Simply The Best Audiobooks in Fiction, Contemporary to Listen Online

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Title: The Good Lieutenant

Author: Whitney Terrell

Narrator: Jeffrey Kafer

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-07-16

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

The Good Lieutenant literally starts with a bang as an operation led by Lieutenant Emma Fowler of the Twenty-Seventh Infantry Battalion goes spectacularly wrong. Men are dead - one, a young Iraqi, by her hand. Others were soldiers in her platoon. And the signals officer, Dixon Pulowski. Pulowski is another story entirely - Fowler and Pulowski had been lovers since they met at Fort Riley in Kansas.

From this conflagration, The Good Lieutenant unspools backward in time as Fowler and her platoon are guided into disaster by suspicious informants and questionable intelligence, their very mission the result of a previous snafu in which a soldier had been kidnapped by insurgents. And then even further back, before things began to go so wrong, we see the backstory unfold from points of view that usually are not shown in war coverage - a female frontline officer, for one, but also jaded career soldiers and Iraqis both innocent and not so innocent. Ultimately, as all these stories unravel, what is revealed is what happens when good intentions destroy, experience distorts, and survival becomes everything.

Brilliantly told and expertly captured by a terrific writer at the top of his form, Whitney Terrell's The Good Lieutenant is a gripping, insightful, necessary novel about a war that is proving to be the defining tragedy of our time.

Members Reviews:

Avoid this narrator and this book

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

A very good narrator could have made this an okay listening experience, but the story was very hard to follow because of the way it was told. It begins with the climax to the story and then fills in on relationships and characterizations with stories of what happened in the past. These stories are not told in an order that I could understand, but maybe it was that the narrator was so bad, I couldn't/wouldn't/didn't pay close attention.

What could Whitney Terrell have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Tell the story in order of the events as they happened.

Would you be willing to try another one of Jeffrey Kafers performances?

NO!

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Title: Stop the Car

Author: Mark McNease

Narrator: Braden Wright

Format: Unabridged

Length: 33 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-03-16

Publisher: MadeMark Publishing

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 15 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

The year is 1977. Three teenagers drive along an Indiana back road, heading home away from the highway, away from prying eyes and traffic cops. One behind the driver's wheel, two in the back seat sampling the merchandise that could get them all jailed. And then, as the car careens beneath a black sky lit only by a million stars, they see it. Something in the sky, something large and close and beckoning with its strangeness.

The boys demand they stop the car. The driver refuses, terrified of what might happen if she listens to them. Whatever it is they see makes the decision for them and stops the car in its tracks. What happens next to them could be real or imagined, but it will never be forgotten.

Members Reviews:

Enjoy the Trip!

Whether or not you believe the main characters account of things, you will enjoy the trip. This short fist-person psychological/sci-fi piece by Mark McNease follows the experience of a small crew of interesting characters whose counterbalancing exchanges push the storys forward moving momentum. I loved the narratives casual but clever conversational feel: Granville Indiana isn't the center of anything but itself It's got a couple of malls that killed the downtown when"

McNease delivers with surprises that are elegantly placed, and with an ending that left me wondering, but in a satisfied way. Because this piece was so nicely done, I am now interested in exploring McNeases Kyle Callahan Mysteries, which are novel length works.

Narrator Braden Wright stole an already unstoppable show. Better put, he owned it. Braden reads the story as if he wrote it himself Correction- as if he LIVED it himself. His ability to combine outstanding articulation with a laid-back, Its just the two of us here personalization is remarkable.

This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks AudioBlast.

Riveting

What made the experience of listening to Stop the Car the most enjoyable?

The build up of tension, the perfect pitch and perfect pace.

What did you like best about this story?

The blend of pathos and mystery, of the ordinary and the extraordinary.

What about Braden Wrights performance did you like?

His obvious connection with the subject matter.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Absolutely.

Any additional comments?

I am a writer. When I listen to a story I hear when sentences falter and when they triumph. There were no false notes in this story, just beautiful, evocative writing. Listening to "Stop the Car" made me want to pick up my pen and start writing, to take part in the magic of creation. Bravo, Mark. I loved it.

Deja vu

The story is eerily familiar. I, too, attended college in Indiana in 1977, did drugs, and wondered what that point in life, the future, why we are here in a bigger sense was all about. Thanx for helping me reflect on those days and those thoughts that were and will always be a part of me. Very nice short story!

Teenagers don't change

Reminds me of the kind of short story published in the New Yorker. It kind of rambles along like life at 19, the most memorable of which is spotting an alien ship amidst the farmland and losing three hours of life.

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Titre: Les mots du passé

Auteur: Jean-Michel Denis

Narrateur: Bernard Gabay

Format: Unabridged

Durée: 21 hrs and 41 mins

Langue: Français

Date de publication: 05-05-16

Éditeur: Audible Studios

Evaluation: 4.5 sur 5 sur 14 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Résumé de l'éditeur:

Été 2003, une terrible canicule assèche la France. Louis et son fils s'apprêtent à prendre la mer au large de La Charente afin de trouver un peu de fraîcheur. Soudain, un coup de téléphone les oblige à faire demi-tour. C'est Pierre, le père de Louis. Cet homme discret, voire effacé habituellement, éprouve soudain un besoin capital de parler à son fils. Pierre et Louis vont alors remonter le temps jusqu'aux années sombres de l'Occupation à Paris, ce qui aura des conséquences totalement inattendues et bouleversantes...

>> Ce livre audio en version intégrale vous est proposé en exclusivité par Audible et est uniquement disponible en téléchargement.

©2012 Les Nouveaux Auteurs (P)2016 Audible FR

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Title: Girls on Fire

Author: Robin Wasserman

Narrator: Vanessa Labrie, Lauren Saunders

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-05-16

Publisher: Hachette Audio UK

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

This is not a cautionary tale about too much - or the wrong kind of - f**king. This is not a story of bad things happening to bad girls. I say this because I know you, Dex, and I know how you think. I'm going to tell you a story, and this time it will be the truth.

Hannah Dexter is a nobody, ridiculed at school by golden girl Nikki Drummond and bored at home. But in their junior year of high school, Nikki's boyfriend walks into the woods and shoots himself.

In the wake of the suicide, Hannah finds herself befriending new girl Lacey, and soon the pair are inseparable, bonded by their shared hatred of Nikki. Lacey transforms good girl Hannah into Dex, a Doc Marten and Kurt Cobain fan who is up for any challenge Lacey throws at her.

The two girls bring their combined wills to bear on the community in which they live; unconcerned by the mounting discomfort that their lust for chaos and rebellion causes the inhabitants of their parochial small town, they think they are invulnerable. But Lacey has a secret about life before her better half, and it's a secret that will change everything....

Starting - and ending - with tragedy, Girls on Fire stands alongside The Virgin Suicides in its brilliant portrayal of female adolescence but with a power and assurance all its own.

Critic Reviews:

"Like lightning in a bottle, Robin Wasserman's Girls on Fire captures girlhood friendship in all its shattering intensity. Seldom do you find a novel that so transports you to the dark, febrile terrain of adolescence, when intimacy and connection can turn on a dime to something far more dangerous. A captivating, terrifying novel, and one you won't forget." (Megan Abbott)

"Girls on Fire is a dark, propulsive fever-dream of youth and friendship - a piercing vision of what it means to mistake yourself for who you are in someone else's eyes. I wanted to grab these girls and shake them, sing them lullabies, stop them - but all I could do was keep reading them, relentlessly enthralled by the heat-seeking missile of Robin Wasserman's fearless imagination." (Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams)

Members Reviews:

More teenage wasteland than thriller

It's not that it wasn't competently written--clearly this author is skilled. But the book was barely finishable for me. It felt like it didn't know what it wanted to be: a book about teenage girls in high school, but not in the YA category so it could actually reflect modern adolescence (ie. sex and drugs), or was it a thriller? It wasn't that the parts weren't competently done, it's just that they didn't mesh well. The teenage wasteland parts (as I call the parts that were mostly about the friendship between girls) was well done, though I didn't expect that was what I was reading, and frankly, if that was the book, it could have been half this length.

If it's a thriller, it was very much NOT thrilling, and needed way more hints that it was going that way early on--by the time we got to the real plot of what happened to the guy who died in the beginning of the book, I'd forgotten that was what the book was about, and then the book careened into implausible action after implausible action.

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Title: As Close as Sisters

Author: Colleen Faulkner

Narrator: Angela Dawe, Emily Durante, Julie McKay, Nicole Poole

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-16-16

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Since the age of 12, McKenzie Arnold has spent every summer at Albany Beach, Delaware, with her best friends, Aurora, Janine, and Lilly. The seaside house teems with 30 years of memories - some wonderful, others painful - and secrets never divulged beyond its walls. This summer may be the last they spend together, as Janine contemplates selling her family cottage.

For now, all four enjoy morning beach walks and lazy evenings on the porch, celebrating Lilly's longed-for pregnancy and offering support during McKenzie's greatest crisis. It's a time for laughter and recriminations, a time to forge a new understanding of a long-ago night when Aurora sealed their bond with one devastating act. And as the days gradually shorten, events will unfold in ways that none of them could have predicted, to make this the most momentous summer of all.

Critic Reviews:

"[R]eaders will savor it until the very last page." (RT Book Reviews)

Members Reviews:

By far one of my favorite books.

What made the experience of listening to As Close as Sisters the most enjoyable?

This book was so easy flowing. Even though it jumped around from past to present, you were never confused. It was written very well. I enjoyed this book because of the way it was written and the narrators are wonderful.

What did you like best about this story?

The story itself is something a lot of us women in life all go through in someway or another with our friends. Maybe not in the same story line, but I believe we all have similar friends. We have friends, that are all so different than us, but we are all so close and we need each other in our life's so much.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldnt experience if you just read the book?

I believe the narrators make the story come to life. If reading the book rather than listing to it, it just would not have been the same experience.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This book made me laugh and made me cry.

Any additional comments?

I recommend this book to everyone out there.

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Title: The Sweet Smell of Psychosis

Subtitle: A Novella

Author: Will Self

Narrator: John Lee

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-15-16

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

A brief and brilliant satire of magazine hacks and fashionistas, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis shows Will Self - a writer hailed by Time as "brilliant, iconoclastic...one of Britain's most original young writers" - at the top of his form.

It looks like it's going to be quite a Christmas for Richard Hermes, powdered with cocaine and whining with the white noise of urban derangement. Not so much enfolded as trapped in the bosom of the most venal media clique in London, Richard is losing it on all fronts: He's losing his heart to Ursula Bentley, a nubile and vacuous magazine columnist; he's in danger of losing his job at the pretentious listings magazine Rendezvous; he's losing his mind courtesy of Colombia's chief illegal export; and, worst of all, he's losing his soul...to the king of all media and sinister purveyor of opportunities - sexual, chemical, and professional - known only as Bell.

Murky, paranoid, and hilarious, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis is Will Self at his best.

Members Reviews:

the beautiful ugly people

Self and Rowson make a pungent pair - both left wing, media London establishment jesters as writer and cartoonist respectively, they team up in this short novella to paint a verbal and visual zeitgeist crusher of a book. The story is a simple one, not a bit of it cannot be found in some other tale or parable somewhere: naive, northern boy leaves his miserable life in the north with his 'girlfriend tending towards parturition, and small flat that would have required partition' to try and make it in the cocaine blasted world of media London as journalist for Rendezvous - one of those listings magazines that claims to surf the very tip of the cultural wave with weekly listings for tedious avant-garde cultural events.

Richard, our hero, finds himself drowning in a sea of drugs and superficiality. His nemesis, Bell, is a modern media baron - a promiscuous womaniser and hairsuite sex god. Mixing excessive substance abuse with paranoid affection for Ursula Bentley - a sort of twenties decadent siren reconstructed afloat on the pillow of narcotics in 90s central London, Richard finds his crush on the flighty Ursula growing with his cocaine fuelled paranoia about seeing Bell's face everywhere he goes. Richard has the nub of goodness within him, bless him. His wish is to make a genuine connection with Ursula, lift her and her tedious sex column out of this ephemeral dirge of media London to a married life of meaning and permanence. Ursula merely ruffles his hair and calls him 'sweet'. The twin poles, and scents of Ursula's perfume 'Jicki' and Richard's psychosis - entwine and grow as the novella roars to a swift and surreal denoument.

So the story is basically a bog standard modern parable of values being important than drugs, beautiful people and glamour blah blah. But the style - Self's amphetiminic and thesauras powered prose and Rowson's Hogarthian grotesque cartoons is to be savoured.

scathing

This joyfully venomous novella, whose title invokes the excellent Burt Lancaster/Tony Curtis film Sweet Smell of Success (1957), is ostensibly intended to satirize the sorts of tabloid hack journalists who had enjoyed themselves so thoroughly at the expense of Martin Amis, Will Self's literary godfather, several years ago.

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Title: Hope Farm

Author: Peggy Frew

Narrator: Ailsa Piper, Taylor Owynns

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-04-16

Publisher: Wavesound Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 8 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

It is the winter of 1985. Hope Farm sticks out of the ragged landscape like a decaying tooth, its weatherboard walls sagging into the undergrowth. Silver's mother, Ishtar, has fallen for the charismatic Miller, and the three of them have moved to the rural hippie commune to make a new start. But here, at just 13, she is thrust into an unrelenting adult world, and the walls begin to come tumbling down, with deadly consequences.

Critic Reviews:

"Elegant, tender and very wise.... Hope Farm is beautifully written, acutely observed and, best of all, completely absorbing... A great novel." (Chris Womersley, author of Cairo and Bereft)

"An original tale.... Peggy's voice is contemporary, her observations sharp and sensitive." (Sofie Laguna, author of The Eye of the Sheep)

Members Reviews:

Inciteful

A mother and daughter story about the effect on a child of the imposition by the adults around her of a hippyish, insecure, free- love lifestyle and of her mother's depression. Though there's more to the story than that. Anyhow I relate to the feelings of the child a little bit and I had terrible angry dreams featuring my parents the night after finishing the book so it definitely got under my skin! (oh btw audible there's an editing error at about 2 min 30 in).

Interesting story and generally well read

Good book and well performed except for several obvious blunders in Chapter 6. I was surprised that these mistakes made their way into the finished recording, and would recommend that this chapter be rerecorded.

Overwrought

Much ado about nothing. The author must have had difficulty with her own mother. The voice of Silver is far to adult for a child. It seems to be at the same level of understanding all through her childhood.

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Title: Nest

Author: Inga Simpson

Narrator: Inga Simpson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-12-16

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Once an artist and teacher, Jen now spends her time watching the birds around her house and tending her lush, subtropical garden near the small town where she grew up. The only person she sees regularly is Henry, who comes after school for drawing lessons.

When a girl in Henry's class goes missing, Jen is pulled back into the depths of her own past. When she was Henry's age, she lost her father and her best friend, Michael - both within a week. The whole town talked about it then, and now, nearly 40 years later, they're talking about it again. Everyone is waiting - for the girl to be found and the summer rain to arrive.

At last, when the answers do come, like the wet, it is in a drenching, revitalising downpour.

Nest was longlisted for the Stella Prize 2015.

Critic Reviews:

"Beautiful and absorbing." (Sydney Morning Herald on Mr Wigg)

"Resonantly powerful at every bite.... Just beautiful." (Australian Women's Weekly on Mr Wigg)

"Beautifully crafted and brimming with warmth." (Who Weekly on Mr Wigg)

"Mr Wigg captivates to the end." (Good Reading)

Members Reviews:

Exquisite

Loved this book. So evocative of country life yet understated and poetic. The plot unfolded in its own time and the characters well crafted.

The narration was sometimes a bit too understated with not quite enough pause between chapters to fully absorb the language and meaning.

A must read for anyone who loves birds and nature.

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Title: Sixth

Subtitle: Mad Dogs, Book 1

Author: Brenda Cothern

Narrator: Michael Vasicek

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-06-16

Publisher: Wench Publishing, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 18 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Brian Hay's only dream in life was to be part of America's elite, yet unacknowledged, Delta Force. After years of training to be the best sniper the 75th Ranger Regiment had ever produced, his dream was finally coming true. But what starts out as what he thinks is a Delta hazing op soon turns into much more when Brian not only becomes a Delta Force soldier but a Mad Dog.

Members Reviews:

Pick a name please

The narrator did a good job. The plot was also good and I would have given this four stars if not for the number of names one character was referred to as. First name, last name, and the first initial of the last name was used. Now add five more characters, plus epitaphs, and you'll understand my confusion. I didn't get a chance to connect with the characters because I was trying to figure out who O or L and forget trying to keep track of who was the team leader or who was supposed to be the ordnance dude. I'm considering not trying the next one even though this stops with a sudden cliffhanger. I'm really disappointed.

enjoy m2m wolf military

Good story narration very good

hate the trumpets for chapter change and emphasis

going to try the next two

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Title: Caroline's Sister

Author: Sheila O'Flanagan

Narrator: Caroline Lennon

Format: Unabridged

Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-08-15

Publisher: Oakhill Publishing

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

To her younger sister, Tessa, Caroline O'Shaughnessy has everything - great looks, easy charm, and the distinctly desirable Damien Woods.

But for Caroline, things don't feel quite so rosy. She'd dreamed about moving in with Damien but not about having his child just yet. And though he did the honourable thing when she told him she was pregnant, it obviously wasn't what he wanted either.

And as both of them struggle to make the best of a bad job, neither is prepared for the impact a moment of drunken indiscretion will have not just on their lives but on Tessa's, too....

Critic Reviews:

"The Sheila O'Flanagan guarantee is a pretty powerful one." (Irish Independent)

"A perfect summer read." (Dublin Evening Herald)

Members Reviews:

Yes

I absolutely loved Caroline's Sister had trouble putting it down. Sheila O'Flanagan usually writes fabulous books there have been a couple I have not been able to get into over the years but most are great. Loved the ending not what I expected but excellent story.

Could easily be entitled 'The Trouble With Men'!

Any additional comments?

This is a lovely read/listen. It could be described as chiclit, but not of the sweet, cliched variety. O'Flanagan's female characters are never weak girly girls, and there is not a cupcake or beach hut in sight! All of the characters here are well developed. I read a lot of crime fiction and this is a great palate cleanser for that. If I have a small criticism, it is that it's a little too long for the nature of story, but that is a minor issue and shouldn't put anyone off. Caroline Lennon's narration was faultless and wonderful as always.

Enjoyable

Written through the eyes of both sisters. Really just a story of their every day lives but I enjoyed it. An easy listen with a great narrator.

Another great book from Sheila O'Flanagan

I loved this book. I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next.

good

good book just a little bit to long seemed to drag a little bit in places