Family Life Audiobooks | Fiction & Literature

The Black Sheep's Secret Child & The Rancher Returns

The Black Sheep's Secret Child A second chance with her son's secret father! Widow Savannah Caldwell faces the challenge of her life: begging Trent Caldwell—her former fling and late husband's brother—to save the family's ailing music business. That she's still attracted to Trent makes things hard; that Trent is her son's secret father makes things impossible! Trent is fiercely proud of making his own fortune, despite his controlling father. And he's always believed his brother got the girl who should have been Trent's. Now he'll have the family business, and his brother's widow in the bargain. But will their romantic reunion be waylaid by Savannah's shocking baby secret? The Rancher Returns Discover New York Times bestselling author Brenda Jackson's The Westmoreland Legacy—a navy SEAL returns to his ranch…and finds irresistible desire! Returning from active duty to find his ranch being dug up by a beautiful stranger isn't the homecoming navy SEAL Gavin Blake expected. Layla Harris is convinced there's buried treasure on his land. But the only treasure this wealthy rancher wants to uncover is the professor's secret desires! When Layla unearths family secrets—and mysterious threats—he vows to do whatever it takes to protect her. Even as her revelations change everything…

Brenda Jackson, Cat Schield (Author), Amy Landon, Sean Crisden (Narrator)

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Just Fine with Caroline: A Cold River Novel

From the author of Sit! Stay! Speak! comes a tender, terrific novel complete with long-buried secrets, a three-legged pot belly pig, and an irresistible dog—an unforgettable story about love, friendship, and community. Perfect for fans of Mary Kay Andrews and Mary Alice Monroe. Caroline O’Connor never dreamed she’d be back home in Cold River, Missouri, the Ozark Mountain town where everyone is ‘up your business.’…they mean well as they drive you crazy. She thought she’d left town for good, but now she’s back, helping to care for her New York born mother—struck with Alzheimer’s, and prone to saying and doing anything—and her father, the beloved local doctor frustrated he can’t cure his own wife. As for Caroline, she’s doing ‘just fine’ coping with her parents, her brazen cousin Ava Dawn’s marital disasters, her mostly-deaf dog…and with Noah Cranwell, far-flung relative of a local family mostly infamous for running moonshine, an ex-veteran who’s come to Cold River with troubles of his own. Caroline believes she knows everything about Cold River and the people who live in its hills and hollers … but sometimes life’s greatest surprises happen closest to home.

Annie England Noblin (Author), Em Eldridge (Narrator)

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My Mortal Enemy

First published in 1926, this book is Willa Cather's sparest and most dramatic novel, a dark and prescient portrait of a marriage that subverts our oldest notions about the nature of domestic happiness. As a young woman, Myra Henshawe gave up a fortune to marry for love--a boldly romantic gesture that became a legend in her family. But this worldly, sarcastic, and perhaps even wicked woman may have been made for something greater than love. In her portrait of Myra and in her exquisitely nuanced depiction of her marriage, Cather shows the evolution of a human spirit as it comes to bridle against the constraints of ordinary happiness and seek an otherwordly fulfillment. My Mortal Enemy is a work whose drama and intensely moral imagination make it unforgettable. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Willa Cather (Author), Natasha Soudek (Narrator)

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The Guineveres: A Novel

We cling to the most painful reminders of our youth, our memories or our injuries, perhaps so we can look back to our former selves, console them, and say: Keep going. I know how the story ends. To four girls who have nothing, their friendship is everything: they are each other's confidants, teachers, and family. The girls are all named Guinevere Vere, Gwen, Ginny, and Win and it is the surprise of finding another Guinevere in their midst that first brings them together. They come to The Sisters of the Supreme Adoration convent by different paths, delivered by their families, each with her own complicated, heartbreaking story that she safeguards. Gwen is all Hollywood glamour and swagger; Ginny is a budding artiste with a sentiment to match; Win's tough bravado isn't even skin deep; and Vere is the only one who seems to be a believer, trying to hold onto her faith that her mother will one day return for her. However, the girls are more than the sum of their parts and together they form the all powerful and confident The Guineveres, bound by the extraordinary coincidence of their names and girded against the indignities of their plain, sequestered lives. The nuns who raise them teach the Guineveres that faith is about waiting: waiting for the mail, for weekly wash day, for a miracle, or for the day they turn eighteen and are allowed to leave the convent. But the Guineveres grow tired of waiting. And so when four comatose soldiers from the War looming outside arrive at the convent, the girls realize that these men may hold their ticket out. In prose shot through with beauty, Sarah Domet weaves together the Guineveres' past, present, and future, as well as the stories of the female saints they were raised on, to capture the wonder and tumult of girlhood and the magical thinking of young women as they cross over to adulthood.

Sarah Domet (Author), Erin Bennett (Narrator)

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The Inheriting Edith: A Novel

From the author of Driving Lessons, Saving Ruth, and Balancing Acts comes a poignant breakout novel about a single mother who inherits a beautiful beach house with a caveat-she must take care of the ornery elderly woman who lives in it. For years, Maggie Sheets has been an invisible hand in the glittering homes of wealthy New York City clients, scrubbing, dusting, mopping, and doing all she can to keep her head above water as a single mother. Everything changes when a former employer dies leaving Maggie a staggering inheritance. A house in Sag Harbor. The catch? It comes with an inhabitant: The deceased's eighty-two-year old mother Edith. Edith has Alzheimer's-or so the doctors tell her-but she remembers exactly how her daughter Liza could light up a room, or bring dark clouds in her wake. And now Liza's gone, by her own hand, and Edith has been left-like a chaise or strand of pearls-to a poorly dressed young woman with a toddler in tow. Maggie and Edith are both certain this arrangement will be an utter disaster. But as summer days wane, a tenuous bond forms and Edith, who feels the urgency of her diagnosis, shares a secret that she's held close for five decades, launching Maggie on a mission that might just lead them each to what they are looking for.

Zoe Fishman (Author), Cassandra Campbell (Narrator)

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The Next: A Novel

Is there a right way to die? If so, Joanna DeAngelis has it all wrong. She’s consumed by betrayal, spending her numbered days obsessing over Ned McGowan, her much younger ex, and watching him thrive in the spotlight with someone new, while she wastes away. She’s every woman scorned, fantasizing about revenge … except she’s out of time. Joanna falls from her life, from the love of her daughters and devoted dog, into an otherworldly landscape, a bleak infinity she can’t escape until she rises up and returns and sets it right―makes Ned pay―so she can truly move on. From the other side into right this minute, Jo embarks on a sexy, spiritual odyssey. As she travels beyond memory, beyond desire, she is transformed into a fierce female force of life, determined to know how to die, happily ever after.

Stephanie Gangi (Author), Nicole Quinn (Narrator)

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Aly's House

A tender, classic love story about the power of first love and the promise of a second chance . . . Aly Kingston has only ever loved one man: Marshall Wayne. But she put all of those childish dreams behind her ages ago when the Waynes left town. Her father's victory at foreclosing on the Wayne family farm, the betrayal written all over Marshall's face-it all still lingers in her mind and in her heart. But now, years later, when he comes back home to Claiborne, Aly realizes so much has changed since Marshall's been away . . . and so much remains the same. Seeing Aly again surprises Marshall Wayne. Gone is the gangly girl who followed him around. In her place is a beautiful woman with warmth and sensitivity, someone who makes him want to believe in love again. But Marshall is back home for one reason and one reason alone: to get revenge on the man who destroyed his family and to reclaim what rightfully belongs to him. As the past and the present collide, will Aly lose her heart to the man who's plotting to destroy her family? Or can she show Marshall that love runs deeper than vengeance?

Leila Meacham (Author), Casey Holloway (Narrator)

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My Mother's Ring: A Holocaust Historical Novel

The Holocaust didn't really end in 1945. Not for everyone. Even after the war, survivors' lives were influenced by their terrifying experiences. Some of them were never able to retell their stories-for others, it took decades. In My Mother's Ring: A Holocaust Historical Novel, Henryk Frankowski feels compelled to pen his memoir and finally share his poignant story from his hospital bed as he lay dying. His carefree childhood as a Jewish boy in Warsaw, Poland, is never far from his mind as he recalls the tumultuous world he endured during the Holocaust. Henryk speaks uninhibitedly about the intense bond he has with his family, particularly his adoration for his nurturing mother. Ultimately, the Frankowskis' lives are broken apart as World War II ignites and the Nazis storm across Europe, imprisoning and killing millions. As senseless restrictions are implemented, living conditions are compressed, circumstances turn dire, and callous disregard for human life runs rampant, Henryk must find the resilience to carry on. All the while, he dreams of a family reunion in Warsaw . . .

Dana Fitzwater Cornell (Author), Mel Foster (Narrator)

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The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things

Set against a layered Manhattan landscape, The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things explores a fractured family through the alternating perspectives of the mother, father, and brother of a young woman during the aftermath of her disappearance. A year of silent but collective anguish culminates in the fateful thirty hours after a body with a striking resemblance to hers is found, and we see her buttoned-up Upper West Side family spiral in different, dangerous directions: Her mother, Carol, nearly comatose by day, comes alive at night in a vigilante-like attempt to track down her daughter's killer. Her brother, Ben, once the "good kid," adopts her bad habits along with her former friends who may have been complicit in her death. And after failing to keep his family from splitting apart, her seemingly stoic father, Drew, finally allows himself to crack. In her third novel, Courtney Elizabeth Mauk presents a nuanced character study and offers a jolting and unforgettable portrait of a family's struggle to survive.

Courtney Elizabeth Mauk (Author), Sadie Alexandru (Narrator)

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White-Hot Hack

Ian promised Kate that life with him would never be boring, but spending her days picking out paint colors and going to Pilates isn't going to cut it. Meanwhile, Ian discovers that building a white-hat security firm from the ground up seems harder the second time around, and he might have underestimated how much he'd miss the undercover work he walked away from. To make matters worse, the hacktivists are threatening national security, and the task force could really use Ian's help. Kate and Ian have always worried that their past would catch up to them, and when faced with the biggest showdown of their lives, they must capitalize on the one thing they excel at most: teamwork.

Tracey Garvis Graves (Author), Kristin Condon (Narrator)

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Mercury: A Novel

A taut emotional thriller about love, obsession and the secrets that pull a family apart. Donald believes he knows all there is to know about seeing. An optician in suburban Boston, he rests assured that he and his wife, Viv, who works at the local stables, will live out quiet lives with their two children. Then Mercury—a gorgeous young racehorse—enters their lives and everything changes. Viv’s friend Hilary has inherited Mercury from her brother after his mysterious death—he was riding Mercury late one afternoon and the horse returned to the stables alone. When Hilary first brings Mercury to board at the stables everyone there is struck by his beauty and prowess, particularly Viv. As she rides him, Viv dreams of competing with Mercury, rebuilding the ambitions of grandeur that she held for herself before moving to the suburbs. But her daydreams soon morph into consuming desire, and her infatuation with the thoroughbred quickly escalates to obsession. By the time Donald understands the change that has come over Viv, it is too late to stop the impending fate that both their actions have wrought for them and their loved ones. A beautifully crafted, riveting novel about the ways in which relationships can be disrupted and, ultimately, destroyed by obsession, secrets and ever-escalating lies.

Margot Livesey (Author), Derek Perkins, Nicol Zanzarella (Narrator)

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Nutshell

Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home - a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse - but not with John. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy's womb. Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world's master storytellers.

Ian McEwan (Author), Rory Kinnear (Narrator)

Audiobook

Family Life Audiobooks in Fiction & Literature