Showing results by publisher "Random House Audio" in Coming of Age

Brady Bledsoe and his mother, Carmyn, have a strong relationship. A single mother, faithful churchgoer, and the owner of several successful Atlanta beauty salons, Carmyn has devoted herself to her son and his dream of becoming a professional football player. Brady has always followed her lead, including becoming a member of the church's "Celibacy Circle".

What Jonathan Lethem did for Brooklyn, Matt Burgess does for Queens in this exuberant and brilliant debut novel about a young drug dealer having a very bad weekend. Alfredo Batista has some worries. Okay, a lot of worries. His older brother, Jose - sorry, Tariq - is returning from a stretch in prison after an unsuccessful robbery, a burglary that Alfredo was supposed to be part of. So now everyone thinks Alfredo snitched on his brother, which may have something to do with the fact that Alfredo is now dating Tariq’s ex-girlfriend, Isabel, who is eight months pregnant.

Invisible Life is the story of a young man's coming of age. Law school, girlfriends, and career choices were all part of Raymond Tyler's life, but there were other, more terrifying issues for him to confront. Being black was tough enough, but Raymond was becoming more and more conscious of sexual feelings that he knew weren't "right". He was completely committed to Sela, his longtime girlfriend, but his attraction to Kelvin, whom he had met during his last year in law school, had become more than just a friendship.

In the summer of 1959, as Castro clamps down on Cuba and its first wave of exiles flees to the States to wait out what they hope to be his short-lived reign, Emma Gant, fresh out of college, begins her career as a reporter. Her fierce ambition and belief in herself are set against the stories swirling around her, both at the newspaper office and in her downtown Miami hotel, which is filling up with refugees.

Queen of the Underworld is sweeping and sultry literary fiction, featuring a memorable young heroine and engaging characters whose intimate dramas interconnect with hers. In the summer of 1959, as Castro clamps down on Cuba and its first wave of exiles flees to the States to wait out what they hope to be his short-lived reign, Emma Gant, fresh out of college, begins her career as a reporter.

Fleeing to New York to escape both Sela and Kelvin, Raymond finds himself more confused than ever before. New relationships--both male and female--give him enormous pleasure but keep him from finding the inner peace and lasting love he so desperately desires. The horrible illness and death of a friend force Raymond, at last, to face the truth.

Skylar and Storm Morrison may be gorgeous twin sisters, but they are as different as night and day. Skylar is savvy and book-smart; Storm is shrewd and street-smart. But a twist of fate lands Storm in jail, where she must trade her Fendi bags and Prada boots for an orange jumpsuit and laceless white sneakers. Meanwhile, Skylar makes a name for herself by transforming the restaurant that once belonged to the twins’ late father into Legends, Philadelphia’s hottest new nightclub.

"Wir sind wie niemand sonst, wir haben uns selbst erschaffen, die Einzigen unserer Art." Eine geheimnisvolle Explosion bildet das Herzstück dieser spannenden Geschichte, erzählt von den Kindern der Familie Cardinal: Sie haben den Schneid und die Wildheit von Helden, sie haben Angst vor nichts und niemandem. Und sie sind ganze einundzwanzig. Als der Vater in einem kanadischen Dorf ein Zinkvorkommen entdeckt, rechnet der Clan fest mit einem Anteil am Gewinn - doch eine Explosion zwingt die Geschwister zu einem Pakt des Schweigens, der zu einer Zerreißprobe für die ganze Familie wird.

September, 1957: Henry und Effie verbringen ihre Flitterwochen in Cape May. Die Saison ist zu Ende, der Ferienort verlassen; sie fühlen sich isoliert und in ihrer Schüchternheit gefangen. Bis sie auf Clara treffen, die eine glamouröse Gruppe New Yorker Intellektueller um sich versammelt. Von ihr fühlt sich das junge Paar wie magisch angezogen. Henry und Effie durchleben eine Zeit ungehemmter Freiheit, die sie ihre Unschuld verlieren und zu Betrügern werden lässt, eine Erfahrung, die den Rest ihres Lebens prägen wird - ein hypnotisierender Roman, der zeitlose Fragen zu Ehe, Liebe und Loyalität behandelt.

Mein Name ist Mary. Mein Haar hat die Farbe von Milch. Und dies ist meine Geschichte. Mary ist an harte Arbeit gewöhnt. Sie kennt es nicht anders, denn ihr Leben auf dem Bauernhof der Eltern verläuft karg und entbehrungsreich. Doch als sie fünfzehn wird, ändert sich alles. Mary zieht in den Haushalt des örtlichen Dorfpfarrers, um dessen Ehefrau zu pflegen und ihr Gesellschaft zu leisten. Bei ihr, einer zarten, mitfühlenden Kranken erfährt sie erstmals Wohlwollen und Anteilnahme.

Sophy Dunbarron - the illegitimate daughter of a king who never was - has always felt like an impostor. Separated from her birth mother, raised by parents mourning the loss of their true daughter, and unacknowledged by her father, Sophy desires only a place and a family to call her own. But fate has other ideas. Caught up in Elanna Valtai’s revolution, Sophy has become the reigning monarch of a once-divided country - a role she has been groomed her whole life to fill. But as she quickly discovers, wearing a crown is quite a different thing from keeping a crown.

In Domenica Ruta’s profoundly original novel, the end of the world comes once a year. Every May 28, humanity gathers to anticipate the planet’s demise - and to celebrate as if the day is truly its last. On this holiday, three intersecting sets of characters embark on a possibly last-chance quest for redemption. With sparkling wit, verbal ingenuity, and wild imagination, Ruta has created an alternate world in which an ancient holiday brings into stark reflection our deepest dreams, desires, hopes, and fears.

Elena, struggling with memory loss due to a trauma that has unmoored her sense of self, deserts graduate school and a long-term relationship to accept a bizarre proposition from an estranged family friend in Paris: she will search for a young woman, Ella, who went missing six years earlier in Thailand, by rewriting her journals. As she delves deeper into Ella's story, Elena begins to lose sight of her own identity and drift dangerously toward self-annihilation.

They're not the most popular freshmen at their Florida prep school, but at least everyone knows their name(s). The Brittanys.

Reeling from a breakup with his almost fiancée, the narrator of Andrew Palmer’s debut novel returns to his hometown in Iowa to house-sit for a family friend. There, a chance flick of the TV remote and a new correspondence with an old friend plunge him into unlikely twin obsessions: the reality show The Bachelor and the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Berryman. As his heart begins to mend, his fascination with each deepens, and somewhere along the way, representations of reality become harder and harder to distinguish from real life.

In 1942, Friedrich, an even-keeled but unworldly young man, arrives in Berlin from bucolic Switzerland with dreams of becoming an artist. At a life drawing class, he is hypnotized by the beautiful model, Kristin, who soon becomes his energetic yet enigmatic guide to the bustling and cosmopolitan city. The war feels far away to Friedrich, who falls in love with Kristin as they spend time together in his rooms at the Grand Hotel, but as the months pass, the mood in the city darkens as the Nazis tighten their hold on Berlin, terrorizing any who are deemed foes of the Reich.

A reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, Angel & Hannah is the sweeping, unforgettable story of an interracial couple in 1990s New York City who are determined to protect their love against all odds. Told across the changing seasons, Angel & Hannah holds all of the tension and cadence of blank verse while adding dynamic and expressive language rooted in a long tradition of hip-hop and spoken word, creating new and magnetic forms.

The three Brennan siblings are well on their way in the world. Samantha, the youngest, is a ballerina who recently joined the ranks of a Russian dance company; her brother Jonah is a grad student studying elephants in the rain forest of Gabon; and the eldest, Gavin, has stayed closer to home, living in Los Angeles and acting in a television series. But as the holidays draw near, all three find themselves in profoundly troubling, though distinctly different, predicaments.

Before being torn down in 2007, the Stateway Gardens public housing projects on Chicago’s South Side were ridden with deprivation and crime. But for some, like Tracy, the shy, intelligent young boy at the center of this enthralling collection of linked stories, they are simply home. Set in the mid-1980s and taking listeners up to the point of the destruction of the infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects, this collection gives an intimate look at the hopes, dreams, failures, and fortunes of a group of people growing up with the deck always stacked against them.

Dies ist die Geschichte der fünf Dunbar-Brüder. Nach dem Tod der geliebten Mutter und dem Weggang ihres Vaters leben sie nach ihren ganz eigenen Regeln. Sie trauern, sie lieben, sie hassen, sie hoffen und sie suchen. Nach einem Weg mit ihrer Vergangenheit klarzukommen, nach der Wahrheit und nach Vergebung. Schließlich ist es Clay - angetrieben von den Erinnerungen an ihren tragischen Verlust - der beschließt eine Brücke zu bauen. Eine Brücke, die Vergangenheit zu überwinden und so sich selbst, und seine Familie, zu retten.