Literary Fiction Audiobooks | Literature

Real Life and Other Fictions: A Novel Audiobook

"***'If you're fascinated by unexplained phenomena, hop in a beat-up Audi with the kooky and supersmart Cassie Klein and her dog Luna for a voyage of discovery involving a giant moth, a West Virginia bridge collapse and a hot cryptozoologist. The droll Ms. Coll strikes again!'--People Magazine*** Cassie Klein has always used stories to help her fly, but now her plot points aren't lining up. In her 50s, Cassie has already weathered more than most. She was orphaned at the age of two and has never fully understood why her DC-based parents were on a bridge in West Virginia that just so happened to collapse as they drove across it. Her search for answers prompted a failed career in journalism, and now she's an aspiring novelist teaching at a local community college waiting for her literary dreams to finally come true. She stood by her once-doting husband when his meteorology career took a nosedive, and now she has learned that the man who became an internet meme has been cheating on her. She's had enough. She scoops up a teething puppy and embarks on a road trip that's heavy on impulse and light on planning. She's not sure where she's going, but she knows she might as well start at the beginning. What really happened to her parents all those years ago? In this comically surreal, warmhearted journey, she encounters people she never knew existed--chief among them, an enigmatic cryptozoologist, who helps her in the quest to discover her past. And along the way, she looks for answers regarding curious sightings of a creature known as the Mothman in the months before her parents died. As the line between real life and fiction blurs, Cassie finds herself grappling with the nature of stories, myths, and who gets to write the endings."

Susan Coll (Author), Jane Oppenheimer (Narrator)

Audiobook

My Beloved Life

"Read by the author, Amitava Kumar. 'This profound book is full of lives whose beauty lies in the wholeness of their telling.' - Salman Rushdie 'Kumar's late father's life breaks like a slowly cresting wave over the sad and joyful ground of this story . . . Always deeply human; the heart is everywhere in these pages . . . Kumar's beautiful, truthful fiction . . . finds and provides great strength - too late for Kumar's parents, but in good time for his grateful readers.' - James Wood, The New Yorker A novel that tells the story of modern India, through the life of one apparently ordinary man, from the death of Gandhi to the rise of Modi. Jadunath Kunwar's beginnings are humble, even inauspicious. His mother, while pregnant, nearly dies from a cobra bite. As his life skates between the mythical and the mundane, Jadu finds meaning in the most unexpected places. He meets the sherpa who first summited Everest. He befriends poets and politicians. He becomes a historian. And he has a daughter, Jugnu, a television journalist with a career in the United States - whose perspective sheds kts own light on his story. All the while, currents of huge change sweep across India - from Independence to Partition, Gandhi to Modi, the Mahabharata to Somerset Maugham, cholera to COVID - and buffet both Jadu and Jugnu's lives. Amitava Kumar's remarkable My Beloved Life explores how we tell stories and write history, how the lives of individuals play out against the background of historical change, and how no single life is without consequence. 'A novel of vaulting ambition and tenderness, about how histories, both personal and national, are built, refracted and revised.' - Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies"

Amitava Kumar (Author), Amitava Kumar (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bad Habit

"‘I urge you to read Bad Habit' PEDRO ALMODÓVAR 'Had me hooked from the first page … Savour every word' DUA LIPA ‘The book that everyone is reading’ NEW YORK TIMES 'Sublime' ÉDOUARD LOUIS A SERVICE95 BOOK CLUB PICK Beautifully written and told in an irresistible voice, Bad Habit is a powerfully moving coming-of-age novel following a young trans woman in 1980s Madrid. An unnamed young trans woman grows up in a working-class suburb that has no place for her. She discovers community and kinship in downtown Madrid, amid a dazzling party scene animated by charming junkies, glamorous pop divas, and fallen angels. With each step she takes forward in the city, she finds herself confronted by an antagonism she does not yet know how to counter. In this thrilling and yet often frightening place each decision can have the highest of stakes and yet she knows that only she can forge a path forward to the life she truly wants to live. Beautiful and deeply moving, Bad Habit by Alana S Portero is translated by Mara Faye Lethem, and deftly illuminates the search for identity and the power of chosen family. Bad Habit is an unforgettable story of self-realisation that speaks to the outsider in all of us. 'A work of deep humility’ GUARDIAN ‘An engulfing novel’ AVNI DOSHI ‘Believe the hype!' OKECHUKWU NZELU ‘A revelation … made me weep more than once’ SABA SAMS ‘Infused with camp humour, pathos and the spirit of resilience’ AMELIA ABRAHAMS 'Affecting and evocative' OBSERVER 'Painful yet unquestionably hopeful' NICOLA DINAN ‘Portero’s elegant storytelling catches a celestial light’ ELOGHOSA OSUNDE ‘Leaves you stunned’ TRAVIS ALABANZA ‘Obliges the reader to hold back (or unleash) their feelings chapter after chapter’ VOGUE SPAIN ‘The most talked-about debut of the year’ TIME OUT SPAIN"

Alana S. Portero (Author), Alexandra Grey (Narrator)

Audiobook

I Hope This Finds You Well

"*AS RECOMMENDED BY TAYLOR JENKINS REID 'FOR SOMEONE WHO NEEDS A GOOD LAUGH' ON TIME'S INSTAGRAM* ‘A darkly funny riot’ The Times, Book of the Month A GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR FICTION 2024 Would you want to know what your colleagues say behind your back? Jolene certainly doesn’t. She’s riddled with anxiety, depressed, and hates her coworkers. The less she knows about them, the better. So when a catastrophic IT f*ck up grants her access to all of their emails and private messages, she’s initially horrified. The last thing she wants is to be privy to their sad discussions about dying desk plants and marital troubles. That’s until, with job cuts looming, she realises the power this new-found knowledge gives her. But as she digs deeper and deeper into the private lives of her colleagues, Jolene uncovers a lot more than she bargained for… And the walls she’d so carefully built start crumbling down. For readers who loved The Office US and Really Good, Actually comes the awkward heroine you’re about to fall in love with 'I haven’t been a reader for a long time, however found this in the airport book shop before a recent trip and this had me glued to it. Would thoroughly recommend – had me chuckling away' READER REVIEW ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This book caught me off guard! It made me laugh, it made me cry… it's truly incredible and the best book I've read so far this year' READER REVIEW ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Ever since I found out about this book on bookstagram I've become obsessed. Five months later, I FINALLY got my hands on a proof copy and OMG I loved this immensely!!' READER REVIEW ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Please make this into a TV series!' READER REVIEW ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐"

Natalie Sue (Author), Nasim Pedrad (Narrator)

Audiobook

Like the Appearance of Horses

"Rooted in the small, mountain town of Dardan, Pennsylvania, where patriarch Jozef Vinich settled after surviving World War I, Like the Appearance of Horses immerses us in the intimate lives of a family whose fierce bonds have been shaped by the great conflicts of the past century. After Bexhet Konar escapes fascist Hungary and crosses the ocean to find Jozef, the man who saved his life in 1919, he falls in love with Jozef's daughter, Hannah, enlists in World War II, and is drawn into a personal war of revenge. Many years later, their youngest son, Samuel, is taken prisoner in Vietnam and returns home with a heroin addiction and deep physical and psychological wounds. As Samuel travels his own path toward healing, his son will graduate from Annapolis as a Marine on his way to Iraq. In spare, breathtaking prose, Like the Appearance of Horses is the freestanding, culminating novel in Andrew Krivak's award-winning Dardan Trilogy, which began with The Sojourn and The Signal Flame. It is a story about borders drawn within families as well as around nations, and redrawn by ethnicity, prejudice, and war. It is also a tender story of love and how it is tested by duty, loyalty, and honor."

Andrew Krivak (Author), Jamie Renell (Narrator)

Audiobook

Enlightenment

"Brought to you by Penguin. Unlikely best friends Thomas and Grace are bound together by questions of faith, love and astronomy in this dazzling summer read from the #1 bestselling author. Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their religion and their desire to explore the world. But their friendship is ruptured by the arrival of love. Over the course of twenty years, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as a devastating story of passion and scientific adventure unfolds and Aldleigh’s unique mysteries are revealed. ‘It’s glorious… A beautiful, memorable novel’ OBSERVER ‘Sarah Perry just gets better and better’ INDEPENDENT ‘Absorbing… A romance worthy of Emily Brontë’ WALL STREET JOURNAL ‘Gorgeous…ethereal’ GUARDIAN ‘Sarah Perry creates worlds to disappear into… Beautiful, vivid’ BBC ©2024 Sarah Perry (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Sarah Perry (Author), Alex Jennings (Narrator)

Audiobook

This Country Is No Longer Yours: A Novel

"In Avik Jain Chatlani's explosive debut novel, This Country Is No Longer Yours, a chorus of disparate voices comes together to explore how idealists and opportunists betray ordinary people in war-torn Peru. One of our dead writers liked to say, 'Peru is a beggar sleeping on a bench made of gold.' It's a cute phrase, but it's not really true. There's hardly any gold left, and none of us get much sleep. Based on real events in 1970s-2000s Peru, This Country Is No Longer Yours tells the story of people living through the terrorist campaign of the Maoist Shining Path, while struggling to survive amid economic crisis and state collapse. A student of the revolution's leader is dispatched to Cambodia to learn from the Khmer Rouge, sending him spiralling into a world of unfathomable political violence that both inspires him and will be his undoing. Then, as the terror spreads across Peru, a ruthless security agent of the newly-elected neoconservative government works to squash the growing insurgency now threatening the halls of power, while applying his surveillance training to romantic pursuits-with chilling results. Just when it looks like the Shining Path has been defeated, a nationalist counter-revolution begins brewing in its wake, and a journalist committed to exposing their ambitions is too preoccupied to help a reader desperately pleading for her help outing a sexual predator who is seeking the presidency. And, in the country that remains, two former guerrillas meet again, one now a teacher stuck in the past, the other living on the margins and still fighting for her future. Depicting a place and time ravaged by terror but alive with new ambitions and enduring love, Jain Chatlani explores the intersection of political breakdown and human endurance, as well as the unbearable choices demanded of those living in a society at war with itself. With incisive and haunting prose, combined with deeply personal insight, Jain Chatlani offers a stinging indictment of the ideologies that brutalize the very people they claim to represent, and relays an urgent warning about the dangers of zealotry, political messianism and acts of violence justified in the name of a cause."

Avik Jain Chatlani (Author), Arlen Aguayo Stewart, Marcelo Arroyo, Michel Issa Rubio (Narrator)

Audiobook

Breaststrokes: 'A study of womanhood, vulnerability, and the secrecy of the inner-life' – Rowan His

"Sharply observed and painfully relatable, Breaststrokes is a novel that seems to emerge from the haze of our current time. This story of unexpected encounters and intimacies is perfect for fans of Cleopatra and Frankenstein and Beautiful World, Where Are You. Cloe and Gertrude and the Jenkins-Bell sisters, Mathilde and Sarah, have never met. They are strangers who share a city. It is Sunday morning. Cloe has woken-up in someone else's home; Gertrude starts her shift in the pub kitchen, while Mathilde and Sarah are on their way to lunch. Soon, these four women's lives will overlap. Saturday felt like a normal day, but on Sunday the past will catch-up with them as they realise that there never is only one side to a story. 'A study of womanhood, vulnerability, and the secrecy of the inner-life. Vialleron's writing is laced with a love for these women who can barely love themselves. A novel for anyone interested in the way the body keeps score or in the complex intimacies between women' Rowan Hisayo Buchanan 'A tender, lyrical novel about the ripples caused when consent is taken away from women and the loneliness this causes, even when you're surrounded by people. It will tug at your heart strings' Araminta Hall 'Reading Breaststrokes felt a little like watching ribbons unfurl - or intertwine. Margaux Vialleron writes tenderly and evocatively about female friendship, fear and desire' Chloë Ashby"

Margaux Vialleron (Author), Beth Eyre (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Safekeep

"Brought to you by Penguin. WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 SHORTLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2025 LONGLISTED FOR THE WINGATE PRIZE 2025 An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge - for readers of Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Waters and Ian McEwan's Atonement. It is fifteen years after the Second World War, and Isabel has built herself a solitary life of discipline and strict routine in her late mother's country home, with not a fork or a word out of place. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep - as a guest, there to stay for the season… In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel's desperate need for control reaches boiling point. What happens between the two women leads to a revelation which threatens to unravel all she has ever known. 'A thrilling, razor-sharp, perfectly plotted debut novel' Sunday Times 'Moving, unnerving and deeply sexy' Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING 'A brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one's own desires… Van der Wouden brings stunning power and control to her page-turner about trauma and repression' Justine Jordan, Booker Prize Judge 2024 ©2024 Yael van der Wouden (P)2024 Penguin Audio"

Yael Van Der Wouden (Author), Saskia Maarleveld, Stina Nielsen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Blue Ruin

"It's the 1990's, and Jay is an artist tipped for greatness. Shortly after graduating from his London art school, a promising career is already taking shape before him. Despite the brutal end of his intense relationship with Alice, his great love, he's destined to make his mark on the world as one of the most brilliant young creatives of the last century. Everyone is going to remember his name. It's 2020, and Jay lives out of his car, working as a delivery driver in wealthy upstate New York. Sick and undocumented, Jay arrives at an enormous mansion and collapses from exhaustion right at the feet of Alice, whom he had hoped he would never see again. Twenty years on, and while Jay teeters on the edge, she's married the man she left him for; Jay's former best friend and fellow artist, Rob. Ashamed, Jay hopes she won't recognize him behind his dirty surgical mask, but when she does, she invites him to recover on the property, setting the stage for a devastating reckoning that's been decades in the making. Gripping and brilliantly orchestrated, Blue Ruin moves back and forth through time to deliver an extraordinary portrait of an artist as he reunites with his past and confronts the world he once loved and left behind. This is a novel suffused with tension and melancholy; an ode to an iconic art scene from an author at the height of his powers."

Hari Kunzru (Author), Hari Kunzru (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Lady Waiting: A Novel

""A breakneck romp of a novel with a stolen Vermeer, a tangled love triangle, a half-baked heist and enough depraved opulence to make Gatsby gasp." -People "This novel pops- Cosmopolitan, sexy, and funny." -Percival Everett, New York Times-bestselling author of James The White Lotus meets The Talented Mr. Ripley in this high-spirited novel of a stolen Vermeer, a Polish transplant in LA, and the charismatic couple who seduce her into a misguided international heist One bright Los Angeles day, a young Polish émigré named Viva is driving along the freeway when she's flagged down by a dazzling, disheveled woman in green chiffon. The woman is Bobby Sleeper, a fellow Eastern European and an erstwhile art gallerist with a mysterious background and even more mysterious filmmaker husband. Within days the couple hire Viva as their assistant, then enlist her as an accomplice in an improbable scheme involving a long-lost Vermeer masterwork, a multi-million-dollar reward, and several shadowy ex-husbands. As Bobby and her husband weave her ever more tightly into their web, Viva is swept up in an escapade that's one part art heist, one part love triangle, and one part education of a felon. Entranced by their lifestyle, alarmed by their ramshackle scam, Viva realizes she's out of her depth-and that only luck, cunning, and her own hustler's instinct can save her from disaster. Careening from the canyons of LA to the canals of Venice, The Lady Waiting is a page-turning caper, a cavalcade of twenty-first-century sins-rapacious capitalism, shameless fraud, and atrocious behavior-and a showcase for three of the biggest and most unforgettable characters in recent fiction."

Magdalena Zyzak (Author), Zuzanna Szadkowski (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Northern Light in Provence: A Novel

"A woman leaves her coastal Greenland village to translate the works of a renowned Provençal poet and finds her life irrevocably changed, in this tender and romantic novel set in a French village. "Big-hearted, whimsical, and enchanting."-Christina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of The Exiles Ilse Erlund is a translator who lives in a house on stilts along the west coast of Greenland. Isolated and restless in her world by the sea, she convinces her publisher to pay for a trip to the country she has never visited but whose language she speaks fluently: France. Her mission is to translate the verses of Geoffrey "Po" Labaye, a charismatic poet known as "the last living troubadour of Provence." Upon arrival in the medieval hilltop village of Belle Rivière, Ilse falls under the spell of the Provençal way of life, captivated by the air, the sun, the vibrant spring colors, and the dulcet sounds of the dialect. Soon enough, Ilse is captivated by the poet, too, and she and Po develop a daily rhythm and warm camaraderie-which is disrupted by the arrival of the poet's son, Frey. Though he has a fiancée back in Paris, Frey turns his attentions to Ilse, and suddenly she is forced to learn another language, one her translation skills have not prepared her to decode. Where-and with whom-does her future lie? With an eye and ear attuned to the sensibilities of French life, Elizabeth Birkelund has created a love story about a woman forced to choose between the security of her quiet northern home and the possibility of the life of her dreams."

Elizabeth Birkelund (Author), Gilli Messer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Literary Fiction Audiobooks in Literature