Download Best Sellers Audiobooks in Fiction, Historical

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Title: Riders of the Purple Sage

Subtitle: The Restored Edition

Author: Zane Grey

Narrator: Mark Bramhall

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-06-10

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 205 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Now, for the first time in a century, Zane Greys best-known novel is presented in its original form exactly as he wrote it.

When in the early 1900s Zane Grey took his manuscript to two publishing companies, they rejected it because of the theme of Mormon polygamy, fearing it would offend their readers and subscribers. Then Grey made a special plea to Frederick Duneka, who was vice-president of Harper & Bros. and who had been Mark Twains editor at that company. Duneka and his wife read the novel and liked it but feared it would offend some readers. Harper & Bros. agreed to publish a changed version of the novel and purchased both the book and magazine-serial rights. Given the task of executing the necessary editorial changes, a senior editor of the company made changes in tone, diction, and style as well as content. The novel first appeared in nineteen installments in the monthly magazine Field & Stream from January 1912 to July 1913.

Blackstone Audio here presents the original, uncensored, unabridged novel Riders of the Purple Sage, obtained through the Golden West Literary Agency with the cooperation of Zane Greys son, Loren Grey, and the Ohio State Historical Society.

In Cottonwoods, Utah, in 1871, a woman stands accused and a man is sentenced to whipping. Into this travesty of small-town justice rides the one man whom the town elders fear. His name is Lassiter, and he is a notorious gunman who's come to avenge his sister's death. It doesn't take Lassiter long to see that this once peaceful Mormon community is controlled by the corrupt Deacon Tull, a powerful elder who's trying to take the woman's land by forcing her to marry him, branding her foreman as a dangerous 'outsider'. Lassiter vows to help them. But when the ranch is attacked by horse thieves, cattle rustlers, and a mysterious masked rider, he realizes that they're up against something bigger, and more brutal, than the land itself.

Critic Reviews:

Zane Grey epitomized the mythical West that should have beenThe standout among them is Riders of the Purple Sage. (

True West)

Poignant in its emotional qualities. (

New York Times)

A powerful work, exceedingly well written. (

Brooklyn Eagle)

Members Reviews:

Great book

It's getting harder and harder to find good books that aren't filled with foul language and sex. This is a good clean book. A little cheesy at times but give me cheesy over raunchy any day. Maybe I'm a minority as far as that goes but it's getting harder to find a book that I would recommend to my kids that are adults now.

Western classic of Mormons as the Bad guys.

What did you like best about Riders of the Purple Sage? What did you like least?

I enjoyed the story especially the discovery of the secret valley. I didn't care much for the dated treatment of women, however this book isn't as bad as some I have read.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

The ending was perfect and well worth waiting for.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Mark Bramhall has the perfect western twang to his voice.

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Title: Christy

Author: Catherine Marshall

Narrator: Kellie Martin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 19 hrs

Language: English

Release date: 06-22-10

Publisher: Oasis Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 614 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

In the year 1912, 19-year-old Christy Huddleston leaves home to teach school in the Smoky Mountains and comes to know and love the resilient people of the region, with their fierce pride, their dark superstitions, their terrible poverty, and their yearning for beauty and truth. But her faith will be severely challenged by trial and tragedy, by the needs and unique strengths of two remarkable young men, and by a heart torn between true love and unwavering devotion. And don't miss another heart-soaring best seller from Catherine Marshall: Julie.

Critic Reviews:

"First released in 1967,

Christy is based on the life of author Catherine Marshall's mother and was the inspiration for the recent television series of the same name. Beautifully told, this is a charming, timeless tale of love and faith that will appeal to romance readers of all ages." (Amazon.com review)

Members Reviews:

Christy

This is a wonderful story - based on Catherine Marshall's mothers life - you feel you are there in those mountains living life alongside Christy. I read the book many years ago and this audio of the story was excellent. Highly recommend it.

Great Listen

If you loved the TV series, you'll love the novel. Although the ending is very disappointing, which is the only reason I didn't give this five stars, the audiobook begins with a interview with the author's son that explains how the story is based on the true story of his grandmother. He also explains that the ending of the novel is not exactly based on the true story, but was changed to surprise the reader on purpose. Knowing that made it better. If the author had stuck to the her mother's true story, it would have made for a happier ending. Other than that, the story of Christy and her Mountain People is charming and entertaining. That fact that Kelly Martain reads it, who played Christy on the hit TV show, only makes it that much better. She get's the accents of the characters down so well, you feel like you are taken to the Mountains of Tennessee. Kelly's voice telling this story, really pulls at your heartstrings. It was worth the download!

One of the greatest books of all time!

What did you love best about Christy?

I have read this book about 4 times since I was a teenager. Now I'm in my fifties and I love it just as much as the first time I read it. Listening to the story is even better. You feel as if you are really there with Christy as she lived that time in her life. It is a very compassionate and loving story revealing the way of life in the appalachian mountains in the early 1900's. It is a very enjoyable and spiritual Christian story that takes you through many emotions as felt by Christy and the other individuals she meets in the story.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I love Christy for her youthfulness, excitement, vision, eagerness, vitality, innocence, and bravery.

Have you listened to any of Kellie Martins other performances before? How does this one compare?

Kellie Martin's narration of this book is terrific! I remember her when she played Christy on television and she played the role very believably. Her voice was very clear and it was very easy to follow the story and to distinguish the difference in each character.

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Title: The Invisible Bridge

Author: Julie Orringer

Narrator: Arthur Morey

Format: Unabridged

Length: 27 hrs and 51 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-04-10

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 627 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Julie Orringer's astonishing first novel, eagerly awaited since the publication of her heralded best-selling short-story collection, How to Breathe Underwater, is a grand love story set against the backdrop of Budapest and Paris, an epic tale of three brothers whose lives are ravaged by war, and the chronicle of one family's struggle against the forces that threaten to annihilate it.

Paris 1937. Andras Lvi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de Svign. As he falls into a complicated relationship with the letters recipient, he becomes privy to a secret history that will alter the course of his own life.

Meanwhile, as his elder brother takes up medical studies in Modena and their younger brother leaves school for the stage, Europe's unfolding tragedy sends each of their lives into terrifying uncertainty. At the end of Andrass second summer in Paris, all of Europe erupts in a cataclysm of war.

From the small Hungarian town of Konyr to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the lonely chill of Andrass room on the rue des coles to the deep and enduring connection he discovers on the rue de Svign, from the despair of Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in forced labor camps and beyond, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of a love tested by disaster, of brothers whose bonds cannot be broken, of a family shattered and remade in history's darkest hour, and of the dangerous power of art in a time of war.

Expertly crafted, magnificently written, emotionally haunting, and impossible to put down, The Invisible Bridge resoundingly confirms Julie Orringer's place as one of todays most vital and commanding young literary talents.

Critic Reviews:

"To bring an entire lost world....to vivid life between the covers of a novel is an accomplishment; to invest that world, and everyone who inhabits it, with a soul, as Julie Orringer does in The Invisible Bridge, takes something more like genius." (Michael Chabon)

Profound love, familial bonds and the deepest of human loyalties play out against the backdrop of unimaginable cruelty. . . . A stunning first novel. (Los Angeles Times)

One of the best books of the year. (Junot Diaz)

Members Reviews:

The Critics Got in Right

I'm usually sceptical when a book gets rave reviews from the professional critics, but this time they got it right. The Invisible Bridge is a phenomenal novel, quite old-fashioned, and devoid of literary gimmicks and clandestine intentions of the author to preach or moralize. In short, it is beautifully written in a classic prose style, through which Julie Orringer creates an atmosphere of both passion and gloom in an historical setting that, while generally well-known, focuses first on sinister pre-World War II Paris, and then moves to lesser known Hungary after WWII begins. Orringer creates characters with multiple frailties, like most people I know, but whose virtues are enough that ultimately I cared deeply about their fates. The short epilogue was as moving as anything I can remember reading. Call The Invisible Bridge a saga, an epic, a profoundly moving love story; take your pick.

For a long time, I hesitated to buy this book and changed my mind about the purchase several times after adding it to my wish list.

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Title: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Author: Seth Grahame-Smith

Narrator: Scott Holst

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-02-10

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 7794 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.

Members Reviews:

My friends thought I was crazy.

When I announced that I was listening to a story with the title, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," my friends looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Like them, I was skeptical at first but the sheer laugh factor of the title was enough to spark my curiosity.

Having finished the book I can happily say that this was one of the most interesting stories I've listened to in a long time. The mixture of fact and fiction is flawless, so much so that I found myself taking the story to heart in places. A worthy spin on an already extraordinary life, I highly recommend it.

Surprisingly entertaining.

I was intrigued by the title and didn't know what to expect, but I enjoyed this book very much. It was an entertaining mix of historical fact and vampire fiction. I also enjoyed Scott Holst's narration.

This is just a fun book, I highly recommend it.

Go For It!

It has taken me a long time to want to read this book. I thought it plain silly until I finally listened. Excellent merging of history with the fanciful ideas of vampires. Grahame-Smith paints a picture of a complex, thoughtful, reflective, strong man in Lincoln. The dry, straight-forward humor and dead pan delivery of Abe's one-liners were wonderful. Recommend for a fun listen.

Fascinating listen

It is a very well written book. I am not a history buff, but I ended up learning quiet a bit about Abraham Lincoln's life that book supposedly is very accurate (other than the vampire stuff). It would be a good way to get someone into history as well.

That aside, I found myself absorbed into the book, and I really felt for the characters. Use of language is also very enjoyable that one would believe that Abraham Lincoln would probably speak in such fashion.

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Title: The Lacuna

Author: Barbara Kingsolver

Narrator: Barbara Kingsolver

Format: Unabridged

Length: 19 hrs and 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-03-09

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1158 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Born in the United States, but reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers and, one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed muralist Diego Rivera. When he goes to work for Rivera, his wife, exotic artist Kahlo, and exiled leader Lev Trotsky, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution.

Meanwhile, the United States has embraced the internationalist goodwill of World War II. Back in the land of his birth, Shepherd seeks to remake himself in America's hopeful image and claim a voice of his own. But political winds continue to toss him between north and south in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach - the lacuna - between truth and public presumption.

Editorial Reviews:

Barbara Kingsolver's new novel of Mexico and the Cold War is centered on accidents of history: how things turn out, and how easily they could have turned out otherwise. Both Kingsolver and her narrator Harrison Shepherd, who is a writer himself, are interested in history not for the marquee names but for the ordinary people swept up in the momentum of events. The Lacuna is made up of Harrison's notes and correspondence, beginning with his arrival at age 12 to the hacienda of a Mexican oil magnate and continuing through a youth spent as a cook in the employ of a radical painter couple in Mexico City. It's the 1930s, and the couple is, of course, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, soon to be joined in their contentious household by Trotsky and his retinue.

Harrison watches these luminaries from the safety of the kitchen while they work, fight, and try to keep the most famous political exile in the world safe from Stalinist assassins. Kingsolver is an excellent narrator of her own story, differentiating the voices with artful touches that never seem cartoonish. Harrison is quiet and sharp, with a retiring diction nearly drowned out by strident Frida. Lev Trotsky is serious but avuncular, taking the time, despite his heavy intellectual labors, to encourage the literary aspirations of the young cook.

But this tense little world-in-exile can't last. As Frida tells Harrison again and again, the most important thing about a person is the thing you don't know. The Cold War is starting. Spies do a lot of damage, and fear of spies does more. By the time Harrison returns to the United States, an agoraphobic bundle of nerves, McCarthy is rising. No former cook for a Communist can escape the notice of Hoover's FBI. The Lacuna is an examination of history, both what of happened and of how we reconstruct it. Too often, Harrison muses, we take the scraps that come down to us for the whole, like looking at a skeleton and saying 'how quiet this man was, and how thin.' Harrison Shepherd, as a writer and obsessive keeper of diaries, does his best to keep flesh on the bones of the past. Kingsolver shows how impossible this undertaking is, and how important it is to try.

Members Reviews:

Great story!

Although I admire Kingsolver for her courage in reading her own book, this most excellent story could certainly have benefited from a professional reader.

Great Writers need Great Narrators

I love reading Barbara Kingsolver and think she is an exceptional talent and an interesting person. That said, I will probably resort to reading her in print.

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Title: Crossing to Safety

Author: Wallace Stegner

Narrator: Richard Poe

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-14-09

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 667 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

One of the finest American authors of the 20th century, Wallace Stegner compiled an impressive collection of accolades during his lifetime, including a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a National Book Award, and three O. Henry Awards. His final novel, Crossing to Safety is the quiet yet stirring tale of two couples that meet during the Great Depression and form a lifelong bond.

©2002 Wallace Earle Stegner; (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic Reviews:

"This is a wonderfully rich, warm, and affecting book." (Library Journal)

"It's deceptively simple: two bright young couples meet during the Depression and form an instant and lifelong friendship. "How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?" Larry Morgan, a successful novelist and the narrator of the story, poses that question many years after he and his wife, Sally, have befriended the vibrant, wealthy, and often troubled Sid and Charity Lang. "Where is the high life, the conspicuous waste, the violence, the kinky sex, the death wish?" It's not here. What is here is just as fascinating, just as compelling, as touching, and as tragic." (Amazon.com review)

Members Reviews:

Amazing Stegner and his beautiful last book

I adore Stegner. He develops characters and stories with depth better than anybody. This book is about two couples, Larry and Sally Morgan and Sid and Charity Lang. They meet as young couples in a college in Wisconsin, and the book follows their lives and relationships.

It is by twists and turns heart-warming and tragic. He shows the two sides of character that can be giving and demanding - so much like life. In this book, he digs into how life is complex, we get in our own way, but some people gloriously overcome illnesses or setbacks what would destroy others.

This was his last book, and makes me want to read much more that he has written.

This is life

There is a certain nakedness to Stegner's storytelling, in the sense that it doesn't shy away from uncomfortable subjects like death and troubled marriages. His characters are not always likeable, but they are very real and may even remind you of people you know. This is a book about the life of a friendship between two couples over many years. Stegner explores the joy and excitement of the young friendship, but he recognizes that friendships can die away to almost nothing for long periods of time, only to be reignited by a major event. Stegner's appeal (for me anyway) is in his ability to develop his characters as they age and deal with life's challenges -- as well as to describe their surroundings lovingly and vividly. This story is not predictable, nor does it offer any particular shocks or surprises. However, it is gut-wrenching in its honesty about human beings and the institutions of marriage and friendship.

A Tour de Force from a Master

What did you love best about Crossing to Safety?

It's a beautifully written novel, psychological and reflective, that follows a friendship between two couples over forty years. Richard Poe's reading is as close to perfect as it can be.

Slow but worth the time

Hmmm, how does one review a book like this? Its the story of two couples: their friendship, marriages, lives, treasured memories and hardships. I found the story a bit slow at times and occasionally disjointed. No huge rising plot. No language frills. No magnificently crafted scenery.

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Title: Shanghai Girls

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Lisa See

Narrator: Janet Song

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-26-09

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2030 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl's parents arrange for their daughters to marry "Gold Mountain men" who have come from Los Angeles to find brides.

But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel's Island (the Ellis Island of the West, where they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months) they feel the harsh reality of leaving home. And when May discovers she's pregnant, the situation becomes even more desperate. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know.

A novel about two sisters, two cultures, and the struggle to find a new life in America while bound to the old, Shanghai Girls is a fresh, fascinating adventure from beloved and best-selling author Lisa See.

Critic Reviews:

"A buoyant and lustrous paean to the bonds of sisterhood." (Booklist)

Members Reviews:

Touching, sad, and enjoyable

This is my first Lisa See book. Now normally I tend to stay away from sad books about the trials and tribulations of life, but this one was so rich in detail that I was wrapped up in the story before I realized it was sad -- by then it was too late to put the book down.

I loved her characters who grow as the story progresses. The story is beautiful, touching, and a complex portrait of different kinds of love -- between sisters, between parents and their children, between husband and wives, and the complex feelings they have of their native and adopted countries.

The prominent figures are two girls who grew up in Shanghai just before World War II, and how they came to be in America after their world fell apart. It is a story of how they suffered many hardships, as told from the viewpoint of the elder sister. As the story progresses, the contrast between the sisters grow. They have conflicts, but resolve them because they are sisters who love each other.

For those who are constantly burdened with family responsibilities, this story could almost be a fable, a lesson in how ones viewpoint or attitude could change and color how one perceives and reacts to life's little blessings.

I give this book a high rating because I learnt something about relationships, and it was enjoyable even though it was primarily a tale of hardships. The story was never tedious, and, in the end, I wish the story went further than it did.

Compelling historical fiction.

My introduction to this author was Snowflower and the Secret Fan, which I loved, and I think I enjoyed this one even better. The setting, 1937-1957, is an historical context that I am more familiar with, which may have made the main characters more relatable. Viewing the atrocities of the war years and the transition to the 1950's through the eyes of the Chinese immigrants offered a new perspective to the immigration experience and the communist witch hunts which has typically been told as a Russian Cold War. The ending obviously carries the story to a sequel, which I have already downloaded to continue the journey. I love Janet Song's reading - she brings the characters to life for me.

Great Listen!

I loved this book. I've read See's "Snow Flower" and "Peony in Love" and this is by far my favorite. It does appear that it is being set up for a sequel, so don't expect the story to have a real ending.

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Title: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Subtitle: Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!

Author: Seth Grahame-Smith, Jane Austen

Narrator: Katherine Kellgren

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-19-09

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3555 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem.

As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton - and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers - and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry?

Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to hear.

This Heirloom Edition of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies includes a new preface by the author, an afterword by Dr. Allen Grove, professor of English literature at Alfred University, and new scenes of gratuitous zombie mayhem.

Critic Reviews:

"[Seth Grahame-Smith] has taken the merry world established by a 19th-century literary lady, added a scourge of reanimated corpses, and created...well, a pop cultural phenomenon, certainly, and one that has stirred up a lot of excitement. But the greater achievement of the book may lie in the satisfying desire it awakens to read the remix and the original side by side." (Entertainment Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Why not just enjoy

It's hard to be comfortable with taking a book that you love and having it tampered with. BUT, I have to say that I enjoyed this audio book. It was nice to listen to the underlying great story and throwing in the zombie, ninja, heart-eating, and pus-popping sores was actually pretty funny. I thought the author did "just right" in not trying to re-write the story but really just mash it with a ridiculous idea. I laughed aloud at Katherine Kellgren's manner of reading Charlotte's part- it's hilarious.

Katherine Kellgren - Wow!

I've just finished this zombie version of "P&P", which I loved, and checked all the reviews and links for Katherine Kellgren at Audible. This is the first time I hunted for additional titles by narrator. It feels as though I'm late to discover her. I've never heard such a reader! Bright, precise, compelling torrents of speech delivered with awesome energy and conviction! She projects REAL feeling for Austen's language. In addition, Seth Grahame-Smith did fine work as well, to put the twist on the tale. I hope that other classic titles will receive this kind of clever makeover. I'll be waiting.

I loved it!

Listen to the Audible sample of this book and decide if it's for you. I am a professional over-50 woman not particularly fond of violence but I found this book laugh-out-loud hilarious! I thought the narrator did a wonderful job. The premise is so ridiculous that it becomes fascinating to see how the author weaves it in with the original classic story.

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Title: Bath Tangle

Author: Georgette Heyer

Narrator: Sian Phillips

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-14-09

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 646 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

The Earl of Spenborough has always been noted for his eccentricity. Leaving a widow younger than his own daughter Serena is one thing, but quite another is leaving Serena's fortune to the trusteeship of the Marquis of Rotherham -- a man whom Serena once jilted and who now has the power to give or withhold his consent to any marriage she might contemplate. When Serena and her lovely young stepmother Fanny decide to move to Bath, Serena makes an odd new friend and discovers an old love, Major Hector Kirkby. Before long, Serena, Fanny, Kirkby, and Rotherham are entangled in a welter of marriage and manners the like of which even Regency Bath has rarely seen.

Dashing, funny, romantic - a novel by one of our best-known and most beloved historical novelists who has captured a whole new generation's heart.

Critic Reviews:

"Lady Serena Carlow is an acknowledged beauty, but she's got a temper as fiery as her head of red hair. When her father dies unexpectedly, Serena discovers to her horror that she has been left a ward of Ivo Barrasford, marquis of Rotherham, a man whom Serena once jilted and who now has the power to give or withhold his consent to any marriage she might contemplate. With her father's heir eager to take over his inheritance--and Serena's lifelong home--she and her lovely young stepmother, Fanny, decide to move to Bath, where Serena makes an odd new friend and discovers an old love, Major Hector Kirkby. Before long, Serena, Fanny, Kirkby, and Rotherham are entangled in a welter of misunderstood emotions, mistaken engagements, and misdirected love." (Amazon.com review)

Members Reviews:

Sian Phillips is a delight!

Perhaps best known to American audiences as Livia in "I, Claudius," Sian Phillips has a very expressive voice that is a wonderful match for Heyer's prose--she can convey volumes in her reading of a syllable or two. This is a reading of exceptional wit and style.

This title would be an excellent introduction for anyone unfamiliar with Heyer's work. It contains fine examples of all of the critical elements: wonderful characters, sparkling dialogue, and an independently-minded heroine who is still very much a product of her time and place in society. Oh, and a rattling good love story!

One of Heyer's Best

This was the first purchase I ever made from Audible. When each of the last three books I've listened to turned out to be more sad and depressing than the one before, I decided I desperately needed something upbeat and to take no chances. I re-loaded "Bath Tangle" onto my Ipod and even though there are passages of this book I can recite from memory, I listened again and was not disappointed.

Lady Serena Carlow is the poised and headstrong only child of a politically powerful earl who, after many years of widowhood, suddenly decided to "take a bride out of the schoolroom," presumably in the last-ditch hope of "getting an heir." The book opens with the earl's funeral, as his sudden unexpected demise from "contracting a chill" followed hard on the heels of his marriage (and without the hoped-for heir).

Serena is left with a stepmother several years younger than she is who is her complete opposite in personality.

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Title: The Little Stranger

Author: Sarah Waters

Narrator: Simon Vance

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-08-09

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 675 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Sarah Waters's trilogy of Victorian novels Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, and Fingersmith earned her legions of fans around the world, a number of awards, and a reputation as one of today's most gifted historical novelists. With her most recent book, The Night Watch, Waters turned to the 1940s and delivered a tender and intricate novel of relationships that brought her the greatest success she has achieved so far.

With The Little Stranger, Waters revisits the fertile setting of Britain in the 1940s - and gives us a sinister tale of a haunted house, brimming with the rich atmosphere and psychological complexity that have become hallmarks of Waters's work.

The Little Stranger follows the strange adventures of Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. One dusty postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline - its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at 20 to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

Abundantly atmospheric and elegantly told, The Little Stranger is Sarah Waters's most thrilling and ambitious novel yet.

Critic Reviews:

"Waters has boldly reassigned all these gothic motifs [of the traditional ghost story] from their usual Freudian duties to another detail entirely: The Little Stranger is about class, and the unavoidable yet lamentable price paid when venerable social hierarchies begin to erode. Waters has managed to write a near-perfect gothic novel while at the same time confidently deploying the form into fresher territory." (Salon.com)

"[A] marvelous and truly spooky historical novel. As a strange spot on an old and mouldering ceiling takes on a sinister appearance and bodies begin to accumulate, Waterss precise and chilling prose lets Dr. Faraday have his way with the story." (Boston Globe)

"Waters (The Night Watch) reflects on the collapse of the British class system after WWII in a stunning haunted house tale whose ghosts are as horrifying as any in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House....Faraday, one of literature's more unreliable narrators, carries the reader swiftly along to the devastating conclusion." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Riding a local train

Listening to this book reminded me of riding a train with frequent local stops. No sooner do you seem to get moving when the train halts at a station. You sit there while people get on and off the train and thing happen at the station. Eventually the train gets underway again, but in no time pulls into another station. Fifteen hours later, at a station just like all the rest, the conductor announces, "End of the line; everybody off the train!" And there you are: surprised at the journey's end, because you really haven't gotten anywhere.