Audiobooks narrated by Karen Chilton

Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints: A Guide to Magical New Orleans

A magical mystery tour of the extraordinary historical characters that have defined the unique spiritual landscape of New Orleans New Orleans has long been America's most magical city, inhabited by a fascinating visible and invisible world, full of mysteries, known for its decadence and haunted by its spirits. If Salem, Massachusetts is famous for its persecution of witches, New Orleans is celebrated for its embrace of the magical, mystical, and paranormal. New Orleans is acclaimed for its witches, ghosts, and vampires. Because of its unique history, New Orleans is the historical stronghold of traditional African religions and spirituality in the US. No other city worldwide is as associated with Vodou as New Orleans. In her new book, author and scholar Denise Alvarado takes us on a magical tour of New Orleans. There is a mysterious spiritual underbelly hiding in plain sight in New Orleans, and in this book Alvarado shows us where it is and who the characters are. She tells where they come from and how they persist and manifest today. Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints shines a light on notable spirits and folk saints such as Papa Legba, Annie Christmas, Black Hawk, African American culture hero Jean St. Malo, St. Expedite, plague saint Roch, and, of course, the mother and father of New Orleans Voudou, Marie Laveau and Doctor John Montenée. Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints serves as a secret history of New Orleans, revealing details even locals may not know.

Denise Alvarado (Author), Karen Chilton (Narrator)

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Who Was Aretha Franklin?

There is only one QUEEN OF SOUL! Discover why Aretha Franklin garners so much R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Aretha Franklin was a musical and cultural icon whose legacy spanned six decades! Born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1942, Aretha got her start singing in front of her father's Baptist congregation and found minor success as a gospel singer. She then set her sights on becoming a pop music artist and used her powerful voice and impressive skills on the piano to get a record deal. Aretha released her first of many celebrated albums at the age of 18. In 1987, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, making her the first female artist to grace the prestigious list. With iconic hits such as 'Respect' and 'Think,' and countless awards to her name including eighteen Grammys, Aretha Franklin was one of the bestselling artists of all time.

Nico Medina (Author), Karen Chilton (Narrator)

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While I Have Your Attention: It’s Never Too Late for a New Beginning

This book is for every person who has experienced struggle and hardship, for every person who knew there was more out there than their own surroundings, for every person who dreamed and wanted more, and for every person who hoped to inspire others. In While I Have Your Attention, an updated memoir, Lucille shares her struggles, disappointments, memories, and proudest accomplishments. Lucille's remarkable life is the story of a woman who prevailed despite many setbacks and stereotypes. She explores her childhood, teenage pregnancy, marriage, parenthood, divorce, education, becoming a grandparent, and helping others get more out of life. Drawing from her own trials, victories, and second chances, Lucille is passionate about speaking words of encouragement to people of all ages. If you're trying to cultivate self-love, build your confidence, and learn more about your purpose, While I Have Your Attention will inspire you to remember that it's never too late for a new beginning.

Lucille O'neal (Author), Jeremy Michael Durm, Karen Chilton (Narrator)

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What You Don't See

Former cop Cass Raines knows the streets of Chicago all too well. Now shes a private investigator and getting an exclusive glimpse into how the other half livesand how they die Wealth. Power. Celebrity. Vonda Allens glossy vanity magazine has taken the Windy City by storm, and shes well on her way to building a one-woman media empire. Everybody adores her. Except the people who work for her. And the person whos sending her flowers with death threats As Vondas bodyguard, off-duty cop Ben Mickerson knows he could use some back-upand no one fits the bill better than his ex-partner on the police force, Cass Raines. Now a full-time private eye, Cass is reluctant to take the job. She isnt keen on playing babysitter to a celebrity whos rumored to be a heartless diva. But as a favor to Ben, she signs on. But when Vonda refuses to say why someone might be after her, and two of her staff turn up dead, Ben and Cass must battle an unknown assailant bent on getting to the great lady herself, before someone else dies. Cass finds out the hard way just how persistent a threat they face during the first stop on Vondas book tour. As fans clamor for her autograph, things take an ugly turn when a mysterious fan shows up with flowers and slashes Ben with a knife. While her ex-partners life hangs in the balance, Cass is left to find out what secrets Vonda is keeping, who might want her dead, and how she can bring Bens attacker to justice before enemies in the Chicago Police Department try to stop her in her tracks

Tracy Clark (Author), Karen Chilton (Narrator)

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Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer

She was born the 20th child in a family that had lived in the Mississippi Delta for generations, first as enslaved people and then as sharecroppers. She left school at 12 to pick cotton, as those before her had done, in a world where white supremacy was an unassailable citadel. She was subjected without her consent to an operation that deprived her of children. And she was denied the most basic of all rights in America-the right to cast a ballot-in a state in which Blacks constituted nearly half the population. And so Fannie Lou Hamer lifted up her voice. Starting in the early 1960s and until her death in 1977, she was an irresistible force, not merely joining the swelling wave of change brought by the Civil Rights movement but keeping it in motion. Working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which recruited her to help with voter-registration drives, Hamer became a community organizer, women's rights activist, and co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She summoned and used what she had against the citadel-her anger, her courage, her faith in the Bible, and her conviction that hearts could be won over and injustice overcome. She used her brutal beating at the hands of Mississippi police, an ordeal from which she never fully recovered, as the basis of a televised speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention, a speech that the mainstream party-including its standard-bearer, President Lyndon Johnson-tried to contain. But Fannie Lou Hamer would not be held back. For those whose lives she touched and transformed, for those who heard and followed her voice, she was the embodiment of protest, perseverance, and, most of all, the potential for revolutionary change. Kate Clifford Larson's biography of Fannie Lou Hamer is the most complete ever written, drawing on recently declassified sources on both Hamer and the Civil Rights movement, including unredacted FBI and Department of Justice files. It also uses interviews with Civil Rights activists conducted by the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, and Democratic National Committee archives, in addition to extensive conversations with Hamer's family and with those with whom she worked most closely. Stirring, immersive, and authoritative, Walk with Me does justice to Fannie Lou Hamer's life, capturing in full the spirit, and the voice, that led the fight for freedom and equality in America at its critical moment.

Kate Clifford Larson (Author), Karen Chilton (Narrator)

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Unseen City

In a city teeming with stories, how do lost souls find one another? It's a question Meg Rhys doesn't think she's asking. Meg is a self-identified spinster librarian, satisfied with living with her cat, stacks of books, and her dead sister's ghost in her New York City apartment. Then she becomes obsessed with an intriguing library patron and the haunted house he's trying to research. The house has its own story to tell too, of love and war, of racism's fallout and the ghost story that is gentrification, and of Brooklyn before it was Brooklyn. What follows is an exploration of what home is, how we live with loss, who belongs in the city and to whom the city belongs, and the possibilities and power of love.

Amy Shearn (Author), Karen Chilton, Kimberly M. Wetherell, Kimberly Wetherell (Narrator)

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Under A Dark Summer Sky

UNDER A DARK SUMMER SKY is set in Florida in 1935 in a small town struggling with the effects of the Depression, and at the time of the great hurricane. The racially charged narrative swirls around Missy, with her courageous dedication to duty, who works for the Kincaid family; Henry, a long absent WWI soldier who still loves Missy, the girl he left behind; Henry’s sister and Missy’s friend Selma with her no-nonsense approach to crises; and Sheriff Dwayne Campbell, whose duty is to protect Henry, but who has personal reasons for wanting Henry to suffer. From the tense opening chapter, this atmospheric story is beautifully constructed and seductive. Vanessa is a natural story-teller, who vividly evokes the landscape, climate, and the people sweating under the broiling Florida sun and the weight of past decisions. As they try to grasp at the small potential for happiness that may still exist for them, their lives are tested to the limit by the devastation of a hurricane. The novel is based on real historical events.

Vanessa Lafaye (Author), Karen Chilton (Narrator)

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The Voices of Martyrs

We are a collection of voices, the assembled history of the many voices that have spoken into our lives and shaped us. Voices of the past, voices of the present, and voices of the future. There is an African proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” which translates as “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” This is why we continue to remember the tales of struggle and tales of perseverance, even as we look to tales of hope. What a people choose to remember about its past, the stories they pass down, informs who they are and sets the boundaries of their identity. We remember the pain of our past to mourn, to heal, and to learn. Only in that way can we ensure the same mistakes are not repeated. The voices make up our stories. The stories make up who we are. A collected voice.

Maurice Broaddus (Author), Julian Elfer, Karen Chilton, Leon Nixon (Narrator)

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The Seaside Cafe

Set on breathtaking Coates Island, off the coast of North Carolina, bestselling author Rochelle Alers' new series debut brings together three book-loving women whose summer will offer a chance to rewrite their own stories . . . For three decades, the Seaside Cafe has served delicious meals to locals and island tourists alike. Kayana Johnson has moved home to help her brother run the cafe-and to nurse her wounds following a deep betrayal. Between cooking favorite recipes-creole chicken with buttermilk waffles, her grandmother's famous mac and cheese-and spending time reading, Kayana is trying to embrace a life free of entanglements, while staying open to new connections . . . After striking up conversation with two customers, Kayana suggests a summer book club. Each week, they'll meet on the patio to talk about their favorite novels. But there are plot twists awaiting them in real life too. For schoolteacher Leah, this two-month sojourn is the first taste of freedom she's had in her unhappy marriage. Cherie, filled with regret about her long-term affair with a married politician, discovers a powerful new passion. And Kayana finds a kindred spirit in a reclusive visitor who's ready to make his true identity known, and fill this summer with new possibilities . . .

Rochelle Alers (Author), Karen Chilton, Shari Peele (Narrator)

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The Rock Box!: A Who HQ Collection

A ten-audiobook collection dedicated to some of the most famous rock-and-roll artists of all time, from the creators of the #1 New York Times Best-Selling Who Was? series. Learn about the early lives and exciting careers of the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen, and Bono. The Rock Box celebrates the musicians who have made us sing along to their songs for decades. With an easy-to-listen-to narrative in each book, readers will enjoy discovering more about the history of the artists that shaped today's music.

Tba (Author), Adenrele Ojo, Daniel Henning, Dominic Hoffman, Fred Sanders, Karen Chilton, Kevin Pariseau, Macleod Andrews, Tatiana Grey, Will Damron (Narrator)

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The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth

A brilliant analysis of the foundations of racist policing in America: the day-to-day brutalities, largely hidden from public view, endured by Black youth growing up under constant police surveillance and the persistent threat of physical and psychological abuse Drawing upon twenty-five years of experience representing Black youth in Washington, D.C.'s juvenile courts, Kristin Henning confronts America's irrational, manufactured fears of these young people and makes a powerfully compelling case that the crisis in racist American policing begins with its relationship to Black children. Henning explains how discriminatory and aggressive policing has socialized a generation of Black teenagers to fear, resent, and resist the police, and she details the long-term consequences of racism that they experience at the hands of the police and their vigilante surrogates. She makes clear that unlike White youth, who are afforded the freedom to test boundaries, experiment with sex and drugs, and figure out who they are and who they want to be, Black youth are seen as a threat to White America and are denied healthy adolescent development. She examines the criminalization of Black adolescent play and sexuality, and of Black fashion, hair, and music. She limns the effects of police presence in schools and the depth of police-induced trauma in Black adolescents. Especially in the wake of the recent unprecedented, worldwide outrage at racial injustice and inequality, The Rage of Innocence is an essential book for our moment.

Kristin Henning (Author), Karen Chilton (Narrator)

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The Other Sister

When it turns out your life is built on a lie, how do you even start to find yourself? In this stunning follow-up to A House Divided, author Donna Hill reveals one woman's challenge to peel back the layers of her identity-and hopefully gain more than she's lost ... She's a brilliant Senate candidate, a tech mogul's loving wife, and mother to two precious daughters. As a member of one of the country's most prominent families, Kimberly Maitland grew up having it all-and fighting to help those who need help most. But when journalist Zoie Crawford revealed her family's best-hidden, most shattering secret, the media firestorm and personal fallout were beyond devastating ... Now Kimberly's campaign and reputation is in ruins. Her unforgiving husband is moving to break up their family for good. And with nowhere to go, Kimberly must take refuge with the family she never knew she had-and answer the hardest questions of her life. Who is she outside of her accomplishments and privilege? Will forging new, unexpected bonds give her the strength and courage to remake herself without losing everything else she loves?

Donna Hill (Author), Karen Chilton (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Karen Chilton