Top Website Where You Can Find and Download Audiobooks in Fiction, Contemporary

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Swan Place

Author: Augusta Trobaugh

Narrator: Tiffany Halla Colonna

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-24-13

Publisher: Bell Bridge Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Dove, Molly, Little Ellis and Crystal are runaways with nowhere to turn and no one they can trust until they arrive at a secret sanctuary called Swan Place, where they are taken under wing by a remarkable group of women.

Members Reviews:

Love, Faith, Family, Hard Times in the South

I've found another wonderful southern author! The story of Dove and her family, their losses and triumphs, is one I will not soon forget. Losing her mama to illness, and left with her two younger siblings and her step-daddy, Dove, just a teenager is left to care for them all and go to school, as well. Dove's Aunt Bett (her mother's sister) steps in to help, offering a string of Bible verses as a reminder to Dove to stay on the "straight and narrow". Roy Ellis, Dove's step-daddy, a "mostly good man" loves his three kids, but he's grieving awful bad . . . and it's not long before he goes back to the honky tonk and finds himself a young bride. Crystal, just seventeen, loves Roy Ellis, and the family accepts her, even Aunt Bett. And then the unthinkable happens. Again. It's been a long, long time since a story has impacted me like this one. Don't miss it . . .

Outstanding characters with a delightful heroine.

The first 2 hours of this book are pretty bleak, but stick with it! It is a wonderful story with an upbeat ending. If you enjoyed Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt, you will love this too! This was my first book by Augusta Trobaugh and I can't wait to 'read' another.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Wednesdays and Other Stories

Author: Betty Smith

Narrator: Betty Smith

Format: Unabridged

Length: 56 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-11-13

Publisher: The Lindsay Players

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Wednesdays for Mrs Taylor are sacrosanct. On Wednesdays, she escapes from unbearable reality into a fantasy world, a world to which she feels she rightly belongs. But to get to this place she has to travel by train.

In The Undivided, Peggy Slaters husband earns a great deal of money; this fact seems to affect the couple who live in the next street.

Hannah, the Maiden tells the story of a happy shepherd on New Years Eve whilst he anxiously awaits the presence of a stranger who will change his life forever.

The protagonist in The Beginning of Eternity considers himself finished. A timid man by nature, he distrusts uncontrolled emotions - but does he cope when he goes down to the cellar?

These four fictional short stories are written and read by Betty Smith, who is a keen amateur criminologist.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Love You to Death

Subtitle: Charlie D. Mystery Series, Book 1

Author: Gail Bowen

Narrator: Daniel Maté

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 32 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-08-13

Publisher: Post Hypnotic Press

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Charlie D. is the host of a successful late-night radio call-in show. His listeners have a particularly intimate relationship with him and often reveal much about themselves, confident that he will honor their trust and that he can save them. In their minds, he is perfect: one of life's winners. But Charlie feels he's something of a fake. His easy confidence on-air belies the reality for a man born with a wine-colored birthmark that covers half his face. Love You to Death covers one hour on "The World According to Charlie D." - an hour during which he must both discover the long-time listener who is killing the people who trust him and attempt to come to terms with the man behind the birthmark.

Members Reviews:

Suspenseful Hour and a Half

I've got to read more from this author! The storytelling was masterful and the narrator's seductive voice was distinct from his others.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Rushing to Paradise

Author: J. G. Ballard

Narrator: Eva Kaminsky

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-25-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Led by a charismatic and slightly unhinged woman, a group of environmentalists wrest control over a small South Pacific island in hopes of cultivating it into their own private Eden. But paradise is not quite what it seems in this searing (Kirkus Reviews) send-up of environmentalism, feminism, and extremism of all sorts.

Critic Reviews:

"[A] chilling...tale about humans who gamely follow their own worst instincts. (Chicago Tribune)

Members Reviews:

For Ballard completists

What did you love best about Rushing to Paradise?

Not full of Ballard's typical hypnotic description but great characters and good performance with lots of different accents.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Virgins

Author: Caryl Rivers

Narrator: Dara Rosenberg

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-29-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

A novel about Catholic girls poised - hilariously- on the brink of going all the way, Virgins recalls in aching detail what it was like to be an 18-year-old Catholic high school senior...in the '50s. This book contains the rules and regimen, hijinks and longing of that time.

Members Reviews:

This is a great book: moving

This is a great book: moving, emotional, smart, engaging. It treats the teen characters with respect. It made me think on every enjoyable page and has stayed with me for months. Highly recommended.

Beautiful, terrifying honesty

Some writers keep us turning pages with their well-crafted plots. Others hold our attention with the beauty of their prose (I'm afraid I'll never be in that category). Pamela Erens has accomplished both with "The Virgins."

It's a heartbreaking story exquisitely written. As a parent, it is frightening to be reminded how hard growing up can be sometimes.

Fascinating narrative voice

I would not normally be drawn to a story about teen lovers in a New England boarding school in 1980, but I nonetheless deeply admire this book. First, the language is beautiful. Every sentence, ever paragraph is a masterpiece, and writers should study them. Second, the narrator is fascinating to me. He's unlikable. He's a voyeur. He's violent toward women. And yet the story he tells about Seung and Aviva, pieced together from details he has learned but mostly a product of his very rich imagination, reveals everything about himself while at the same time painting a vivid portrait of the lovers.

I highly recommend this book.

A modern classic

The story of a senior in a Catholic girl's school and her adventures with her friends and boyfriend.

I had it recommended by two different people, and they were right.

destined to be a classic

Pamela Erens` smashing second novel, THE VIRGINS, is a novel destined to be a classic, mostly because it is so expertly written and expresses such truths, but also because it pulls from many classics all the while inverting them, offering readers a fresh view of that which we thought we knew.

In many ways, the novel's narrator Bruce Bennett-Jones is Nick Carraway to Seung Jung's Gatsby, as Bennett-Jones smugly and expertly narrates all of the action and emotion of the characters around him at his East Coast prep school, especially that of fish-out-of-water turned golden boy, Seung, and his sexy and exotic girlfriend, Aviva. The world that Bennett-Jones creates for us is fully his own, but director that he is, he is completely comfortable showing us the work of those who act around him, casting them, oftentimes, against the grain of expectation.

At the center of Bennett-Jones's world are the beautiful, aspirational couple of Aviva and Seung. Bennett-Jones both covets their relationship and is repulsed by it. He does not wish to posses Aviva in every emotional way that Seung does. Instead, he wishes to ravage her, which could make Seung the hero, the romantic lead, Romeo Montague, and Bennett-Jones the villian. But wait, that is all too simplistic, for Aviva is no Juliet. She is not willing to give up anything for her romance with Seung, certainly not her life.

Aviva wants out. She wants someone who can please her as much as she wants to restrict herself from pleasure. She wants to breathe.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Keepsake

Author: Kristina Riggle

Narrator: Xe Sands

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 1 min

Language: English

Release date: 05-29-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

For her previous novels (Things We Didnt Say, The Life Youve Imagined, Real Life & Liars), author Kristina Riggle has garnered fabulous reviews and established herself as a rapidly rising star of contemporary womens fiction. In Keepsake, she explores that most complicated of relationships, as two sisters raised by a hoarder deal with old hurts and resentments, and the very different paths their lives have taken. As always, Riggle approaches important topics poignantly and honestlyincluding hoarding and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in her remarkable Keepsakewhile writing with real emotional power and compassion about families and their baggage. For readers of Katrina Kittle and Elin Hildenbrand, Kristina Riggles Keepsake is a treasure.

©2012 Kristina Ringstrom (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Members Reviews:

The baggage we carry

I have never read a fictional book about hoarding behavior so I found this such a "fresh" topic for an author to explore. The interaction between the sisters was particularly well done as it shifted the focus from the character you expected to always be at the center of the book, always to be the one with a problem and showed that others carry baggage, too, although possibly not as obviously. Would highly recommend this read to others.

A Hoarder's Story

I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. Sunday, reading this engrossing novel. In this story, author Kristina Riggle enters the world of a hoarder, delving into the mindset of a woman who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and exploring the effects it has on family. Having cringed at several episodes of the TV series "Buried Alive," I've been curious about what could cause a person to hoard, and this book gave me some insight while weaving a compelling plot. I highly recommend it.

Nice read

The book kept me engaged and gave me some understanding of where hoarding comes from. Well written and informative, I would recommend it.

Five Stars

I loved this book. It really held my interest. Would read other books by this author.

I enjoyed and appreciated this story very much

I enjoyed and appreciated this story very much. Gave a glimpse into the life of a hoarder and her family. All of her relationships are affected as well and it was an eye opener for me.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Men and Wives

Author: Ivy Compton-Burnett

Narrator: Jean Barrett

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-15-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

At the centre of this novel stands Harriet Haslam, the epitome of the maternal power figure, whose genuine but overpowering love dominates the novel and whose self-knowledge drives her into insanity. Even after her death Harriet continues to dominate. Surrounding this central figure are a host of marvelously realised characters - Sir Geoffrey Haslam, Harriets husband, an innocent self-deluder; Dominic Spong, a hypocrite whose platitudes do not quite conceal his powerful self-interest; Agatha Calkin whose benevolent maternalism nearly hides the greediest of drives towards power; Lady Hardistry, the most outrageously witty of all sophisticates; Camilla Christy, a loose woman, dazzling, charming, and corrupt. Unlike Harriet Haslam, who will not spare herself the truth, the others are happier with their lies and can never achieve Harriets grandeur.

Compton-Burnett was encouraged by her liberal and unorthodox father, homeopath Dr Burnett, to prepare to read classics at London university (neither Oxford nor Cambridge gave degrees to women at this time). She had dearly loved her father, who died without warning from a heart attack in 1901 when she was sixteen. Her closest brother died three years later, and Ivy Compton-Burnett went on to lose three more of her younger siblings and her mother by the time she was 35, something she could hardly bear to speak about, but constantly explored in her novels. Compton-Burnett published twenty novels, the first while she was in her twenties, in 1911. However, the first of her works to use her mature and startlingly original style was published when she was forty, in 1925. Compton-Burnetts fiction deals with domestic situations in large households which, to all intents and purposes, invariably seem Edwardian. She was named a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1967.

Members Reviews:

Is Buttermere listening?

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

The printed version of Men and Wives has been in my possession for over three years, but I never managed to read over the first few chapters. This audible version made my job as a listener a lot easier by the narrator who gives a voice and a body to each of Compton -Burnett character.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Men and Wives?

The novel is indeed constructed on the interaction between characters, with all the twists and turns that this affords particularly when they are determined to achieve what they wish at all costs, so that the plot is full of memorable moments which the listener can enjoy. My favourite is perhaps Sir Godfrey's realisation that much younger Camilla could become his new wife, and his hypocrisy when he discovers that it won't happen.

What about Jean Barretts performance did you like?

Jean Barrett's performance was, in this case as throughout the book, elegant, polished and extremely helpful.

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

Too long to be listened to in one sitting, this audiobook made me wish it were possible to do so and whetted my thirst for more audiobooks by the same author.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Every Contact Leaves a Trace

Author: Elanor Dymott

Narrator: Simon Vance

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-06-13

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 26 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Elanor Dymotts gorgeous debut tells the story of Alex, a solitary lawyer who has finally found love in the form of his beautiful wife, Rachel. When Rachel is brutally murdered one midsummer night on the grounds of their alma mater, Worcester College, Oxford, Alexs life as he knows it vanishes. He returns to Oxford that winter, and, through the shroud of his shock and grief, tries to piece together the mystery surrounding his wifes death. Playing host to Alexs winter visit is Harry, Rachels former tutor and trusted mentor, who turns out to have been involved in almost every significant development of their relationship.

Alex also turns to Evie, Rachels self-centered and difficult godmother, whose jealousy of her charge has waxed and waned over the years. And then there are her university friends, Anthony and Cissy, who shared with Rachel her taste for literature and for the illicit. As he delves further into the mystery surrounding her death, Alex discovers in Rachels wake a tangled web of sex and jealousy, of would-be lovers and spiteful friends, of the poetry of Robert Browning, and of blackmail. Brilliantly written and suffused with eroticism, mystery, and a hint of menace, Every Contact Leaves A Trace introduces a stunning new voice in contemporary fiction.

Critic Reviews:

"This is more than a murder mystery. Its an examination of the subjectivity of accounts of truth. Its a desperately moving love story about a lonely man who finds salvation in another only to have the idyll destroyed. Finally, its a tale of revenge, served cold and deadly. (The Independent)

Members Reviews:

Too Removed

I hesitated over giving this book only 2 stars because its not poorly written as far as mechanics go (no cliches or clumsy phrasing). There were also several images that remained with me. However, as others have stated, the problem with this book is that it is all telling and not showing and the telling is about things that have already happened. I felt like I was watching a blurred film with the sound turned down. There is very little dialogue and action in this book. The main character tells the story in a passive voice and it is all his memories or memories as told to him by another character. This results in a story that is often dull and drags in places.

Perhaps due to the way this story is told I also never felt like most of the characters were very fleshed out. Evie never seemed like anything more than a caricature, and a very fuzzy one at that. The narrator is so bland that at first I thought he was supposed to be a psychopath. The other characters are very unlikeable but not interesting. Henry seemed gullible and spineless. Richard was obnoxious. Anthony was disgusting and so was Rachael. I realize Rachael was supposed to be flawed but I think the author intended her to have improved. To me, though, all she did was fall in love, there was no real evidence that she became a better person and her simply being able to love didn't redeem her enough for me to care what happened to her.

My final complaints with the story are that I figured out who the killer was pretty early on and I don't think the plot was very realistic.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Butterfly Winter

Author: W. P. Kinsella

Narrator: Zach Villa

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-29-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Butterfly Winter, W.P. Kinsella's first novel in 15 years, is the story of Julio and Esteban Pimental, twins born in the Caribbean country of Courteguay, a lush and enchanted but impoverished enclave on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic where time moves at its own pace and reality is open to question. The brothers are destined to play ball in America, and to shape the history of their baseball-crazed homeland. They mature quickly and by the age of 10 they leave home for the Major Leagues. Julio is a winning pitcher who, much to the chagrin of any team that signs him, will only throw to his catcher brother, who is a very weak hitter.

As they pursue their baseball dreams, events in their homeland, including political brutalities and the outlawing of baseball, continue to shape their lives. They are monitored by the Wizard, a mysterious figure who controls events behind the scenes. In his last years, the Wizard tells the story of the twins, their family and their lovers to a skeptical gringo journalist.

Butterfly Winter is a magical literary romp that includes a diabolical chiropractor, a romance blessed by butterflies, and a deep political undercurrent that unites the wealthy North with the baseball-loving, talent-laden but oppressed and deprived South.

Editorial Reviews:

Baseball-obsessed author J. P. Kinsella delivers new fiction after 15 years. Butterfly Winter is set in Courteguay, an island near the Dominican Republic. As in the Dominican Republic the citizens of Courteguay are baseball fanatics who dream of becoming professional players in America. The novel follows twin brothers who migrate to America but remain vulnerable to the vagaries of life back home. One twin is an expert pitcher, but he insists on pitching only to his brother, a poor hitter. These brothers and their fellow quirky characters create a layered world full of shifting mores and political mayhem. Kinsella again employs magical realism to moving effect. Narrator Zach Villas arresting voice lures the listener into trusting this grim yet whimsical dreamscape.

Members Reviews:

Magical, hysterical, moving

It is difficult to put this wonderful novel into words without resorting to spouting meaningless superlatives, spending far too many words trying to convey its labyrinthine (non)plot - which doesn't really matter in many important ways, or simply listing its multitude of charms, like a bullet list. If you like Kinsella's previous work, you ought to love this, but be forewarned: This is not Shoeless Joe, or even the even-better Iowa Baseball Confederacy. This is not so much something different as it is something evolved.

Kinsella has here returned to the novel form with a magical-realist tall tale that encompasses a career's worth in its 300 pages. It is a completely silly confabulation. It is also a moralistic fable in which you can pick and choose your own moral-of-the-story at will. It is a satire and burlesque of Latin American history and politics. It is a great baseball novel. It is a parody of American cultural attitudes. It is a beautiful, touching love story (several, in fact). It is a harrowing look at the machinations of an evil mind. It is a parable about truth and story telling. It appears I've taken the bullet list route, only without the bullets.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Die grafte jubel

Author: Esta Steyn

Narrator: Joanie Combrink

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 45 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-19-13

Publisher: Lux Verbi

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Dié aangrypende verhaal van pyn en genesing ná die dood van twee broers enkele jare van mekaar word deur hul ma in die derde persoon vertel. So probeer sy (die vrou) afstand van die pynlike gebeure verkry. Dit verleen n meer dramatiese impak aan die gebeure, hoewel dit n oormaat rou emosie voorkom. Dit word n hoendervleis-kry-ervaring om saam met die skrywer die wagtyd in n trauma-saal by Tygerberghospitaal deur te maak, of die soektog na n vermiste kind op see. Dit lees byna soos fiksie, n spanningsverhaal, maar wat dit uitlig bo die gewone, is die gestroopte styl, die Christelike hoop daarin, die simboliek, die skrynende humor, die gedigte en die terapeutiese krag vir lesers wat hul eie smart leer verwerk deur te identifiseer met die verteller.

Please note: This audiobook is in Afrikaans.

Members Reviews:

Food for thought

An amazing story and to thank God too for his amazing love and to love my husband and realised even much more I do, I praise God too