions and Be Your Own Boss

It’s time to level up your career as a creative entrepreneur—but you don’t have to do it alone! Whether you seek to identify your big idea, gain financial independence, or grow your business, this handbook will help make your brilliant vision a reality. Art industry veterans Ekaterina Popova and Alicia Puig—the dynamic duo behind Create! Magazine and the art gallery PxP Contemporary—started their businesses from the ground up, learning best practices along their road to success, and they’ve filled The Creative Business Handbook with all their tips and resources. Popova and Puig will walk you through the process of building a brand in today’s fast-changing landscape, offering lessons from their diverse experience in the industry, numerous practical guides and ideas, and steady encouragement as you chart your own course. Divided into six chapters, each focusing on different stages of building and sustaining a business, the handbook also features exclusive interviews with inspirational founders, including Colossal’s Christopher Jobson, Danielle Krysa (The Jealous Curator), and award-winning contemporary art advisor Maria Brito. Get ready to be your own boss, whether you’re an aspiring artist, writer, designer, event organizer, consultant, curator, or any other sort of creative visionary!

Alicia Puig, Ekaterina Popova (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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Fool Proof: How Fear of Playing the Sucker Shapes Our Selves and the Social Order—and What We Can Do

The fear of playing the fool is a universal psychological phenomenon and an underappreciated driver of human behavior; in the spirit of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, and Susan Cain’s Quiet, Fool Proof tracks the implications of the sucker construct from personal choices to cultural conflict, ultimately charting an unexpected and empowering path forward. In the American moral vernacular, we have a whole thesaurus for victims of exploitation. They are suckers (born every minute), fools (not suffered gladly), dupes, marks, chumps, pawns, and losers. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Cultural stories about suckers abound too: the Trojan Horse, the Boy Who Cried Wolf, the Emperor’s New Clothes, even Hansel and Gretel. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Don’t go out with him; he only wants one thing. The fear of playing the fool is not just a descriptive fact; it is a prescriptive theme: Don’t let that be you. Most of us are constantly navigating two sets of imperatives: how to be successful and how to be good. The fear of being suckered whispers that you can’t do both, operating as a quiet caution against leaps of faith and acts of altruism. University of Pennsylvania law professor and moral psychologist Tess Wilkinson-Ryan brings evidence from studies in psychology, sociology, and economics to show how the sucker construct shapes, and distorts, human decision-making. Fool Proof offers the first in-depth analysis of the sucker’s game as implicit worldview, drawing evidence everywhere from grocery shopping to international trade deals, from road rage to #MeToo. Offering real-world puzzles and stories, Wilkinson-Ryan explores what kinds of hustles feel like scams and which ones feel like business as usual, who gets pegged as suckers and who gets lauded as saints. She takes deep dives into areas like the psychology of stereotyping, the history of ethnic slurs, and the economics of the family—and shows how the threat of being suckered is deployed to perpetuate social and economic hierarchies. Ultimately, Fool Proof argues that the goal is not so much to spot the con as to renegotiate its meaning. The fear of being suckered can be weaponized to disrupt cooperation and trust, but it can also be defused and reframed to make space for moral agency and social progress. Facing the fear of being suckered head-on means deciding for ourselves what risks to take, what relationships to invest in, when to share, and when to protest—drafting a new template for how to live with integrity in a sucker’s world.

Tess Wilkinson-Ryan (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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Dark One: Forgotten

From #1 New York Times bestselling, Hugo Award–winning author Brandon Sanderson, and co-author Dan Wells, comes DARK ONE: FORGOTTEN, a true-crime fantasy audio series and the first entry in Brandon Sanderson’s new DARK ONE fantasy saga. Every year in the United States there are fifteen thousand murders, give or take a few hundred. Of those, nearly forty percent go unsolved. In this six-part audio series, Christina Walsh is determined to change that. After struggling with the loss of her father, she sets out on a journey to bring the justice that has eluded her to the families of other victims. And she starts with a particularly strange case. The murder of world-renowned violinist Leona McPherson, who mysteriously disappeared years ago after a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. As Christina digs deeper, the story gets stranger. Leona was a prodigy, someone too good to be forgotten, but that’s exactly what has happened. She’s been forgotten. Entirely. By everyone who knew her. From the gushing music critic in her hometown, to the detectives investigating her murder, even her own mother. So Christina embarks on a cross-country mission, with her roommate Sophie, to figure out what happened to Leona. In the process she uncovers a trail of similar victims who have suffered the same fate. But if no one can remember the victims, how can the killer possibly be caught? Christina’s only leads come from a crazed homeless man’s ramblings, a mysterious glass eye, and an otherworldly totem. Is Christina crazy or has she stumbled upon something so implausible it must be true?

Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells (Author), Avery Waddell, Jim Meskimen, John H. Mayer, Jose Luis Bermudez, Kaleo Griffith, Keith Szarabajka, Kelli Tager, Mia Barron, Nan Mcnamara, Rachel Jacobs, Roxanne Hernandez, Sophie Oda, William Elsman (Narrator)

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Compromised: Tom Clancy's The Division

Only the Division can restore order from the chaos & ruins Ever since the Green Poison epidemic transformed the United States, the Division has worked tirelessly to push the nation back from the brink of collapse. The new food infrastructure brings hope … until Division agent Maira Kanhai finds an alarming disruption in the critical Texan oil refineries: a group of environmental extremists set on keeping the transformed world free from fossil fuels. When Maira’s Division cell is dispatched to secure the area, they discover a private military outfit acting as warlords of the hurricane-ravaged communities. As tensions between the factions come to a head, an old enemy emerges intending to destroy the Division, forcing Maira into a choice that will make her question what the Division stands for.

Thomas Parrott (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century

This glittering, "wild romp of a story, boldly and beautifully told" (Neal Thompson, author of The First Kennedys) explores the darkly intertwined fates of infamous socialite Ann Woodward and literary icon Truman Capote, sweeping us to the upper echelons of Manhattan's high society—where falls from grace are all the more shocking. When Ann Woodward shot her husband, banking heir Billy Woodward, in the middle of the night in 1955, her life changed forever. Though she claimed she thought he was a prowler, few believed the woman who had risen from charismatic showgirl to popular socialite. Everyone had something to say about the scorching scandal afflicting one of the most rich and famous families of New York City, but no one was more obsessed with the tale than Truman Capote. Acclaimed for his bestselling nonfiction book In Cold Blood, Capote was looking for new material and followed the scandal from beginning to end. Like Ann, he too had ascended from nobody to toast of the town, but he always felt like an outsider, even among the exclusive coterie of high society women who adored him. He decided the story of Ann's turbulent marriage would be the basis of his masterpiece—a novel about the dysfunction and sordid secrets revealed to him by his high society "swans"—never thinking that it would eventually lead to Ann's suicide and his own scandalous downfall. "A 20th-century morality tale of enduring fascination" (Laura Thompson, author of The Heiresses), Deliberate Cruelty is a haunting cross between true crime and literary history that is perfect for fans of Furious Hours, Empty Mansions, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Roseanne Montillo (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater

In Nothing Like a Dame, theater journalist Eddie Shapiro opens a jewelry box full of glittering surprises, through in-depth conversations with twenty leading women of Broadway. He carefully selected Tony Award–winning stars who have spent the majority of their careers in theater, leaving aside those who have moved on or occasionally drop back in. The women he interviewed spent endless hours with him, discussing their careers, offering insights into the iconic shows, changes on Broadway over the last century, and the art (and thrill) of taking the stage night after night. Chita Rivera describes the experience of starring in musicals in each of the last seven decades; Audra McDonald gives her thoughts on the work that went into the five Tony Awards she won before turning forty-one; and Carol Channing reflects on how she has revisited the same starring role generation after generation, and its effects on her career. Here too is Sutton Foster, who contemplates her breakout success in an age when stars working predominately in theater are increasingly rare. Each of these conversations is guided by Shapiro's expert knowledge of these women's careers, Broadway lore, and the details of famous (and infamous) musicals. He also includes dozens of photographs of these players in their best-known roles. This fascinating collection reveals the artistic genius and human experience of the women who have made Broadway musicals more popular than ever—a must for anyone who loves the theater.

Eddie Shapiro (Author), Alma Cuervo, Alyssa Bresnahan, Eddie Shapiro, Jenny Sterlin, Lynnette R. Freeman, Mia Barron, Suzanne Toren (Narrator)

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Expired Secrets

She won’t tell him the truth. He’ll never stop trying to find it. In this town, Police Detective Savannah Wilcox is the one who uncovers the truth. After a grisly murder occurs, it quickly becomes clear the death is connected to an ongoing investigation. And she’s certain this killer will strike again. Private Investigator Tate Hudson has some secrets of his own. The prime suspect in a murder just might be the one who’s going to solve the whole case—if he can control the chaos swirling around him.The clock has expired on both of their secrets, but the truth just might set them free.

Lisa Phillips (Author), Mia Barron (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Mia Barron