Featured Audiobooks | LoveReading

To the outside world, Electra D'Aplièse seems to be the woman with everything: as one of the world's top models, she is beautiful, rich and famous. Yet beneath the veneer, Electra's already tenuous control over her state of mind has been rocked by the death of her father, Pa Salt, the elusive billionaire who adopted his six daughters from across the globe. Struggling to cope, she turns to alcohol and drugs. As those around her fear for her health, Electra receives a letter from a complete stranger who claims to be her grandmother . . . In 1939, Cecily Huntley-Morgan arrives in Kenya from New York to nurse a broken heart. Staying with her godmother, a member of the infamous Happy Valley set, on the shores of beautiful Lake Naivasha, she meets Bill Forsythe, a notorious bachelor and cattle farmer with close connections to the proud Maasai tribe. But after a shocking discovery and with war looming, Cecily has few options. Moving up into the Wanjohi Valley, she is isolated and alone. Until she meets a young woman in the woods and makes her a promise that will change the course of her life for ever. . . . Sweeping from Manhattan to the magnificent wide-open plains of Africa, The Sun Sister is the sixth instalment in Lucinda Riley's multi-million selling epic series, The Seven Sisters.

Lucinda Riley (Author), Sophie Roberts, Weruche Opia (Narrator)

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The Foundling: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Familiars

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Familiars Two women from different worlds. And a secret that will change everything . . . London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst - that Clara has died in care - the last thing she expects to hear is that her daughter has already been reclaimed - by her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why. Less than a mile from Bess' lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart. 'Pacy, highly atmospheric and tantalisingly gripping from the very first page. With rich storytelling and a compelling narrative, The Foundling is subtle, satisfying and intensely moving' Laura Carlin, author of The Wicked Cometh 'A compelling tale of love and hope from the vivid streets of Georgian London' Sonia Velton, author of Blackberry & Wild Rose 'If you loved The Familiars, then you won't be disappointed by The Foundling. A gripping and moving read' Libby Page, bestselling author of The Lido

Stacey Halls (Author), Hattie Morahan, Laura Aikman (Narrator)

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Saving Missy

Prickly. Stubborn. Terribly lonely. But everyone deserves a second chance… ‘A touching, deftly written debut that celebrates community and kindness’ Sunday Times Missy Carmichael’s life has become small. Grieving for a family she has lost or lost touch with, she’s haunted by the echoes of her footsteps in her empty home; the sound of the radio in the dark; the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock. Spiky and defensive, Missy knows that her loneliness is all her own fault. She deserves no more than this; not after what she’s done. But a chance encounter in the park with two very different women opens the door to something new. Another life beckons for Missy, if only she can be brave enough to grasp the opportunity. But seventy-nine is too late for a second chance. Isn’t it? ’Bittersweet, tender, thoughtful and uplifting … I loved it’ Nina Stibbe

Beth Morrey (Author), Harriet Walter (Narrator)

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Shuggie Bain

This is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good-her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits-all the family has to live on-on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs. Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Meanwhile, Shuggie is struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her-even her beloved Shuggie. A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction.

Douglas Stuart (Author), Angus King (Narrator)

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Grown-Ups

The brand-new book from the bestselling author of The Break and The Woman Who Stole My Life They're a glamorous family, the Caseys. Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together - birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. And they're a happy family. Johnny's wife, Jessie - who has the most money - insists on it. Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much...Everything stays under control until Ed's wife Cara, gets concussion and can't keep her thoughts to herself. One careless remark at Johnny's birthday party, with the entire family present, starts Cara spilling out all their secrets. In the subsequent unravelling, every one of the adults finds themselves wondering if it's time - finally - to grow up? 'Marian Keyes is back with a witty and dramatic story about the Caseys, a family who seem perfect on the surface but hold some big secrets between them. When one of them starts to spill the truth after suffering concussion, things start to unravel in hilarious ways.' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING Praise for Marian Keyes: "Clever, hilarious, poignant...Gloriously funny." SUNDAY TIMES 'Everything this woman touches turns to comic gold.' COSMOPOLITAN 'Full of brilliantly funny characters, genuine emotion and heaps of charm.' HEAT 'Classic Marian Keyes: a blizzard of wit and wisecracks.' THE TIMES 'Keyes is an international treasure. The ultimate choice for a binge read.' STYLIST 'When it comes to writing page-turners that put a smile on your face and make you think, Keyes is in a class of her own.' DAILY EXPRESS

Marian Keyes (Author), Marian Keyes (Narrator)

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Don't Hold My Head Down

In her mid-thirties, Lucy-Anne Holmes still felt like a novice when it came to sex. But when she tried to find out what she could do about it, she realised everything she googled was geared to male pleasure rather than to women's. Determined not to let this stop her, Lucy penned a list and set out to discover what her sex life was missing. She embarked on an adventure which would change her life. Lucy has written the book about sex she wanted to read. It will make you snort with laughter one minute and weep the next; it is frank, eye-opening and inspiring, and will speak to women everywhere. "Enlightening, inspiring, funny, shocking and brave, every woman should get a copy." - STYLIST

Lucy-Anne Holmes (Author), Lucy-Anne Holmes (Narrator)

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You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

Brought to you by Penguin. When was the last time you listened to someone, or someone really listened to you? This life-changing book will transform your conversations forever As a society, we've forgotten how to listen. Modern life is noisy and frenetic, and technology provides constant distraction. So we tune things out or listen selectively - even to those we love most. We've become scared of other people's points of view, and of silence. Now more than ever, we need to listen to those around us. New York Times contributor Kate Murphy draws on countless conversations she has had with everyone from priests to CIA interrogators, focus group moderators to bartenders, her great-great aunt to her friend's toddler, to show how only by listening well can we truly connect with others. Listening is about curiosity and patience - about asking the right questions in the right way. Improvisational comedians and con men are much better at it than most of us. And the cleverest people can be the worst at it. Listening has the potential to transform our relationships and our working lives, improve our self-knowledge, and increase our creativity and happiness. While it may take some effort, it's a skill that can be learnt and perfected. When all we crave is to understand and be understood, You're Not Listening shows us how. © Kate Murphy 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Kate Murphy (Author), Kate Murphy (Narrator)

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Love Her or Lose Her: A Novel

New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey returns with a unique, sexy romantic comedy about a young married couple whose rocky relationship needs a serious renovation... Rosie and Dominic Vega are the perfect couple: high school sweethearts, best friends, madly in love. Well, they used to be anyway. Now Rosie's lucky to get a caveman grunt from the ex-soldier every time she walks in the door. Dom is faithful and a great provider, but the man she fell in love with ten years ago is nowhere to be found. When her girlfriends encourage Rosie to demand more out of life and pursue her dream of opening a restaurant, she decides to demand more out of love, too. Three words: marriage boot camp. Never in a million years did Rosie believe her stoic, too-manly-to-emote husband would actually agree to relationship rehab with a weed-smoking hippie. Dom talking about feelings? Sitting on pillows? Communing with nature? Learning love languages? Nope. But to her surprise, he's all in, and it forces her to admit her own role in their cracked foundation. As they complete one ridiculous-yet surprisingly helpful-assignment after another, their remodeled relationship gets stronger than ever. Except just as they're getting back on track, Rosie discovers Dom has a secret... and it could demolish everything.

Tessa Bailey (Author), Charlotte North (Narrator)

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Cleanness

'Cleanness is stunning, provocatively revelatory and atmospherically profound. Here is love and sex as art, as pulse, as truth' - Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval. Soviet buildings crumble, wind scatters sand from the far south, and political protesters flood the streets with song. In this atmosphere of disquiet, an American teacher navigates a life transformed by the discovery and loss of love. As he prepares to leave the place he's come to call home, he grapples with the intimate encounters that have marked his years abroad, each bearing uncanny reminders of his past. A queer student's confession recalls his own first love, a stranger's seduction devolves into paternal sadism, and a romance with a younger man opens, and heals, old wounds. Each echo reveals startling insights about what it means to seek connection: with those we love, with the places we inhabit, and with our own fugitive selves. Cleanness revisits and expands the world of Garth Greenwell's beloved debut, What Belongs to You, declared 'an instant classic' by the New York Times Book Review. In exacting, elegant prose, Greenwell transcribes the strange dialects of desire, cementing his stature as one of our most vital living writers.

Garth Greenwell (Author), Garth Greenwell (Narrator)

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Miss Austen: One of the best novels of 2020 according to the Times, Mail, Observer, Stylist and more

Brought to you by Penguin 'You can't help feeling that Jane would have approved.' OBSERVER 'So good, so intelligent, so clever, so entertaining - I adored it.' CLAIRE TOMALIN A wonderfully original, emotionally complex novel that delves into why Cassandra burned a treasure trove of letters written by her sister, Jane Austen - an act of destruction that has troubled academics for centuries. 1840: twenty three years after the death of her famous sister Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury, and the home of her family's friends, the Fowles. She knows that, in some dusty corner of the sprawling vicarage, there is a cache of family letters which hold secrets she is desperate should not be revealed. As Cassandra recalls her youth and her relationship with her brilliant yet complex sister, she pieces together buried truths about Jane's history, and her own. And she faces a stark choice: should she act to protect Jane's reputation? Or leave the contents of the letters to go unguarded into posterity ... Based on a literary mystery that has long puzzled biographers and academics, Miss Austen is a wonderfully original and emotionally complex novel about the loves and lives of Cassandra and Jane Austen. 'The perfect book to wrap yourself around on a dark night' STYLIST 'The great joy of Miss Austen is that the reader feels immersed in a world that is convincingly Jane's from the first page. Miss Austen is a novel of great kindness, often unexpectedly moving, with much to say about the status of "invisible" older women. Above all, it's concerned with the triumph of small acts of goodness; you can't help feeling that Jane would have approved.' OBSERVER 'Without romanticising its period setting or underplaying the precariousness of any woman's position in this society, it celebrates unexamined lives, sisterhood and virtues such as kindness and loyalty' SUNDAY TIMES 'This is a deeply imagined and deeply moving novel. Reading it made me happy and weepy in equally copious amounts.' KAREN JOY FOWLER, author of The Jane Austen Bookclub 'Hornby is at her best describing the complex bonds between the "excellent women" of her story. She describes the horrors, but also the pleasures, of spinsterhood' TIMES 'Extraordinary and heart-wrenching, Miss Austen transported me from page one. A remarkable novel that is wholly original, deeply moving, and emotionally complex. A gift to all Austen lovers.' LARA PRESCOTT, author of The Secrets We Kept 'Gill Hornby ingeniously imagines what Cassandra Austen's own life might have been like, both before and after Jane's untimely death, casting a different light on the familiar biographical picture without in any way distorting it.' DEIRDRE LE FAYE, editor of Jane Austen's Letters 'Miss Austen is affecting, thought-provoking, and makes you think about both Jane and Cassandra Austen in a new light.' HELENA KELLY, author of Jane Austen, The Secret Radical 'A pitch perfect novel, fond and atmospheric. It reads as if Gill was born to write Cassandra's story, and she brings her whole witty and sympathetic self to the task.' KIRSTY WARK 'Tender and touching ... Hornby deftly describes the psychological toll that such uncertainly took on Jane, and movingly celebrates the fortitude of Cassandra whose greatest love was her sister' DAILY MAIL 'A moving, often funny novel. Richly imagined and spryly told, it reinstates overlooked Cassandra as the most important person in Jane's life' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Utterly absorbing. The lives of the Austen sisters are recreated with a brilliant sureness of touch that can only be achieved by deep study of the period.' ARTEMIS COOPER 'A wonderfully original, emotionally complex novel that delves into why Cassandra burned a treasure trove of letters written by her sister, Jane Austen' IRISH EXAMINER 'In this subtle and delicate novel, Gill Hornby has created a clever, warm-hearted character in Cassandra, Jane Austen's sister' WOMAN & HOME 'Perfectly evokes the mid-19th century and a woman looking back on the joys and disappointments of her life' RED 'Engrossing ... the warm relationship between the sisters is particularly well written.' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING 'Miss Austen is both complicit in and a sly comment on our obsession with the novelist's life and contested mental state, and it burns, too, with sympathy for the women forced to carve out different sorts of lives at a time when marriage was considered the only index of their worth.' METRO © Gill Hornby 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Gill Hornby (Author), Juliet Stevenson (Narrator)

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The Hopes and Triumphs of the Amir Sisters

'A heart-warming tale' Woman & Home 'Uplifting . . . a hug in book form' Heat *********************************** Mae has watched as her three older sisters have gone through the process of finding their place in the world and faced the challenges of parenthood head on. Now ready to spread her wings beyond her close-knit family, Mae is ready to take the world by storm. But a series of events will shake the strong self-belief Mae has always had in herself and will leave her questioning where it is she really fits in. The Amir sisters will need to draw on all the love they have for each other, if they are going to navigate the challenges life has to throw at them and help Mae along the path to self-discovery. *********************************** Readers love the Amir sisters! 'Absolutely amazing' 'A delightful and insightful story' 'Excellent, heartwarming family drama' 'I couldn't put this book down' 'A beautiful story about family bonds and sisters'

Nadiya Hussain (Author), Avaita Jay (Narrator)

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The Other People

Brought to you by Penguin. She sleeps, a pale girl in a white room . . . Three years ago, Gabe saw his daughter taken. In the back of a rusty old car, covered in bumper stickers. He was driving behind the car. He watched her disappear. But no one believes him. Most people believe that his daughter, and wife, are dead. For a while, people believed that Gabe was responsible. Three years later and Gabe cannot give up hope. Even though he has given up everything else. His home, his job, his old life. He spends his days and nights travelling up and down the motorway, sleeping in his camper van in service stations, searching for the car that took her. Searching for his daughter. Katie spends a lot of her life in service stations, working as a waitress. She often sees Gabriel, or 'the thin man' as she has nicknamed him. She knows his story. She feels for him, because Katie understands what it's like to lose a loved one. Nine years ago, her father was murdered. It broke her family apart. She hasn't seen her oldest sister since the day of the funeral; the day she did something terrible. Fran and her daughter, Alice, put in a lot of miles on the motorway. Not searching. But running. Trying to keep one step ahead of the people that want to hurt them. Because Fran knows the truth. She knows what really happened to Gabe's daughter. She knows who is responsible. And she knows that if they ever find them, they're dead. © C.J. Tudor 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

C. J. Tudor (Author), Ellie Kendrick, Richard Armitage (Narrator)

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