Try free for 30 days
-
We Came Here to Shine
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Carly Robins, Dan Bittner, Lauren Fortgang, Susie Orman Schnall
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $26.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
The Subway Girls
- A Novel
- By: Susie Orman Schnall
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1949, dutiful and ambitious Charlotte's dream of a career in advertising is shattered when her father demands she help out with the family business. Meanwhile, Charlotte is swept into the glamorous world of the Miss Subways beauty contest, which promises irresistible opportunities with its Park Avenue luster and local fame status. Nearly 70 years later, outspoken advertising executive Olivia is pitching the NYC subways account in a last ditch effort to save her job at an advertising agency. Then the charismatic boss she’s secretly in love with pits her against her misogynistic nemesis....
-
The Magic All Around
- By: Jennifer Moorman
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Russell women have always lived in a house that is as special as they are—a century-old Victorian with a radio that tunes itself to the listener’s mood and a pantry that rearranges to provide just the right ingredients for any baking need. Lilith Russell was the exception. She left the family home in Ivy Ridge, Georgia, and has been flitting like a hummingbird from place to place with her daughter, Mattie, in the decades since, only returning each summer to drop Mattie off with Lilith’s sister, Penelope.
-
The Spectacular
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Rachel L. Jacobs, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion Brooks knows she should be happy. Her high school sweetheart is about to propose and sweep her off to the life everyone has always expected they’d have together: a quiet house in the suburbs, Marion staying home to raise their future children. But instead, Marion finds herself feeling trapped. So when she comes across an opportunity to audition for the famous Radio City Rockettes—the glamorous precision-dancing troupe—she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer.
-
Fast Girls
- A Novel of the 1936 Women’s Olympic Team.
- By: Elise Hooper
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker, Kristyl Dawn Tift, Reba Buhr, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real-life history of female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany. In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America’s golden girl until a nearly fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything.
-
The Summer of Songbirds
- By: Kristy Woodson Harvey
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya, Reena Dutt, Jackie Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nearly thirty years ago, in the wake of a personal tragedy, June Moore bought Camp Holly Springs and turned it into a thriving summer haven for girls. But now, June is in danger of losing the place she has sacrificed everything for, and begins to realize how much she has used the camp to avoid facing difficulties in her life.
-
The Letter Tree
- By: Rachel Fordham
- Narrated by: Kira Fixx
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seven years ago, a letter left inside a tree brought Laura Bradshaw an anonymous friend who helped her navigate the tragic loss of her mother and gave her something to look forward to despite the overbearing hand of her father. Life would be far bleaker, if not for her beloved Letter Tree, her dear friend, and her secret trips to the Buffalo Zoo. But even these rays of light are threatened when her father decides to play matchmaker in order to further his business goals.
-
-
The letter tree
- By Lorihay on 10-11-2023
-
The Subway Girls
- A Novel
- By: Susie Orman Schnall
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1949, dutiful and ambitious Charlotte's dream of a career in advertising is shattered when her father demands she help out with the family business. Meanwhile, Charlotte is swept into the glamorous world of the Miss Subways beauty contest, which promises irresistible opportunities with its Park Avenue luster and local fame status. Nearly 70 years later, outspoken advertising executive Olivia is pitching the NYC subways account in a last ditch effort to save her job at an advertising agency. Then the charismatic boss she’s secretly in love with pits her against her misogynistic nemesis....
-
The Magic All Around
- By: Jennifer Moorman
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Russell women have always lived in a house that is as special as they are—a century-old Victorian with a radio that tunes itself to the listener’s mood and a pantry that rearranges to provide just the right ingredients for any baking need. Lilith Russell was the exception. She left the family home in Ivy Ridge, Georgia, and has been flitting like a hummingbird from place to place with her daughter, Mattie, in the decades since, only returning each summer to drop Mattie off with Lilith’s sister, Penelope.
-
The Spectacular
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Rachel L. Jacobs, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion Brooks knows she should be happy. Her high school sweetheart is about to propose and sweep her off to the life everyone has always expected they’d have together: a quiet house in the suburbs, Marion staying home to raise their future children. But instead, Marion finds herself feeling trapped. So when she comes across an opportunity to audition for the famous Radio City Rockettes—the glamorous precision-dancing troupe—she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer.
-
Fast Girls
- A Novel of the 1936 Women’s Olympic Team.
- By: Elise Hooper
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker, Kristyl Dawn Tift, Reba Buhr, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real-life history of female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany. In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America’s golden girl until a nearly fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything.
-
The Summer of Songbirds
- By: Kristy Woodson Harvey
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya, Reena Dutt, Jackie Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nearly thirty years ago, in the wake of a personal tragedy, June Moore bought Camp Holly Springs and turned it into a thriving summer haven for girls. But now, June is in danger of losing the place she has sacrificed everything for, and begins to realize how much she has used the camp to avoid facing difficulties in her life.
-
The Letter Tree
- By: Rachel Fordham
- Narrated by: Kira Fixx
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seven years ago, a letter left inside a tree brought Laura Bradshaw an anonymous friend who helped her navigate the tragic loss of her mother and gave her something to look forward to despite the overbearing hand of her father. Life would be far bleaker, if not for her beloved Letter Tree, her dear friend, and her secret trips to the Buffalo Zoo. But even these rays of light are threatened when her father decides to play matchmaker in order to further his business goals.
-
-
The letter tree
- By Lorihay on 10-11-2023
-
The Lions of Fifth Avenue
- A GMA Book Club Pick (A Novel)
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett, Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life - her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open.
-
-
Highly recommend
- By Anonymous User on 17-03-2024
-
The Wartime Sisters
- A Novel
- By: Lynda Cohen Loigman
- Narrated by: Emily Lawrence
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two estranged sisters, raised in Brooklyn and each burdened with her own shocking secret, are reunited at the Springfield Armory in the early days of WWII. While one sister lives in relative ease on the bucolic armory campus as an officer’s wife, the other arrives as a war widow and takes a position in the armory factories as a “soldier of production”. Resentment festers between the two, and secrets are shattered when a mysterious figure from the past reemerges in their lives.
-
The Memory of Lavender and Sage
- By: Aimie K. Runyan
- Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Food critic Tempèsta Luddington has always felt like the odd person out in her family, ever since she lost her beloved mother at the tender age of thirteen. When her workaholic father passes fifteen years later, Tempèsta is not surprised that the majority of the considerable family money will pass to her dutiful younger brother, Wal. Still, she is left a modest remembrance from her mother, and for the first time Tempèsta has a world of choices before her.
-
Künstlers in Paradise
- By: Cathleen Schine
- Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For years Mamie Künstler, ninety-three-years-old, as clever and glamorous as ever, has lived happily in her bungalow in Venice, California, with her inscrutable housekeeper and her gigantic St. Bernard dog. Their tranquility is upended when Mamie’s grandson, Julian, arrives from New York City. Like many a twenty-something, he has come to seek his fortune in Hollywood. But it is 2020, the global pandemic sweeps in, and Julian’s short visit suddenly has no end in sight.
-
-
A Life Affirming Delight.
- By michele taylor on 20-03-2023
-
The Little Café in Copenhagen
- Romantic Escapes, Book 1
- By: Julie Caplin
- Narrated by: Imogen Wilde
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Publicist Kate Sinclair’s life in London is everything she thought she wanted: success, glamour and a charming boyfriend. Until that boyfriend goes behind her back and snatches a much sought-after promotion from her. Heartbroken and questioning everything, Kate needs to escape. From candles and cosy nights in to romantic late-night walks through the beautiful cobbled streets of Copenhagen, Kate discovers how to live life ‘the Danish way’. Can the secrets of hygge and happiness lead her to her own happily ever after?
-
-
An easy, breezy listen
- By Anonymous User on 23-03-2023
-
The Light of Luna Park
- By: Addison Armstrong
- Narrated by: Rachel L. Jacobs, Karissa Vacker
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York City, 1926. Nurse Althea Anderson's heart is near breaking when she witnesses another premature baby die at Bellevue Hospital. So when she reads an article detailing the amazing survival rates of babies treated in incubators in an exhibit at Luna Park, Coney Island, it feels like the miracle she has been searching for. But the doctors at Bellevue dismiss Althea and this unconventional medicine, forcing her to make a choice between a baby's life and the doctors' wishes that will change everything.
-
The Two-Family House
- A Novel
- By: Linda Cohen Loigman
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brooklyn, 1947: In the midst of a blizzard, in a two-family brownstone, two babies are born minutes apart to two women. They are sisters by marriage, with an impenetrable bond forged before and during that dramatic night; but as the years progress, small cracks start to appear, and their once deep friendship begins to unravel. No one knows why, and no one can stop it. One misguided choice; one moment of tragedy. Heartbreak wars with happiness and almost but not quite wins.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Amazon Customer on 16-09-2017
-
The Beach at Summerly
- A Novel
- By: Beatriz Williams
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
June 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island prepare for the first summer season after the sacrifice of war, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly’s year-round caretaker and a descendant of the island’s settlers, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of shining possibility. While Emilia spent the war years caring for her incapacitated mother, Olive traveled the world, married fascinating men, and involved herself in political causes.
-
The Magnolia Palace
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Karissa Vacker
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, 21-year-old Lillian Carter's life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge
-
-
A great yarn
- By CMc on 14-08-2022
-
A Dress of Violet Taffeta
- By: Tessa Arlen
- Narrated by: Hannah Curtis
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucy Duff Gordon knows she is talented. She sees color, light, and texture in ways few people can begin to imagine. But is the male dominated world of haute couture, who would use her art for their own gain, ready for her? When she is deserted by her wealthy husband, Lucy is left penniless with an aging mother and her five-year-old daughter to support. Desperate to survive, Lucy turns to her one true talent to make a living. A
-
The Blue Butterfly
- A Novel of Marion Davies
- By: Leslie Johansen Nack
- Narrated by: Rachel Fulginiti
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York, 1915. Marion Davies is a shy 18-year-old beauty dancing on the Broadway stage when she meets William Randolph Hearst and finds herself captivated by his riches, passion, and desire to make her a movie star. Following a whirlwind courtship, she learns through trial and error to live as Hearst’s mistress when a divorce from his wife proves impossible. A baby girl is born in secret in 1919 and they agree to never acknowledge her publicly as their own. In a burgeoning Hollywood scene, she works hard making movies while living a lavish partying life.
-
The Steel Girls
- The Steel Girls, Book 1
- By: Michelle Rawlins
- Narrated by: Laura Brydon
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Housewife Nancy never dreamed that she’d end up in Vickers steelworks factory, but when husband Bert is called up to serve, she needs to put food on the table for her two young children. Betty’s sweetheart, William, has joined the RAF Reserves, so she can’t sit around and do nothing - even if it means giving up her ambitions to study law at night school. Young Patty is relishing the excitement the war brings. But this shop-girl is going to have to grow up quickly, especially now she’s undertaking such back-breaking and dangerous work in the factory.
Publisher's Summary
Set at the iconic 1939 New York World’s Fair, Susie Orman Schnall's We Came Here to Shine is historical fiction featuring two bold and ambitious women who navigate a world of possibility and find out what they're truly made of during a glorious summer of spectacle and potential.
“An ode to female friendship that pulses with momentum and left me breathless.” (Fiona Davis, national best-selling author of The Chelsea Girls)
“A remarkable novel about the challenges women face and the courage they must summon in order to lead the lives they deserve." (Lynda Cohen Loigman, author of The Two-Family House)
Gorgeous Vivi is the star of the Aquacade synchronized swimming spectacular, and plucky Max is a journalist for the fair's daily paper. Both are striving to make their way in a world where men try to control their actions and where secrets are closely kept. But when Vivi and Max become friends and their personal and professional prospects are put in jeopardy, they team up to help each other succeed and to realize their dreams during the most meaningful summer of their lives.
We Came Here to Shine is a story of ambition, friendship, and persistence with a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the extraordinary NY World's Fair.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Griffin