Contemporary Women Audiobooks | Fiction

"Just days after the close of World War II, Bess Myerson, the daughter of poor Russian Jewish immigrants living in the Bronx, is competing in the Miss America pageant. At stake: a $5,000 scholarship. The tension and excitement in Atlantic City's Warner Theatre are palpable, especially for traumatized Jews rooting for one of their own. So begins Bessie. Drawing on biographical and historical sources, Bessie reimagines the early life of Bess Myerson, who, in 1945 at age twenty-one, remarkably rises to become one of the most famous women in America. This intimate fictional portrait reveals the transformation of the nearly six-foot-tall, self-deprecating yet talented preteen into an exemplar of beauty, a peripheral quality in her world, where success is measured by intellectual attainment. Yet it is the focus on her beauty, and the secular world of pageantry, that she must choose to escape her roots and fulfill her fierce desire to achieve and become someone for whom great things happen. Bessie is a tender study of a bold young woman living at a precarious moment in our cultural history as she searches for love and acceptance, eager to make her mark on the world."

Linda Kass (Author), Kelli Tager (Narrator)

Audiobook

Colleen: A Good Women Story

"A girl immerses herself in the strange, beautiful lives of her best friend’s family. Colleen is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect."

Halle Hill (Author), Tovah Ott (Narrator)

Audiobook

Honest Work: A Good Women Story

"Maudette works at the state fair. She hates her job, she hates what her mother does for a living, she hates the people in her town, especially one of her mother’s clients, a local deacon. Working the tilt-a-whirl one day, she begins to consider revenge Honest Work is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect."

Halle Hill (Author), Tovah Ott (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Miracle: A Good Women Story

"Dell gets an emergency call at work: Her best friend’s baby is due today, and something has gone terribly wrong. Speeding across town to beat anyone home, to take down the Welcome Home Baby signs, Dell finds herself revisiting the road that got them both here. The Miracle is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect."

Halle Hill (Author), Tovah Ott (Narrator)

Audiobook

Seeking Arrangements: A Good Women Story

"A woman boards a Greyhound bus to Florida with her ailing sugar daddy on a long journey to meet his mother. In the middle of the night, in the middle of rural Georgia, another passenger disrupts her plan. Seeking Arrangements is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect."

Halle Hill (Author), Tovah Ott (Narrator)

Audiobook

Her Last Time in Dothan: A Good Women Story

"A seventh-grade girl travels to south Alabama where her grandmother is being cared for by incapable extended family members. The mother is overwhelmed with grief. But the girl, busy with her own relationship troubles, witnesses something else disturbing. Her Last Time in Dothan is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect."

Halle Hill (Author), Tovah Ott (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bitch Baby: A Good Women Story

"A sister struggles with guilt as she helps her brother plan to run away with a man he’s seeing in secret. When the police pull them over one night, everything changes. Bitch Baby is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect."

Halle Hill (Author), Tovah Ott (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Reluctant Guardian: A Regency Romance

"Baldwin, the Viscount of Mountgarret, was content with his life. Unexpectedly, his childhood friend dies, leaving him his most prized treasures: his two young daughters. Baldwin’s priorities begin to shift as he arrives home and meets his wards’ infuriatingly stubborn governess. His interest is piqued by the mystery surrounding her, but she’s only a governess. He certainly can’t pursue her. Can he? After three “unsuccessful” Seasons, Emeline Warren discovers a heinous plot to force her into marriage with an aging earl. She flees from her ancestral home and unwittingly becomes a governess to two little girls. Finding herself attracted to their reluctant guardian, she’s determined not to fall prey to his charms. Can two unlikely lovers let go of their foolish pride, or will they lose what matters most? As the second novel in this series by author Laura Beers, this story continues the Regency Brides: A Promise of Love series. This is a light-hearted series set in the Regency period. The series includes: Prequel Novella: The Heiress (Ladies of Miss Bell's Finishing School) A Clever Alliance A Noble Pursuit The Earl's Daughter A Foolish Game Other series by Laura Beers include The Beckett Files, Sweet Regency Matchmakers and Regency Spies & Secrets."

Laura Beers (Author), Sasha Higgins (Narrator)

Audiobook

Silence

"'I am no witch, nor adulteress, thief, nor murderer. They say I have lost my reason, but I know only that my heart is shattered, and in crying it aloud, now I must pay the cost . . . ' After three grievous losses, Puritan woman Silence Marsh dares to question God aloud in the church, and that blasphemy lands her in trouble—she is silenced for a year by the powers that be. Broken in heart and spirit, Silence learns to mime and sign, but it isn't until a new Boston doctor, the dashing Daniel Greenleaf, comes to her backward Cape Cod village that she begins to hope again. Rather than treating Silence with bleeding or leeches, Dr. Greenleaf prescribes fresh air, St. John's Wort, long walks—and reading. Silence has half a hope of getting through her year of punishment when the cry of witchcraft poisons the village. Colonial Massachusetts is still reeling from the Salem Witch Trials just twenty years before. Now, after demanding her silence, she is called to witness at a witchcraft trial—or be accused herself. A whiff of sulfur and witchcraft shadows this literary Puritan tale of loss and redemption, based on the author's own ancestor, her seventh great-grandmother."

Julia Park Tracey (Author), Lauren Ezzo (Narrator)

Audiobook

[German] - Wie du mich ansiehst

"Der neue Roman der Bestsellerautorin über die Chancen, die im Älterwerden liegen. Zwei Dinge hat Karl seiner Tochter Johanna hinterlassen: Den geliebten, verwilderten Garten – und eine tiefe Sorgenfalte auf der Stirn, die einfach nicht mehr weggehen will. Den Garten möchte Johanna behalten, aber die Sorgenfalte soll weg: Sie lässt das erste Mal in ihrem Leben »etwas machen« und ist fasziniert, wie scheinbar einfach sich die Erschütterungen eines vierzigjährigen Lebens ausradieren lassen. Mit dem Verschwinden der Falte treten allerdings neue Fragen auf: Warum ist Johanna ihr Aussehen überhaupt so wichtig? Wie erklärt sie die Sache ihrer Tochter, der sie immer gepredigt hat, sich selbst bedingungslos schön zu finden? Und kann das Älterwerden für Johanna nicht auch eine große Freiheit bedeuten? »Eine kluge Erzählerin und genaue Beobachterin.« NDR Kultur"

Eva Lohmann (Author), Eva Lohmann (Narrator)

Audiobook

The End of Days

"Winner of the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize From one of the most daring voices in European fiction, this is a story of the twentieth century traced through the various possible lives of one woman. She is a baby who barely suffocates in the cradle. Or perhaps not? She lives to become as an adult and dies beloved. Or dies betrayed. Or perhaps not? Her memory is honoured. Or she is forgotten by everyone. Moving from a small Galician town at the turn of the century, through pre-war Vienna and Stalin's Moscow to present-day Berlin, Jenny Erpenbeck homes in on the moments when life follows a particular branch and 'fate' suddenly emerges from the sly interplay between history, character and pure chance. The End of Days is a book that pulls apart the threads of destiny and allows us to see the present and the past anew."

Jenny Erpenbeck (Author), Rachel Atkins (Narrator)

Audiobook

Journey to Sunyata: Mountains, Monsoons, and Magic

"Drowning in a series of sudden losses, Allie abruptly left her blossoming opera career to, instead, explore sound meditation. Choosing a singing bowl over an orchestra, she reveled in the pure, simple harmonics that temporarily quieted the raging characters in her mind. Babaji, her teacher, called this Sunyata, emptiness, and she dove into her studies, longing to be free from the emotional monsoon that threatened to engulf her. Fast forward six years, Babaji invites Allie to join him and several others in Nepal for the pilgrimage of a lifetime. Envisioning a meditative journey surrounded by the serene, majestic mountains, Allie travels to Nepal hoping to find peace, but the challenges of rising egos, monsoon rains, shamanic rituals, floods, and magic combine to threaten her very existence. Struggling with blurred lines of reality, magic, and the tormenting shadows buried deep within her, Allie’s healing journey grows from blinding grief to peace, bullying to strength, and opera to sunyata. Based on a true story."

Denise Mihalik (Author), Denise Mihalik (Narrator)

Audiobook

Contemporary Women Audiobooks in Fiction