How To Get Audiobooks in Fiction, Contemporary Top Rated

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Title: Significant Others

Subtitle: Tales of the City, Book 5

Author: Armistead Maupin

Narrator: Cynthia Nixon

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-26-13

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 107 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Tranquility reigns in the ancient redwood forest until a women-only music festival sets up camp downriver from an all-male retreat for the ruling class. Among those entangled in the ensuing mayhem are a lovesick nurseryman, a panic-stricken philanderer, and the world's most beautiful fat woman. Significant Others is Armistead Maupin's cunningly observed meditation on marriage, friendship, and sexual nostalgia.

Members Reviews:

A joy to listen to

I effortlessly breezed thru this audio book in just a few days. Wonderful, tantalising characters, expertly brought to life by Cynthia Nixon and written so tangibly by Armistead Maupin. I was hooked by the storylines and couldn't wait to get thru each chapter.

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Title: A Book of Common Prayer

Author: Joan Didion

Narrator: Marisa Vitali

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-22-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Writing with the telegraphic swiftness and microscopic sensitivity that have made her one of our most distinguished journalists, Joan Didion creates a shimmering novel of innocence and evil.

A Book of Common Prayer is the story of two American women in the derelict Central American nation of Boca Grande. Grace Strasser-Mendana controls much of the country's wealth and knows virtually all of its secrets; Charlotte Douglas knows far too little. "Immaculate of history, innocent of politics," she has come to Boca Grande vaguely and vainly hoping to be reunited with her fugitive daughter. As imagined by Didion, her fate is at once utterly particular and fearfully emblematic of an age of conscienceless authority and unfathomable violence.

Critic Reviews:

"An articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice." (Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review)

"A novelist with important things to say about the dislocations of our time.... Joan Didion is stellar." (Newsday)

Members Reviews:

Strong tale badly told

This narrator reads Charlotte Douglas' voice like a child's, and she is not a child. Think how much more mysterious she would be if allowed to sound like the strong, sensual, grownup, maternal character she is.

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Title: An Imaginative Experience

Author: Mary Wesley

Narrator: Samuel West

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-01-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 15 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

A traveller on a train returning to London smells the burn of brakes as it hisses to a stop in the middle of the countryside. He sees a white-faced woman leap from the train and race to the aid of a sheep stranded on its back, unable to rise, in a field. Righting it, she turns, and he sees her face is full of tragedy. Considering tragedies of his own, he does not intrude, but the image lodges in his mind: a strange but familiar despair, unable, despite itself, to ignore the desperation it recognises in others.

From these seeds Mary Wesley draws out a plot of an unforgettable impact: of loss, of release, of a necessarily comic acceptance of fate, of love - the 'imaginative experience'. Rich in character and wit, and powerfully moving, this is a novel of the heart's pain and deliverance.

Members Reviews:

Great Characters, Wonderful Reader

This was a bit of fluff--in the best possible way. I'm at a stressful point at work and needed something fairly light (although it does have a vein of tragedy running through it). It begins when a young woman pulls the emergency brake on a train--something passenger Sylvester Wykes admits that he's always wanted to do but never had the guts. The reason Julia Piper pulled the brake? To help a sheep she had seen from her window who was stuck on its back. When they all disembark at the next station, Sylvester sees her again, mildly curious, but Maurice Benson takes a more stalkerish mode, determined to find out everything he can about her.

Wesley has created a group of intriguing characters not only in Julia, Sylvester, and Maurice, but in the secondary characters as well. There's Sylvester's soon-to-be ex-wife, Celia, who ran off with another man, denuding the house in the process; even things that had been handed down from his father were gone, as well as the teakettle he had just purchased to replace the one she had just taken. Rebecca, Sylvester's domineering former secretary, can't help herself from frequently popping in with attempts to take charge. It's great fun to see how the mild-mannered Sylvester gradually learns how to manage her. Much of the story centers around the shop on the corner, run by the agreeable Mr. Patel. Julia befriends his wife, despite her inability to speak English, and becomes close to the Patel's two little boys. Her mother, Clodagh, is the epitome of a horrible mother, for various reasons preferring her son-in-law to her own daughter. And there's a dog in the mix--a 'lurcher' eventually named Joyful.

In some ways, as one reviewer states, this is a pretty typical love story. But it's one with a little surprise around every corner. It has been a long time since I've read a Mary Wesley novel, and this one remionded me of how much I've enjoyed her others. I only wish that Audible would carry more unabridged editions. This one was read by Samuel West, who is my all-time favorite reader.

Excellent Writer, Excellent Narrator

Where does An Imaginative Experience rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

It is among the best.

Any additional comments?

Mary Wesley is such a good writer; it's a shame that this is the only one of her novels that Audible has in an unabridged version.

Lightly entertaining and inconsequential

Any additional comments?

It reminds me a little of the film Sleepless in Seattle: lightly entertaining and inconsequential.

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Title: Chai Tea Sunday

Author: Heather A. Clark

Narrator: Robin Miles

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-01-13

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Critics and audiences alike have hailed Heather A. Clarks Chai Tea Sunday as a rich and powerful debut novel. Here, 30-something Nicky Fowler tries to pick up the pieces of her shattered marriage after it is destroyed in the wake of an unspeakable tragedy. Traveling to Kenya to volunteer at an orphanage, Nicky hopes that her fragile spirit can be repaired. Aided by chai-fueled conversations with her host mother, she develops the strength to put her life back on track.

Critic Reviews:

A refreshing and enjoyable read. (Waterloo Record)

Members Reviews:

From Canada to Kenya

I listened to the audio version of the book, and I enjoyed both the narration and the story. The story starts in Canada and then the story moves to Kenya. I read somewhere that the author had never been to Kenya, but you wouldn't know that by the realistic descriptions of Kenya and the culture. I was interested to hear about life in Kenya, and the stories of Nicole and Eric and the orphanage were well done. This book held my attention throughout.

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Title: The Dhamma Man

Author: Vilas Sarang

Narrator: Samrat Charabarti

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-20-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Siddharth Gautam, prince of Kapilavastu and heir to the throne, has everything. Yet he is dissatisfied. The fundamental problem of suffering, dukkha, bothers him. He leaves home, renouncing crown and family, and becomes a wandering seeker. Siddharth finds gurus to guide him, practices extreme asceticism at one point nearly starving himself to death and then rejects everything, for the knowledge he seeks constantly eludes him. He then meditates, and one epiphanic night, enlightenment comes to him, the startling insight into the human condition which makes him the Buddha. The Dhamma Man explores, sensitively and with great objectivity, Buddha as man as son, husband and father. And even as Sarang tries to understand the effect Siddharth's renunciation of the world had on his family, he celebrates Buddha, who not only launched a religion but has continued relevance today, more than two millennia after his death. Richly imagined and refreshingly original, The Dhamma Man is a whole new way to read the story of Buddha.

Members Reviews:

Buddha's tale

This book gave me a brief insight into a religion born in India, but who's tenets I barely knew. It certainly has made me curious to learn more about the Buddhist. Even more impressive is the author who barely comes in the way of the tale: Sarang depicts Buddha in a very humanistic form with clarity. Very refreshing!

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Title: No Way Out

Subtitle: A Jack Davis Thriller, Book 3

Author: Joel Goldman

Narrator: Kevin Foley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-26-12

Publisher: Joel Goldman

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 67 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Meeting ex-FBI agent Jack Davis in the middle of a shootout is the best thing that could have happened to Vivien Chase. But Jack has no idea how deep - and how deadly - his involvement with the mysterious young bookkeeper will get. The pretty accountant may be able to pull a trigger as well as she manipulates a spreadsheet, but her talents may add up to zero if a killer gets their way. As Jack follows Vivien into a lethal web of deceit, years in the making, the only thing that might save them - time - is running out...

Members Reviews:

Superb action thriller!

Jack Davis is a man with problems! Both of his children have died violently. His ex-wife Joy is dying of cancer, she has moved back in and he is caring for her. His love interest has moved from Kansas City to San Diego. He has lost his job of 26 years with the FBI due to his health issue. His health issue, for which no cause has been found and no treatment available, is random, frequent, and debilitating whole body tremors which are like grand mal seizures.

At age 53 Jack has just formed an investigations agency with a female ex-cop 20 years his junior who cannot carry a gun because she is also an ex-felon who stole some diamonds at a crime scene.

This is the third and final novel in the superb Jack Davis series. Jack takes on his toughest case yet.

Most of the dialog in the novel is first person with each character speaking with little "he said" or "she said". Nick Foley, the narrator, handles all of the voices with incredible aplomb. Foley is very, very good.

Way complicated

Impossible to follow. Book does a lot of recapping because without it you'd be completely lost

Not sorry to see this series end

I think Joel Goldman is a good writer, and I really like Jack Davis as a character, but there are several reasons why I think it is a good move to end this series. 1--Jack's disability has escalated to the point that he seems to be constantly putting himself and others in danger. The descriptions of his shaking episodes become tedious after a while. I can't think that a responsible ex-FBI agent would take the risks that he does. 2--Even though there were so many characters and twists in the multiple branches of the plot, I could see the end coming a mile away, and it made me lose respect for Jack because he was so blindly trusting. 3--I know Jack's history is tragic, but the amount of loss he has suffered is just beyond the pale. This goes back to the second book, wherein we find out that Wendy has died, "off screen" so to speak, and that Jack had literally stumbled over her in NYC moments before she expired. I would have liked it so much better if she could have been spared and figured in as sort of a shadow character who mysteriously contacted her dad once in a while. 4--I didn't see the point of Joy's story line, other than to beat the reader over the head with the idea that Jack's life is tragic.

As much as I enjoy the KC/eastern Kansas setting, if this weren't the last of the Jack Davis series, I doubt that I would read the next one.

The narrator is excellent.

Didn't engage me

I have never been a fan of wimpy heros. The story never even had any "thrill" moments.

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Title: A Desperate Place for Dying

Subtitle: A Garrison Gage Mystery

Author: Jack Nolte, Scott William Carter

Narrator: Steven Roy Grimsley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-18-12

Publisher: Flying Raven Press

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 63 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

An old flame.

A killer on the loose.

A crazy cult on the rise.

Nearly a year has passed since Garrison Gage became the reluctant guardian of a troubled teenage girl, but neither fatherhood nor the intervening months have improved his mood. His right knee is still mostly worthless. He still prefers to drink his bourbon alone. And even with a certain blonde bombshell a persistent part of his life, he still can't be bothered to buy a cell phone. Or any phone, for that matter. Why? Then somebody might call him.

But grumpy as Gage can be, he still finds that life on the Oregon Coast has settled into a comfortable if not happy routine - until the man who murdered his wife shows up in town.

That's just for starters. A desperate plea from an old flame - his first love, in fact - soon entangles Gage in a high profile case involving a famous and brazenly outspoken lecturer on evolution and atheism, a crazy fundamentalist cult that uses all means necessary to silence its critics, and a brutal local murder of a far more personal nature.

Before the mystery can be unraveled, Gage's abilities and beliefs will be put to the ultimate test. And the man who claims he doesn't need anyone will discover he may just lose everything.

Members Reviews:

A hard boiled romp

Once again, Garrison Gage tells the world to get off his Pacific coast lawn, but it declines. The story has its ups and downs, but will strike the right note with the folks that like this kind of character.

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC

I love this series. It gets better and better. Good narration/performance. Totally kept my interest. Glad I found this author.

Love this series!!

Garrison Gage is my new favorite detective! So different from all the rest. I hope the books keep coming. And the man who reads it is fantastic!

Haunting

There is something haunting and unforgettable about these stories. I read the first one, got the 2nd and waited. I kept thinking about this series and these people so I had to get the 3rd. These stories speak to you in the style of an old detective story set in modern times. The main character is broken and he realizes it but somehow he manages to strengthen the other broken people around him. All while solving cases. If you loved the old detective shows, you will love these books.

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Title: Deadly, Unna?

Author: Phillip Gwynne

Narrator: Stig Wemyss

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-14-12

Publisher: Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 8 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

"Deadly, unna?" He was always saying that. All the Nungas did, but Dumby more than any of them. Dumby Red and Blacky don't have a lot in common. Dumby's the star of the footy team, he's got a killer smile and the knack with girls, and he's a Nunga. Blacky's a gutless wonder, needs braces, never knows what to say, and he's white. But they're friends...and it could be deadly, unna?

This gutsy novel, set in a small coastal town in South Australia is a rites-of-passage story about two boys confronting the depth of racism that exists all around them.

Members Reviews:

massively fun for cross-country drive

this was our first audiobook, chosen from a trusted recommendation. it really hot the jackpot as a far healthier way to pass drive time with an early teen

Makes Aboriginal Australia Accessible to All.

While the plot is rich in themes and insight into the relationship between mainstream Australian society and Australian Indigenos culture, the plot was too slow for my liking. it would be well suited to a young male teen audience, and especially if they have an interest in Australian Football (AFL) or sports in general. From the sample, I wasn't expecting the performance to be good, however the narrator really performed well aside from two characters who were not audibly distinguishable.

Tells it like it is

One of the most heartfelt and real books about growing up you will ever listen to.

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Title: Cleopatras Sister

Author: Penelope Lively

Narrator: Wanda McCaddon

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 1 min

Language: English

Release date: 09-11-12

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 22 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Paleontologist Howard Beamish is flying to Nairobi when his plane is forced to land in Callimbia. Journalist Lucy Faulkner, on assignment to write a travel piece for a Sunday magazine, is on the same flight. What happens to Howard and Lucy in Callimbia is one of those accidents that determine fate, that bring love and take away joy, and that reveal the precariousness of our existence.

With intelligence, grace, and gentle irony, Penelope Lively illuminates the age-old dance of myth and reality in a novel sparkling with wit, humor, and keen insight into the storytelling faculty of the human mind.

Critic Reviews:

Written with grace and clarity, and luminous with insights about the human condition, [this novel] is as timely as the evening news and as eternal as the most classic love storyAgainst all the conventions of contemporary fiction, Lucy and Howards mature romance is fresh and convincing. (Publishers Weekly)

Lively handles her story with skill, grace, and invigorating charm; with an economy of words, the terror of the hostages is made palpable. Highly recommended. (Library Journal)

Amusing in the urbane British way, satiric without ever testing the limits of credibility, larkish but not fluffyin short, more of the Lively right stuff. (Kirkus Reviews)

Members Reviews:

An excellent reading of a difficult book

This book has several stories and multiple themes being developed simultaneously, yet Wanda McCaddon reads it so well that all is clear and one is compelled to keep listening. I hope Audible will increase its catalogue of books like this.

A great story

I always find Penelope Lively's books are slow to start while she builds out the characters and their backgrounds. But once they start coming together, the story takes off and becomes a really great read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and the narrator did a good job too.

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Title: The Choir

Author: Joanna Trollope

Narrator: Wanda McCaddon

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-06-12

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 14 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

In the gentle world of one of Englands beautiful old cathedral towns, crisis looms: Funds are short, and the cathedral is in need of major repair. One faction of the community argues that the obvious solution is to abolish the expensive, and nowadays rather irrelevant, boys choir. But of course, there are those who disagree: the choir schools headmaster, a conscientious scholar somewhat out of his depth with his elusive, poetical wife; the cathedral organist and choirmaster, brilliant, wayward, and in love with the lead choristers married mother; the former lead chorister, now twenty-three and directionless, who haunts his old school looking for a sense of purpose; and the gentle, left-wing bishop, trying to soothe the angry protagonists. Their stories are marvelously woven into this enchanting story of modern life in old-world England.

Critic Reviews:

"A modern Barchester Chronicle." (Sunday Telegraph)

"[Trollope is] one of the most interesting writers to have emerged in the past few years." (Daily Mail)

"As in the music that pervades the plot of Trollopes absorbing novel, contrapuntal technique results in a brilliant composition. Sacred music, the perfect treble of pre-pubescent boys and delicious deadpan understatement create a uniquely rich soundtrack on the pages of this beautifully crafted tale." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Engaging and absorbing story full of richly-drawn characters

A glimpse into the lives of the people surrounding an English Cathedral boys' choir, full of unexpected intrigue and characters working at once for the benefit of cathedral and town, but also driven by their own less noble needs and satisfaction.

Superb narration.