Psychological Audiobooks | Mystery, Thriller & Horror

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire on 27th July 1853.His father died when he was 13 and life was then often struck with bouts of poverty, which resulted in his education being somewhat erratic. A spell in exile at 23 was followed by another as the politics of the times opposed his volatile but heart-felt passions.Writing was also coming to the fore and in 1879 his debut short story telling of a young Narodnik searching for social and spiritual identity, was published.In 1881, Korolenko refused to swear allegiance to the new Russian Tsar and was again exiled, this time much farther afield. He spent the next three years doing manual work, but took time to study local customs and history. These impressions in exile provided rich material for his writings.In 1885 he was allowed to settle in Nizhny, where again he repeatedly questioned the authorities. That same year ‘Makar's Dream’ established his literary reputation and was part of his first collection ‘Sketches and Stories’, the following year.In the early 1890’s when famine struck Central Russia, he went to work on relief missions, collecting donations, supervising the delivery and distribution of food, opening 45 free canteens, all this while writing the graphic reports that would later be published as ‘In the Year of Famine’ in 1893.By 1896 despite some psychological disorders, he was well regarded amongst Russian writers and was even a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Throughout his writing career Korolenko was a staunch advocate of human rights, putting that sacred activity above what he called his 'part-time-writing'.In the Revolutionary year of 1905, under his editorship, Russkoye Bogatstvo published the Manifest by the Petersburg Soviet of the Workers' deputies. Korolenko was now repeatedly harassed by the authorities, had his flat raided many times and materials confiscated.As a lifetime opponent of Tsarism, he guardedly welcomed the Revolution of 1917. Once the nature of Bolshevism was established, he soon started to criticize it. During the Russian Civil War that ensued, he condemned both the Red Terror and the White Terror. Despite suffering from a progressive heart disorder, he collected food packages for children in famine-stricken Moscow and Petrograd as well as organised orphanages and shelters for the homeless. Vladimir Korolenko died in Poltava, Ukraine, of the complications of pneumonia on 25th December 1921. He was 68.

Vladimir Korolenko (Author), Ghizela Rowe, Mark Rice-Oxley (Narrator)

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Let Loose

Mary Cholmondeley was born in Hodnet near Market Drayton in Shropshire on June 8th 1859, the third of eight children. Her father was appointed rector in 1874 in succession to his father. Much of the first 30 years of her life was taken up with helping her sickly mother run the household and her father with parish work, and she herself suffered with asthma. Mary began writing with in her teens. She wrote in her journal in 1877, "What a pleasure and interest it would be to me in life to write books. I must strike out a line of some kind, and if I do not marry (for at best that is hardly likely, as I possess neither beauty nor charms) I should want some definite occupation, besides the home duties." Mary began by publishing some stories in The Graphic and her first novel ‘The Danvers Jewels’ a detective story followed in 1887. It was followed by Sir Charles Danvers (1889), Diana Tempest (1893). After her father retired in 1896, she moved with him and her sister Diana to Condover Hall before selling it to move to Albert Gate Mansions in Knightsbridge, London. Mary wrote the best seller ‘Red Pottage’ in 1899. It satirised religious hypocrisy and the conceit of country life. It was denounced as immoral. It also explored female sexuality. During the war she did clerical work in the Carlton House Terrace Hospital. The sisters moved in1919 to 4 Argyll Road, Kensington, where Mary died, unmarried, on 15th July 1925.

Mary Cholmonderly (Author), Elliot Fitzpatrick, Ghizela Rowe (Narrator)

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Whittington's Cat

Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith was born in Birkenhead, Merseyside in England on the 7th August 1902 into a privileged family steeped in titles and politics.Part of her education was at Miss Douglas's school at Queen's Gate. Here she met and befriended several other young women that the British tabloid press would later call the 'Bright Young Things', a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.Smith's paternal great-grandmother, was said to have been a Gypsy, and this sparked an early and life-long interest with the Romani people, she even went so far as to learn to read and speak the language, which she called 'musical and broken.'Her life was full of adventure and mishaps. A mistaken encounter with a man she thought could help her into the film business turned out to threats of marriage and death from a man wanted for the murder of his father. She was even arrested twice. Once for listing her career as a journalist and another, in Rome, for walking around in a sleeveless dress.Smith began her career writing society gossip columns for various newspapers but later received an offer to write for the newly-formed Great Carmo Circus, with which she travelled for several years and was the source material for many of her books.Her first novel, 'Red Wagon', was published when she was 28 and it was an immediate bestseller. A prolific writer several of her works were also adapted for films.Smith also wrote ghost stories and others flavoured with evil. Her support for the Conservative party may be forgiven but her attributed quote to be a 'warm adherent of General Franco' less so.Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith died on the 20th October 1945 in Westminster after a long illness. She was 43.

Lady Eleanor Smith (Author), Elliot Fitzpatrick (Narrator)

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The Stars in Their Courses

Mary Cholmondeley was born in Hodnet near Market Drayton in Shropshire on June 8th 1859, thethird of eight children. Her father was appointed rector in 1874 in succession to his father. Much ofthe first 30 years of her life was taken up with helping her sickly mother run the household and herfather with parish work, and she herself suffered with asthma.Mary began writing with in her teens. She wrote in her journal in 1877, "What a pleasure andinterest it would be to me in life to write books. I must strike out a line of some kind, and if I do notmarry (for at best that is hardly likely, as I possess neither beauty nor charms) I should want somedefinite occupation, besides the home duties."Mary began by publishing some stories in The Graphic and her first novel 'The Danvers Jewels' adetective story followed in 1887. It was followed by Sir Charles Danvers (1889), Diana Tempest(1893).After her father retired in 1896, she moved with him and her sister Diana to Condover Hall beforeselling it to move to Albert Gate Mansions in Knightsbridge, London.Mary wrote the best seller 'Red Pottage' in 1899. It satirised religious hypocrisy and the conceit ofcountry life. It was denounced as immoral. It also explored female sexuality.During the war she did clerical work in the Carlton House Terrace Hospital. The sisters moved in1919 to 4 Argyll Road, Kensington, where Mary died, unmarried, on 15th July 1925.

Mary Cholmondeley (Author), Lisa Bowerman (Narrator)

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The Billionaire's Dirty Little Secret

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. What do you get when you mix a warm tropical island, fifty gorgeously naked men, and one seriously horny woman together? Pure Hell! A reclusive Russian billionaire lives on her tropical playground of debauched and wildly animalistic sex. She’s happy where she is, doing what she’s doing, but her world is threatened by the man who aims to destroy the one thing she holds dear. Alex Carson is her assistant, manager of the island and keeper of all her secrets. She hates the job of choosing men for her mistress’ sex games and wants to leave the island and that way of life, but knows it will only happen when the most deadly of all secrets is revealed. Chris Cameron is the hot hunky actor and, although he doesn’t know it, the only man who holds the key to that secret. Lured to the island, he fights his way back from the depths of hellish nightmares to face the reality and truth of that night long ago. He aims to go home and plans to take Alex with him…as his wife. Dimitri Yurogov is the Russian KGB-trained bodyguard of the reclusive billionaire and best friend to Alex Carson. He would and will do anything for both of the women in his life. Both of the women he loves. Even if it means murdering in their name. And murder is second nature to a man with such boundless talents. Hell is what they’ve been living for the last seven years, and when four worlds collide in the same place at the same time with the same secret…hell hath no fury like a horny rich woman scorned! If you love fifty shades of kick-ass heroines, and fall in love with hot hunky actors with secret lives, then you’ll love L.J. Diva’s The Billionaire’s Dirty Little Secret.

L.J. Diva (Author), Digital Voice Mary G (Narrator)

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The Presence of Absence

As a writer lies dying, he has one last story to tell: a tale of faith and devotion, a meditation on what lies beyond this life, and a prayer of gratitude that may lead to rebirth. 'Language is a map leading to a place not on the map,' announces a young writer lying in a hospital bed at the beginning of The Presence of Absence. As he contemplates his impending physical disappearance and the impact on his beloved wife, he realizes, 'Life doesn't start when you're born . . . it begins when you commit yourself to the eventual devastating loss that results from connecting to another person.' Infused with poetic clarity and graced with humor, Simon Van Booy's innovative novella asks us to find beauty-even gratitude-in the cycle of birth and death. Stripped of artifice, The Presence of Absence is a meditation between the writer and the reader, an imaginative work that challenges the deceit of written words and explores our strongest emotions. Simon Van Booy is not only a master storyteller but a writer whose fiction is rich with philosophical insights into things both mapped and undiscovered. The Presence of Absence parts the darkness to reveal what has been just out of sight all along.

Simon Van Booy (Author), Philip Battley (Narrator)

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The Life Room

Eleanor Cahn is a professor of literature, the wife of a preeminent cardiac surgeon, and a devoted mother. But on a trip to Paris to present a paper on Anna Karenina, Eleanor re-connects with Stephen—a childhood friend with whom she has had a complicated relationship—that forces her to realize that she has suppressed her passionate self for years. As the novel unfolds, we learn of her hidden erotic past: with alluring, elusive Stephen; with ethereal William, her high school boyfriend; with married, egotistical Adam, the painter who initiated her into the intimacies of the “life room,” where the artist’s model sometimes becomes muse; and with loyal, steady Michael, her husband. On her return to New York, Eleanor and Stephen’s charged attraction takes on a life of its own and threatens to destroy everything she has. Jill Bialosky has created a fresh, piercingly real heroine who struggles with the spiritual questions and dilemmas of our time and, like Tolstoy’s immortal Anna Karenina, must choose between desire and responsibility.

Jill Bialosky (Author), Cassandra Campbell (Narrator)

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Ουράνια Ιθάκη

Στην ξεχασμένη πια Νέα Γαία, οι ενδείξεις επιβεβαιώνουν πως οι συνθήκες διαβίωσης έχουν αποκατασταθεί κι η σχετική ρουτίνα ενός προγράμματος ξεκινάει την προγραμματισμένη διαδικασία εμψύχωσης του παλιού πληρώματος. Όταν όμως αφυπνίζεται ο κυβερνήτης, συνειδητοποιεί ότι όλα έγιναν πιο γρήγορα απ’ ότι έπρεπε… Εντωμεταξύ, κάπου στα άπειρα διαστήματα του σύμπαντος, τα τρία διαστημικά σκάφη που πάσχιζαν ν’ αποδράσουν από το ηλιακό σύστημα, εμφανίζονται απ’ το πουθενά, αρχικά. Σύντομα όμως ένα ένα τα μέλη του πληρώματος θα υλοποιηθούν χωρίς εξήγηση. Όλα αποκτούν νέο νόημα όταν επιτυγχάνεται επικοινωνία μεταξύ των πληρωμάτων μετά από την αποκρυπτογράφηση ενός παλαιού προγράμματος. Τί θα γίνει όμως όταν τελικά ο Λύκη θα έρθει αντιμέτωπος με τον εαυτό τουθ; Όταν η Αφροδίτη, ο Πητ και η Μάγγυ θα σταθούν απέναντι στους κλώνους τους; Πού θα οδηγήσει η μοιραία αυτή συνάντηση;

Panos Sakelis (Author), Panos Sakelis (Narrator)

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Der alte Mann und das Glück: Von der Kunst das Leben zu feiern

Eine inspirierende Erzählung über Freundschaft, Glück und den wahren Sinn des Lebens Abgeschlossene Handlung. Ben Schilling, 37, erfolgreicher TV-Regisseur, ist depressiv. Burnout? Midlife-Crisis? Er weiß es nicht. Eines Morgens beschließt er, allem zu entfliehen und noch am selben Tag zu verreisen – wohin auch immer es ihn verschlägt. Auf der sonnigen Trauminsel Kreta trifft er den 72-jährigen Max. Und der hat etwas, das der Regisseur gern hätte: ein außergewöhnliches Leuchten in den Augen voll Leichtigkeit und Lebensfreude. Ben will herausfinden, was sein Geheimnis ist – und ahnt nicht, dass der alte Mann eine Vergangenheit hat, die ihm die Sprache verschlagen soll. Max, der nach Kreta gekommen ist, um hier einen ganz speziellen Traum wahr zu machen, wurde einst durch ein schweres Schicksal gezwungen, einen völlig neuen Lebensweg zu finden – und sich ganz nebenbei zu einem echten Experten in Sachen Glück und Lebenssinn aufzuschwingen. Während die beiden die Schönheiten des Inselparadieses erkunden, erzählt er Ben nach und nach seine Geschichte – und enthüllt ihm ein ganzes Arsenal an konkreten Tipps, mit denen der Regisseur Zuversicht, Kraft und Lebensfreude finden kann – und den Schlüssel zu einem glücklichen Leben. Zugleich gelingt es Max mit raffinierten Schachzügen, dem verschlossenen Ben Einblicke in dessen Vergangenheit zu entlocken. Und so kommen sie den Ursachen für seine Verstimmungen immer mehr auf die Spur. Zum ersten Mal in seinem Leben fühlt Ben, was es bedeutet, einen wahren Freund zu haben.

Philipp Sommer (Author), Hans Jürgen Stockerl (Narrator)

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The Girls Who Disappeared: The No 1 bestselling Richard & Judy pick from the author of The Couple at

Brought to you by Penguin. **THE GRIPPING NOVEL FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE COUPLE AT NO 9** Three girls missing . . . Twenty years ago: One rainy night, Olivia Rutherford is driving three friends home when a figure in the road causes her to swerve and crash. Regaining consciousness, she finds herself alone in the car - her friends have vanished. They are never seen again . . . Now: Journalist Jenna Halliday visits the close-knit community of Stafferbury to persuade Olivia to talk and solve the mystery of the girls' disappearance. But Olivia won't speak. What happened? Is Olivia hiding something? Why are the people of Stafferbury so frightened? How many secrets can one small town hide? 'Clever. Gripping. Terrifically compelling. Kept me glued to the page' SARAH PEARSE 'A deliciously dark, captivating and twisty mystery from the Queen of Gripping Pageturners' C. L. TAYLOR 'Absorbing, atmospheric...a tense, spine-chilling mystery' GILLY MACMILLAN ©2022 Claire Douglas (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Claire Douglas (Author), Clare Corbett, Joanne Froggatt (Narrator)

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The Visitors

On the eve of the Occupy Wall Street protests, C is flat broke. Once a renowned textile artist, she’s now the sole proprietor of an arts supply store in Lower Manhattan. Divorced, alone, at loose ends, C is stuck with a struggling business, a stack of bills, a new erotic interest in her oldest girlfriend, and a persistent hallucination in the form of a rogue garden gnome with a pointed interest in systems collapse … C needs to put her medical debt and her sex life in order, but how to make concrete plans with this little visitor haunting her apartment, sporting a three-piece suit, and delivering impromptu lectures on the vulnerability of the national grid? Moreover, what’s all this computer code doing in the story of her life? And do the answers to all of C’s questions lie with an eco-hacktivist cabal threatening to end modern life as we know it? Replaying recent history through a distorting glass, The Visitors is a mordantly funny tour through a world where not only civic infrastructure but our darkest desires are vulnerable to malware; where mythical creatures talk like Don DeLillo; where love is little more than a blip in our metadata. It peers into how we got here and asks what we do next, charting the last days of a broken status quo as the path is cleared for something new.

Jessi Jezewska Stevens (Author), Taylor Meskimen (Narrator)

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Let It Come Down: A Novel

In Let It Come Down, Paul Bowles plots the doomed trajectory of Nelson Dyar, a New York bank teller who comes to Tangier in search of a different life and ends up giving in to his darkest impulses. Rich in descriptions of the corruption and decadence of the International Zone in the last days before Moroccan independence, Bowles's second novel is an alternately comic and horrific account of a descent into nihilism.

Paul Bowles (Author), Raphael Corkhill, Tom Zahner (Narrator)

Audiobook

Psychological Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror