Contemporary Women Audiobooks | Fiction

"Four lives knit together… There's a little shop on Blossom Street in Seattle called A Good Yarn. You go there to buy knitting supplies and patterns -- and now it's offering a knitting class. The first lesson: how to knit a baby blanket. For owner Lydia Hoffman, the shop represents her dream of beginning a new life free from the cancer that has ravaged her twice. A life that offers a chance at love ... and maybe marriage. Jacqueline Donovan is stuck in a marriage that has dwindled into an arrangement of separate rooms and separate lives. She disapproves of the woman married to her only son, but if she knits a baby blanket, she can at least pretend to like her pregnant daughter-in-law. For Carol Girard, the baby blanket brings a message of hope as she and her husband make a final attempt at in vitro pregnancy. And tense-looking Alix Townsend -- that's Alix with an ''i'' -- is learning to knit her blanket for her court-ordered community service project. Brought together by an age-old craft, these four women make unexpected discoveries -- about themselves and each other. Discoveries that lead to love, to friendship and acceptance, to laughter and dreams. Performed by Linda Emond"

Debbie Macomber (Author), Linda Edmond (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hissy Fit

"''Andrews is at her best in this thoroughly satisfying story with the right blend of mystery, romance, and sharply funny writing.'' — Orlando Sentinel A delicious tale of revenge and renovation from New York Times bestselling author Mary Kay Andrews The night before her wedding, in the middle of an oh-so-smart rehearsal dinner, interior decorator Keeley Murdock chances upon her fiancé and maid of honor in flaming flagrante delicto. Keeley throws the hissy fit to end all hissy fits, storms out and earns herself instant notoriety in her tiny hometown of Madison, GA. The next day, though, she has to deal not only with a broken engagement but also with her business being shut out by folks in a town financially obligated to her ex. Rescue comes in the form of the new owner of the local bra plant. A hunk of a guy, Keeley can’t decide if he’s a hopeless romantic or hopelessly weird. Either way, he’s hired her to redo the broken-down antebellum mansion he’s bought for the woman of his dreams. The woman—now here’s the weird part—that he’s never met. Or maybe he just has."

Mary Kay Andrews (Author), Isabel Keating (Narrator)

Audiobook

Changing Habits

"They were sisters once. Almost forty years ago, in a more innocent time, two girls enter the convent. Angelina and Joanna come from vastly different backgrounds, but they have one thing in common -- a desire to serve, to join in the community of sisters. Despite the relative seclusion of the convent house in Minneapolis, they're not immune to what's happening in the world around them. In 1972 Angie's involvement with a pregnant teenager triggers a crisis of faith. At the same time, Joanna's relationship with a Vietnam veteran brings her face-to-face with the choices she made -- and didn't make -- in her own life. Then, Angie and Joanna leave the sisterhood, abandoning the convent for the exciting and confusing world outside. The world of choices to be made, of risks to be taken. Of men and romantic love. The world of ordinary women ... Debbie Macomber illuminates women's lives with compassion, with love and with grace. In Changing Habits she proves once again why she's one of the world's most popular writers of fiction for -- and about -- women. Performed by Trini Alvarado"

Debbie Macomber (Author), Trini Alvarado (Narrator)

Audiobook

Echoes

"Against a vivid backdrop of history, Danielle Steel tells a compelling story of love and war, acts of faith and acts of betrayal…and of three generations of women as they journey though years of loss and survival, linked by an indomitable devotion that echoes across time. For the Wittgenstein family, the summer of 1915 was a time of both prosperity and unease, as the guns of war sound in the distance. But for eldest daughter Beata, it was also a summer of awakening. By the glimmering waters of Lake Geneva, the quiet Jewish beauty met a young French officer and fell in love. Knowing that her parents would never accept her marriage to a Catholic, Beata followed her heart anyway. And as the two built a new life together, Beata's past would stay with her in ways she could never have predicted. For as the years pass, and Europe is once again engulfed in war, Beata must watch in horror as Hitler's terror threatens her life and family-even her eighteen-year-old daughter Amadea, who has taken on the vows of a Carmelite nun. For Amadea, the convent is no refuge. As family and friends are swept away without a trace, Amadea is forced into hiding. Thus begins a harrowing journey of survival, as she escapes into the heart of the French Resistance. Here Amadea will find a renewed sense of purpose, taking on the most daring missions behind enemy lines. And it is here, in the darkest moments of fear, that Amadea will feel her mother's loving strength-and that of her mother's mother before her-as the voices of lost loved ones echo powerfully in her heart. And here, amid the fires of war, Amadea will meet an extraordinary man, British secret agent Rupert Montgomery. In Colonel Montgomery, Amadea finds a man who will help her discover her place in an unbreakable chain between generations…and between her lost family and her dreams for the future-a future she is only just beginning to imagine: a future of hope rooted in the rich soil of the past. With the grace of a master storyteller, Danielle Steel breathes life into history, creating a bold, sweeping tale filled with unforgettable characters and breathtaking images-from the elegant rituals of Europe's prewar aristocracy to the brutal desperation of Germany's death camps. Drawing us into a vanished world, Echoes weaves an intricate tapestry of a mother's love, a daughter's courage…and the unwavering faith that sustained them-even in history's darkest hour."

Danielle Steel (Author), Simon Prebble (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again: A Novel

"The fabulous women from The Hot Flash Club are back in top form, welcoming the stressed-out and pampering-deprived through their discreet spa doors–as Nancy Thayer returns with a witty, sexy, and heartwarming novel. The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again also introduces four new women, ready for massages and seaweed wraps, each struggling to reconcile her secret dreams, biggest fears, and deepest feelings as topsy-turvy events shake up her life. After eighteen years of trying to make peace with her husband’s cold-as-ice mother, Polly vows to be the perfect mother-in-law: loving, accepting, and determined to keep her mouth shut. Then her son marries Amy, a Birkenstocked gal whose organic farm and family ooze a rather creepy serenity. Ever the optimist, Polly puts her best foot forward . . . so why does it end up in her mouth? A shy and brilliant professor-to-be, Beth has lived a sheltered life. Then she meets Sonny, a rugged, sexy carpenter who sweeps her off her feet. The problem? Beth may not survive his loud, affectionate, athletic family–especially when the very beautiful and earthy woman everybody wanted Sonny to marry is still hanging around the family dinner table. Heiress to one of New England’s oldest paper companies, Carolyn is the driving force behind the brand. Now, at thirty-seven, the workaholic executive is finally pregnant with her first child, and high blood pressure is forcing her to do something totally alien: relax. But how can she let down her guard when her seventy-something father has gone and eloped with a young bank clerk named Heather, whose rather plain looks and unassuming nature still manage to fill Carolyn with suspicion. A free-spirited photographer, Julia has married a man she loves, but he’s come packed with baggage. Tim is a widower with a young daughter, and Julia has bravely stepped up to the plate, doing her best to provide maternal support. But as if being pinned down by the child’s slightly manipulative ways and (dare Julia say it) spoiled behavior wasn’t enough, there’s Tim’s ex-mother-in-law, whose meddling is getting nastier by the week. For Polly, Beth, Carolyn, and Julia, the time has come to stand up for what matters–for their passions, their hearts, and themselves. As they maneuver through family drama and embrace unexpected change, they come to find that life is much easier (and a lot more fun) when you’ve got friends, wine, and chocolate along for the ride."

Nancy Thayer (Author), Carrington MacDuffie (Narrator)

Audiobook

Second Chance

"Eccentric high fashion meets buttoned-up Madison Avenue in Danielle Steel’s captivating tale of two perfect-for-each-other people from two wildly different worlds. In a fresh, funny look at what happens when a woman who has everything finally meets her match, Danielle Steel proves that, in life and love, it’s never too late for a second chance.... SECOND CHANCE As editor-in-chief of New York’s leading fashion magazine, Fiona Monaghan lived a life as hectic and high-toned as the fashion world itself, jetting back and forth between her stylish Manhattan brownstone and the couture shows of Europe. With closets stuffed with Fendi, a snoring bulldog named Sir Winston sharing her bed, and a houseman who favors gold lamé and borrows her shoes, Fiona was utterly content with her life. Until the sweltering June day John Anderson strolled into her office. After a dinner date left them both wanting more, Fiona impulsively invited John to the Paris couture shows. And in the most romantic city in the world, somewhere between the magic of the runway and the stroll along the Seine, Fiona let this man into her heart. A widower with two daughters, John Anderson was nearly Fiona’s opposite in every way. As conservative as she was freewheeling, John was both amused and appalled by Fiona’s world of high-strung designers, anorexic models, and high-heeled housemen. But within weeks of their return to New York, John was making friends with Sir Winston—and Fiona was making room in her closets. It didn’t take long for the dominoes to start falling. First, John introduced Fiona to his daughters, their blood-thirsty Pekingese, and a snarling housekeeper straight out of Hitchcock’s Rebecca. It was hate at first sight. Then, after a dinner party with John’s biggest client goes disastrously awry, Fiona and John’s relationship began to unravel with alarming speed. What happens next will set Fiona on a journey filled with pain and revelation, awakening and change.…For when she returns to Paris alone and takes an amazing risk, an extraordinary series of events begins to unfold. And as the snow falls on the city of light, Fiona is about to get the surprise of her life: a second act she never saw coming. In a dazzling tale of modern misadventures and career-crossed relationships, Danielle Steel brings us into the lives of two unforgettable people as they love and laugh, struggle and survive. With unerring insight, she captures the heady magic of instant attraction, the challenges of change—and the hope that comes when we dare to do it all over again."

Danielle Steel (Author), Matt Walton (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Right Address

"The Right Address sears through the upper crust of New York’s glittering Park Avenue scene to dish the dirt on the ladies who lunch, the gents who club, and the desperate climbers who will stop at nothing to join the backstabbing, champagne-sipping, socialite-eat-socialite stratosphere. When Melanie Sartomsky, wily Floridian flight attendant, snares billionaire divorcée Arthur “the coffin king” Korn, she is catapulted into the crème de la crème of Park Avenue society, where hiring the wrong decorator is tantamount to social suicide, and where, if you’re anyone, your personal assistant has a personal assistant. But Melanie quickly discovers that in the world of the rich and idle, malicious gossip is as de rigeur as owning twenty pairs of Manolo Blahniks. And despite her frenzied plunge into the charity circuit and the right dinner reservations, her neighbors are Givenchy-clad vultures who see her as nothing more than a reinvented trailer trollop. To make matters worse, when a snide society-rag journalist rakes her over the coals, Melanie’s reputation is toast. Meanwhile, Melanie is not the only billionaire in the neighborhood coming unhinged. Kleptomania, adultery, plagiarism, and a grisly Harlem sex murder are just a few of the secrets swirling under the pedigreed patina of furs and emeralds on Park Avenue. Authors Jill Kargman and Carrie Karasyov know a thing or two about their subject matter. They met at the Upper East Side’s chic Spence School and claim that The Right Address is inspired by “the insane socialites we’ve eavesdropped on our entire lives.” Meow. So kick off your Jimmy Choos, crack open the Veuve Clicquot, and get ready for a rollicking, unforgettable tour of the richer-and-bitchier-than-thou set."

Carrie Karasyov, Jill Kargman (Author), Bernadette Dunne (Narrator)

Audiobook

Good Old Boys and the Women Who Love Them: Timeless Tales for Today's Women

"Eve has her own story, and she's been waiting millennia for Barbara McBride-Smith to tell it. It's the same for Mrs. Noah. Talk about misunderstood or under-appreciated women! McBride-Smith singles them out for her trademark feminist humor. Following Eve and Mrs. Noah's stories are four of McBride-Smith's retellings of Greek myths from her West Texas good-ole-girl perspective. There's Theseus, one of the heroes of Greek mythology, who turns out to have 'a few cogs without a matching ratchet'. And then there's Bacchus, the Greek god of wine. He was born without a mother and had a hard childhood. Yet as McBride-Smith explains, he went on to be the patron saint of all women (and all hearty partiers)! ©2005 Barbara Mcbride-Smith; (P)2005 August House Publishers, Inc."

Barbara Mcbride-Smith (Author), Barbara Mcbride-Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

Button Box

"Mama believed the woman who dies with the most fabric scraps wins. She saved scraps from odd sewing job for neighbors. She saved buttons from old winter coats and birthday dresses. Mama had a button from Daddy's first uniform and another from Grandma's cloth coat—and every button in the box came with a story. In her trademark Texas twang, award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith recounts stories from her family that speak to all of us."

Barbara Mcbride-Smith (Author), Barbara Mcbride-Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

It's Not Easy Being a Goddess: A Yellow Rose of Texas Tells the Greek Myths in Her Native Tongue

"Award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith breathes life (albeit a wizened Texan version) into the old Greek myths. With her incurable Texas drawl, she spins the Greek myths as you've never heard them before, rendering them 99% more fun while retaining 100% of their original insights into the crooked ways of the human heart and the no less crooked ways of the ancient Greek gods. Pandora: According to the Greeks, she was the first woman created. Her finest gift from Zeus was curiosity. Her most precious gift to mankind was hope. Demeter and Persephone: Demeter, the goddess of growing things, tells how her daughter was kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld. Because of Demeter's power over nature, Hades is forced to return Persephone to her mother, but only for half of each year. Judgment of Paris: Paris, a Trojan prince predicted to be Least Likely to Succeed by an oracle, judges a beauty contest and decides who is the fairest of three goddesses: Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite. In the end, he discovers what baaad could happen! Medusa: When Athena's temple is defiled, she takes her revenge on Medusa, a beautiful young woman, and turns her into the ugliest monster in Greek mythology. ©1998 Barbara Mcbride-Smith; (P)2005 August House Publishers, Inc."

Barbara Mcbride-Smith (Author), Barbara Mcbride-Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

Dubliners

"Dubliners - James Joyce's stories of his native homeland - performed by a cast of 15 different actors originating from Ireland. Unabridged. The fifteen stories that make up this brilliant audio roam over a human landscape that stretches from the bleakest of despair to the most blinding of epiphanies. First published in 1914, the stories are as lucid and accessible as they are memorable poignant. As you listen to the cast of internationally famous stage and screen actors perform Dubliners, both the spiritually deadening atmosphere that drove Joyce from his homeland and the irresistible emotional pull it always kept on him to the end of his days become heartbreakingly beautiful. Dubliners is an audio experience that will only grow in richness with each time you listen. The stories and performers are: Sisters - Frank McCourtAn Encounter - Patrick McCabe Araby - Colm Meaney Eveline - Dearbhla Molloy After the Race - Dan O'Herlihy Two Gallants - Malachy McCourt The Boarding House - Donal Donnelly A Little Cloud - Brendan Coyle Counterparts - Jim Norton Clay - Sorcha Cusack A Painful Case - Ciaran Hinds Ivy Day in the Committee Room - T.P. McKenna A Mother - Fionnula Flanagan Grace - Charles Keating The Dead - Stephen Rea "

James Joyce (Author), Brendan Coyle, Camogie Inc., Ciaran Hinds, Dan O'herlihy, Malachy Mccourt, Patrick McCabe, Rejoycing Company, T.P. Mckenna (Narrator)

Audiobook

House of Sand and Fog

"In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who finds himself falling in love with Kathy, becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.Drawn by their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and doomed by their tragic inability to understand one another, the three converge in an explosive collision course. Combining unadorned realism with profound empathy, House of Sand and Fog marks the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction."

Andre Dubus (Author), Andre Dubus, Fontaine Dollas Dubus (Narrator)

Audiobook

Contemporary Women Audiobooks in Fiction