Cassandra Campbell offers a compelling saga that spans 25 years and eventually reveals carefully kept secrets. In the summer of 1932, on Cumberland Island, Georgia, an annual party is held at the Carnegie mansion. Present are families of the Gilded Age, including spoiled socialite Joanna Burton; her fiancé, Ellis Piedmont; and budding artist Cleo Woodbine. The three form an... Read More

Anyone can have a bad day, but Jenny's bad day is exceptional in this audiobook. Beth Eyre's sweet, lilting voice is ideal as she portrays the young, single mother whose hard-won, modest, and independent lifestyle is in jeopardy, thanks to a series of unfortunate developments. Eyre offers excellent pacing, and her comic timing suits Jenny well, especially in her conversations... Read More

Author, consultant, and TED speaker Karen Eber talks directly to the listener in an absorbing conversational style about how to find, compose, and deliver stories that resonate and influence. Eber's voice, tone, and pace are well matched to her messages. She draws on neuroscience, research, and experience to pinpoint what makes a great story, including how to incorporate but... Read More

Cassandra Campbell's performance immediately captures the imagination as she spins an enchanted tale of love, flowers, and passion. Rye, New York, 1893. Sadie Fremd has always loved the family's nursery business, but because she's a woman, her father won't consider putting her in charge. Sadie regrets that only the wealthy have the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of flowers, so... Read More

Joanna Gaines, interior designer and TV personality on HGTV's “Fixer Upper,” welcomes listeners into her life to hear what has helped her identify her true self, overcome hardships, and increase her ambition. Both comforting and supportive, Gaines recalls important experiences that influenced her to become the mother, wife, and business woman she is today. She talks to... Read More

This audiobook opens when three young nurses stationed in the Philippines become fast friends at the outset of U.S. involvement in WWII. Saskia Maarleveld captures the naïve optimism of Army nurse Penny, Navy nurse Eleanor, and Filipina nurse Lita in their early, glamorous days together in Manila. With the arrival of the Japanese army, the trio's tropical idyll turns to... Read More

The Argentinian native and former corporate attorney sounds knowledgeable and confident as she performs this historically detailed audiobook on the power of creativity. She studied art history, so the work is full of sparkling stories spanning 600 years about how painters and other artists developed their creativity and discovered fascinating ways to achieve commercial success.... Read More

Narrator Alexa Morden tells the story of a dysfunctional independent bookstore in the Washington, DC, area. Owner Sophie Bernstein abdicates her responsibilities as she grieves for her late husband and worries about anti-Semitic hate. She even wonders if she can retreat to a secret room in her bookstore when her events manager, Clemi, brings a highly controversial poet for a... Read More

Stand-up comedian Olivia Auerbach narrates this excellent business guide in a tone that is at once gentle and confident. Her soft vocal tone sounds out of sync at first with Kim Perell’s depth of experience and assertive writing. The author is a widely recognized superstar in the business world, a celebrity entrepreneur who also has been an outrageously successful mentor. But... Read More

Popular and prolific mommy blogger Naomi Davis, better known to many as Taza, narrates her own work about parenting, social media, and developing your identity online. Davis began a parenting blog in 2007 and soon found herself in the social media spotlight as an influencer. An attempt to reveal more of herself to her followers, this audiobook allows Davis to be herself without... Read More

In this excellent audiobook, storytelling expert Kindra Hall speaks to individuals whose inner stories or scripts are limiting how they live and what they strive for in their lives. She narrates with the energetic pacing of a confident business consultant who wants to be helpful. Her performance bonds listeners with her message that we can live more fulfilling lives once we... Read More

Narrator Rebecca Gibel delivers an exciting performance of this action-packed finale of the Twin Daggers series. War between the Magi and the Technocrats continues. Aissa desperately tries to convince the Magi that their spy has turned traitor. Instead, her relationship with the Technocrats’ prince convinces the Magi leader of her own treachery. Finding herself in exile, she... Read More

Emily Ellet’s spellbinding narration pairs perfectly with this young adult fantasy. Maren moves to Scotland to live with her grandparents after her mother dies. Mysteries unfold each day. First, her dreams turn ominous; then, she meets a strange hunter named Gavin who is actually an angel. It all comes to a head when Maren discovers that her parents worked for a secret... Read More

Fiona Hardingham showcases great range in her enchanting and touching narration. She enthusiastically portrays Megs Devonshire, a mathematics student at Oxford who sets out to ask C.S. Lewis about the inspiration behind Narnia for her little brother, George. Hardingham brings terminally ill George to life, engagingly imbuing him with childlike curiosity and excitement. She... Read More

Friendship expert Shasta Nelson has a wonderful palette of pitch and phrasing patterns that make her encyclopedic guide immensely engaging to hear. Her performance helps convince listeners that friendships at work offer many benefits. People with good friends at work are more likely to be happier with their lives, more engaged with their jobs, and more collaborative, creative,... Read More

Drawing on her twenty-year journey to become a mainstream clothing and accessory designer, Rebecca Minkoff shares lessons she learned in the tough New York City fashion world and beyond. Though her narration lacks the polish and attention to detail you would hear in a professional performance, it’s unlikely anyone else could deliver this inspiring business memoir with as much... Read More

Internet marketing guru and podcast superstar John Lee Dumas is the Energizer Bunny in this high-impact guide to entrepreneurial success and financial abundance. He speaks incredibly fast, but his advice is always understandable, his ideas enlightening and affirming. These are practical, energy-conserving ideas, delivered with humanity and tireless enthusiasm. Dumas wants... Read More

Narrator Chloe Dolandis keeps the tension high in this creepy YA thriller. Sia Gianopoulos has diving in her blood. After a charter dive goes wrong and the boat is wrecked by a monstrous creature, Sia washes up on an island with a handful of survivors and a lot of questions. Dolandis nails the pacing that is key to this type of story. The mystery plays out slowly enough to... Read More

Narrator Jennifer Araya’s heartfelt and determined performance will have listeners rooting for aspiring teenaged chef Isa as she joins an intense cooking competition in France. Araya has an ear for the various Spanish, French, and English accents of Isa’s international competitors and supportive family members. The competition is ruthless, but Araya keeps her performance... Read More

What do you get when you mash up the cult classics GROUNDHOG DAY and PRETTY IN PINK? A delightful and charming story narrated by Madison Lawrence. Meet Andie—an awkward teenage girl doomed to keep repeating the first day of her senior year. As the teen is caught in an endless loop, Lawrence slowly reveals Andie’s frustration and disappointment with high school cliques,... Read More

Narrator Lora Brown reads with little vocal modulation and creates scant difference in characters. In a world in which memories are a cunningly traded commodity and some citizens are "gifted" with an ability to retrieve and transfer them, 17-year-old Etta is an apparent enemy of Madame, the realm's brutal leader. Because power is derived from the use and abuse of memories,... Read More

Narrator Chloe Dolandis gracefully meets the challenge of delivering a story that unfolds in oral English, American Sign Language, and finger spelling. At 17, Maya has been profoundly deaf for only four years, so her observations and thoughts as this gentle teen romance develops from her viewpoint are in standard English. Mainstreamed for her last year of high school, Maya's... Read More

Author and narrator Zack Friedman gives spirited instruction on how to stop passively living a lemon life and start actively living a lemonade life. Friedman describes the lemonade life as one defined by success and never settling, living with purpose, and actively, happily, working to create a legacy. Using the word PRISM as an acronym for Perspective, Risk, Independence,... Read More

Accomplished businessman Tilman Fertitta, who hosts CNBC’s reality series “Billion Dollar Buyer,” employs his staccato baritone in this blunt primer on entrepreneurial leadership skills. Liberally dosed with braggadocio, his audio performance is consistently engaging. This overall tone in both content and narration is somewhat bold and coarse. Clearly, Fertitta is a no-nonsense... Read More

After Gabe Wicks’s strong voice delivers the brief forward, Public Radio storyteller and voice pro Jakob Lewis presents this accessible lesson with beguiling charm and comfortable authority. He’s a good fit to perform Josh Jalinski’s seductive writing, which sets up his advice as a contrarian alternative to the guidance people usually hear about retirement planning. As host of... Read More

Author-narrator Rachel Hollis pulls no punches with this manifesto in which she exhorts women to claim the lives that they've always wanted. She sounds direct, confident, and kind. Her warm, down-to-earth style makes this listening experience like having your best friend or a life coach as close as your pocket or earphones. In a friendly tone she lists the main reasons why... Read More

The dual narration of this story allows listeners to hear the perspectives of both of its main characters—a young, interned Japanese man and the girl who is appalled at his treatment by the U.S. government. Taichi Hamasaki and Evalina Cassano love each other despite two forces working against them: California’s laws against interracial marriage and growing anti-Japanese... Read More

Narrator Misty Wells speaks in the voice of Mia in this YA audiobook of loss, grief, and healing. Mia’s family is broken, and she doesn’t understand what broke it. Now she has a ruined face, her mother and sister are gone, and her father has brought her to spend the summer with her grandmother—whom she’s never met. Then he disappears. Wells’s delivery is fast, almost ignoring... Read More

Narrator Emily Sutton-Smith navigates the dual points of view of Ella and Alec in this tense thriller. Ella has a tragic past and synesthesia, a condition that allows her to see truth and lies in the auras surrounding most people. Alec is a notable exception. He has no visible aura, as Ella discovers when he turns up on her doorstep to say that her parents’ accidental deaths... Read More

This audiobook hurls listeners into the heart of a hurricane. Morgan Fairbanks narrates Sophie March’s struggle to survive a hurricane in her Outer Banks, North Carolina, home with help from her former crush, Finn. Sophie is no stranger to hard times; it hasn’t been long since the car accident that left her sister with brain damage and sent her guilt-racked father packing. Finn... Read More

With a poet’s passion, Kwame Alexander narrates his novel-in-verse about high school friends Noah and Walt. Alexander’s strong connection to his characters shines in his enthusiastic delivery and clear distinctions between the boys’ personalities. Noah, cautious and reserved, pines for a girl who sees him only as a pal; Walt, vibrant with jazz running through his veins, wants... Read More

Narrator Nora Hunter has the perfect voice for Emilie Day, the main character of this ultimately disappointing debut. She has the tone, pacing, and whiney delivery of this depressed, self-absorbed teenager, who is forced to leave her safe world of homeschooling and enter the world of high school. The chapters open with quotes from Emily Dickinson, the reclusive poet Emilie... Read More

This novel-in-verse, written by Kwame Alexander with Mary Rand Hess, sings with the despair, hope, and love that wash over 17-year-old Blade, a budding musician. Alexander’s affection for Blade is obvious through his narration. He wrings every drop of emotion from a poignant story of a teen who is missing his mother, who died years ago, and battling his father, a broken-down... Read More

Levi, an Australian 17-year-old, is sent to live with his father in Maine in the hope that the change of scene will jog him from a deep depression in the wake of his girlfriend’s death. Will Lasley narrates the story with aplomb, offering genuine emotional range in lieu of accents for the American and Australian teens. Levi's mutism, one manifestation of his depression, is... Read More

Launching his career as a reporter on the Beatles' first two tours of America, Larry Kane continued to follow the group throughout their career—as evidenced by the bonus DVD, on which Kane, looking every bit the "straight" sixties reporter, interviews a fully psychedelicized—and typically cheeky—John Lennon and Paul McCartney in 1968. Coming on the heels of Kane's previous... Read More

For a 21-year-old journalist in 1964, a chance to follow the Beatles on their ground-breaking first American tour was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Larry Kane was that journalist, and TICKET TO RIDE is his fascinating memoir of that tour, and the subsequent one in 1965. Read with an air of bemusement that befits Kane's current reputation as Philadelphia's most well-known TV... Read More