Literary Fiction Audiobooks | Literature

"Pleasure and guilt make mischievous bedfellows in Stephen McCauley’s witty send-up of modern love, sex, and real estate. Boston real estate agent William Collins knows that his habits are slipping out of control. Due to obsessive-compulsive daily cleaning binges and a penchant for nightly online cruising for hookups, he finds his sales figures slipping despite a booming market. There’s also his ongoing struggle to collect the rent from his passive-aggressive tenant and his worries about his best friend, Edward, whom he’s certainly not in love with. Just as he decides to do something about his life, he meets Charlotte and Samuel, wealthy suburbanites looking for the perfect city apartment. “Happy couple,” he writes in his notes. “Maybe I can learn something from them.” What he ultimately discovers challenges his own assumptions about real estate, love, and desire—and what they learn from him might unravel a budding friendship, not to mention a very promising sale. Full of crackling dialogue delivered by a stellar ensemble of players, Alternatives to Sex is a smart, hilarious chronicle of life in posttraumatic, morally ambiguous America—where the desire to do good is constantly being tripped up by the need to feel good. Right now."

Stephen McCauley (Author), Stephen Bel Davies (Narrator)

Audiobook

Nothing but the Rain

"A sleepy little town discovers its memories have become part of the water cycle in Naomi Salman's debut novella, Nothing but the Rain. The rain in Aloisville is never-ending, and no one can remember when it started. There's not much they can remember. With every drop that hits their skin, a bit of memory is washed away. Stay too long in the wet, and you'll lose everything you used to be. By the time Laverne begins keeping a journal, the small town she calls home has been irreparably changed. Every drop of water is dangerous, from leaky faucets to the near-constant rainfall, and a careless trip outside can mean a life down the drain. With mysterious forces preventing escape, calls for rebellion seem to be on every resident's lips. But Laverne has no interest in fighting. She has no interest in rebellion. She just wants to survive."

Naomi Salman (Author), Soneela Nankani (Narrator)

Audiobook

Birdsong

"Brought to you by Penguin This new audio recording marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of Birdsong. This unabridged audio edition is narrated by Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones; Wolf Hall; The Lost King) and Pippa Bennett-Warner (MotherFatherSon; Harlots; Sitting in Limbo). In the heat of the French summer, young Englishman Stephen Wraysford travels to France and falls in love with his host's wife, Isabelle Azaire. When the world stops, their affair falters, and Stephen signs up. In a maze of tunnels under the trenches, Stephen finds the courage this war demands from the men in his command. And it is here that he will fight for everything he has ever known and loved. A contemporary classic, Birdsong has moved millions of readers all over the world. It is an epic story of passion, survival and redemption from a master storyteller. ©1993 Sebastian Faulks (P)2023 Penguin Audio"

Sebastian Faulks (Author), Harry Lloyd, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Sebastian Faulks (Narrator)

Audiobook

At the Edge of the Woods

"Kathryn Bromwich's masterful debut novel is a rich, gorgeously descriptive account of a woman hiding from old ghosts and new in the Italian Alps, while rekindling her own sense of self through nature. Laura lives alone in a cabin deep within the forest, making her living translating medical documents and tutoring the children of affluent locals. She spends her days climbing the mountains outside her door and roaming the woods, and soon begins a relationship with a waiter some years her junior, which brings new rhythms to her life. But late one night there is a knock on the door, and on the other side stands someone from her past who has finally found her. As the mystery surrounding why she is there comes into focus, Laura is plagued by a fever, and starts to experience flashbacks to her youth, along with an eerie second sight that seems to lift the veil on reality while making astonishing new connections with the natural world around her. In beguiling, lyrical prose we begin to see how Laura's past informs her present and is a shackle she is desperately trying to shed. Before long though the villagers grow wary of the woman in the cabin and of her increasingly odd behavior, and a few decide to take matters into their own hands; to free themselves from the malevolent forces of the strega who lives amongst them."

Kathryn Bromwich (Author), Gemma Dawson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Moon Represents My Heart

"A love lost in time. An eternity to find it. The Wang family are hiding a secret – they all have the ability to time travel. When parents Joshua and Lily depart for the past and never return, their children Tommy and Eva are forced to deal with their grief alone. Eva might be trying to find her place in the present, but Tommy is pulled further and further into a past that he hopes holds the truth. When he falls in love with a woman from a different era, his inability to confront his own history has severe ramifications for the people who can truly bring him happiness. Heartfelt and hopeful, weaving through decades and across continents and told through incredible prose, The Moon Represents My Heart is an unforgettable debut about the bond between one extraordinary family and the strength it takes to move forward."

Pim Wangtechawat (Author), Rebecca Yeo (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Rachel Incident: ‘You will love The Rachel Incident’ (Gabrielle Zevin) – the international bests

"*2023's MOST ANTICIPATED SUMMER READ* 'You will love The Rachel Incident' GABRIELLE ZEVIN, author of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow 'Funny, lovely, romantic, drenched in nostalgia' MARIAN KEYES The Rachel Incident is an all-consuming love story. But it's not the one you're expecting. It's unconventional and messy. It's young and foolish. It's about losing and finding yourself. But it is always about love. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr Byrne, her best friend James helps her devise a plan to seduce him. But what begins as a harmless crush soon pushes their friendship to its limits. Over the course of a year they will find their lives ever more entwined with the Byrnes' and be faced with impossible choices and a lie that can't be taken back... 'Perfectly captures the intensity and high and lows of first love, and it's also very, very funny' RED MAGAZINE 'Chaos at its finest' STYLIST Early readers are falling in love with The Rachel Incident: 'Her best book yet - this is going to be huge' READER REVIEW 'A triumph of a novel' READER REVIEW 'Extremely witty, charming and humorous' READER REVIEW 'Perfection. I want to delete it from my brain so I can read it for the first time again' READER REVIEW 'Delightfully addictive' READER REVIEW 'Big-hearted, witty and expertly crafted' - SLOANE CROSLEY, author of Cult Classic 'Hilarious' - ANNIE LORD, author of Notes on Heartbreak 'Funny, poignant, heart-breaking' - BARBARA TRAPIDO, author of Brother of the More Famous Jack 'I really loved this book' - EMER MCLYSAGHT, author of Oh My God What a Complete Aisling 'Absorbing and funny and honest and horny' LIZZIE HUXLEY-JONES, author of Make You Mine This Christmas THE RACHEL INCIDENT by Caroline O'Donoghue is a sharp, poignant and beautifully told story of losing yourself, finding yourself and the lengths we will go to for those we love."

Caroline O'donoghue (Author), Clara Harte (Narrator)

Audiobook

How to Be Remembered

"Some lives are simply unforgettable … On an ordinary night in an ordinary year, Tommy Llewellyn’s doting parents wake in a home without toys and diapers, without photos of their baby scattered about, and without any idea that the small child asleep in his crib is theirs. That’s because Tommy is a boy destined to never be remembered. On the same day every year, everyone around him forgets he exists, and he grows up enduring his own universal Reset. That is until something extraordinary happens: Tommy Llewellyn falls in love. Determined to finally carve out a life for himself and land the girl of his dreams, Tommy sets out on a mission to trick the Reset and be remembered. But legacies aren’t so easily won, and Tommy must figure out what’s more important—the things we leave behind or the people we bring along with us."

Michael Thompson (Author), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (Narrator)

Audiobook

Such Kindness

"A working-class white man takes a terrible fall. Tom Lowe’s identity and his pride are invested in the work he does with his back and his hands. He designed and built his family’s dream home, working extra hours to pay off the adjustable rate mortgage he took on the property, convinced he is making every sacrifice for the happiness of his wife and son. Until, in a moment of fatigued inattention, shingling a roof in too-bright sunlight, he falls. In constant pain, addicted to painkillers at the cost of his relationships with his wife and son, Tom slowly comes to realize that he can never work again. If he is not a working man, who is he? He is not, he believes, the kind of person who lives in subsidized housing, though that is where he has ended up. He is not the kind of person who hatches a scheme to commit convenience-check fraud, together with neighbors he considers lowlifes, until he finds himself stealing his banker’s trash. Who is Tom Lowe, and who will he become? Can he find a way to reunite hands and heart, mind and spirit, to be once again a giver and not just a taker, to forge a self-acceptance deeper than pride? Andre Dubus III’s soulful cast includes Trina, the struggling mom next door who sells her own plasma to get by; Dawn, the tough-talking owner of the local hairdressing salon; Jamie, a well-meaning pothead college student ready to stick it to “the man”; and a mix of strangers and neighbors who will never know the role they played in changing a life. To one man’s painful moral journey, Dubus bringscompassion with an edge of dark absurdity, forging a novel as absorbing as it is profound."

Andre Dubus III (Author), Andre Dubus III (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Road Back to Sweetgrass: A Novel

"Set in northern Minnesota, The Road Back to Sweetgrass follows Dale Ann, Theresa, and Margie, a trio of American Indian women, from the 1970s to the present, observing their coming of age and the intersection of their lives as they navigate love, economic hardship, loss, and changing family dynamics on the fictional Mozhay Point reservation. As young women, all three leave their homes. Margie and Theresa go to Duluth for college and work; there Theresa gets to know a handsome Indian boy, Michael Washington, who invites her home to the Sweetgrass land allotment to meet his father, Zho Wash, who lives in the original allotment cabin. When Margie accompanies her, complicated relationships are set into motion, and tensions over 'real Indian-ness' emerge. Dale Ann, Margie, and Theresa find themselves pulled back again and again to the Sweetgrass allotment, a silent but ever-present entity in the book. In a powerful final chapter, Zho Wash tells the story of the first days of the allotment, when the Wazhushkag, or Muskrat, family became transformed into the Washingtons by the pen of a federal Indian agent. This sense of place and home is both tangible and spiritual, and Linda LeGarde Grover skillfully connects it with the experience of Native women who came of age during the days of the federal termination policy and the struggle for tribal self-determination."

Linda Legarde Grover (Author), Charlotte Flyte (Narrator)

Audiobook

Coil Quake Rift

"When Margot learns she is carrying her husband Knox's child, she questions if she can bear another loss after a failed pregnancy divided her and Jason. Knox celebrates the news—despite the sorrow and guilt still lingering after his astrophysicist ex, Tiffany, died one year ago—until an earthquake jostles their Hollywood apartment and strips them of power. Moments later, when a small fissure opens in Venice Beach, Jason discovers an abandoned little girl outside his home. As authorities prove unable to help them, Jason determines that the already-fraught city and child are both worse off than he initially imagined. And Tiffany? After the sting of Knox's betrayal, she programmed the RIFT—a byproduct of her particle collider—to activate after her suicide. Thus, a ground-opening black hole is created, into which Margot, Knox, and Jason must descend. In multiple hall-of-mirror-like alternate universes, they are confronted with a choice: Accept the true pain of losing someone you love, or live a lie wherein the loved one was never lost?"

Nathan Elias (Author), Alex Picard (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Cowardly Woman No More

"Over the course of one fateful day, Trisha Donahue begins to reclaim her courage and discovers secrets in a familiar place. A surprising, quietly dramatic adventure story infused with Ellen Cooney's warm humor and wisdom. After years of skilled work and dedication, Trisha Donahue is denied a well-earned promotion by her company's male executives, who give it instead to an underqualified man. Devastated, forty-four-year-old Trisha begins to reckon with the demands that exhaust her, the injustices that confront her, and the ways she has betrayed herself 'just to fit in' with coworkers who resent and belittle her abilities. But at the Rose & Emerald—a unique rural restaurant Trisha has loved since childhood—her company's annual Banquet Day sets in motion a surprising adventure, revealing unexpected allies, hidden passageways, and an interstellar secret. Encouraged by a vivid cast of characters, from sympathetic coworkers to the mysterious employees of the fabled Rose & Emerald, Trisha makes a decision that will change her professional and personal life forever. From acclaimed author Ellen Cooney, A Cowardly Woman No More is a lively, luminous novel about a wife, mom, and career woman who brings herself first nervously, then more and more bravely, through a monumental transformation."

Ellen Cooney (Author), Samantha Desz (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bored Gay Werewolf

"Brian, an aimless slacker, works doubles at his shift job, forgets to clean his room and lays about with his friends Nik and Darby. He's been struggling to manage his transition to adulthood almost as much as his monthly transitions to a werewolf. Really, he is not great at the whole werewolf thing, and his recent murderous slip-ups have caught the attention of Tyler, a Millennial were-mentor determined to take the mythological world by storm. Tyler has got a plan, and weirdly his self-help punditry actually encourages Brian to shape up and to stop accidently marking out guys who ghosted him on Grindr as potential monthly victims. But as Brian gets closer to Tyler's pack, and alienated from Nik and Darby, he realises that Tyler's expansion plans are much more nefarious than a little lupine enlightenment..."

Tony Santorella (Author), Anthony Nyro (Narrator)

Audiobook

Literary Fiction Audiobooks in Literature