Showing results by publisher "Simon & Schuster Audio" in Literary Fiction

Barely able to walk and rendered mute by the cancer metastasizing in his throat, Ulysses S. Grant is scratching out words, hour after hour, day after day. Desperate to complete his memoirs before his death so his family might have some financial security and he some redemption, Grant journeys back in time. Moving from blood-stained battlefields to Gilded Age New York, the novel explores how Grant’s own views on race and Reconstruction changed over time.

Born in Beirut in 1922, Marguerite Toutounghi lives a life of loss and sacrifice. She dreams of traveling Europe and studying music at the Conservatoire de Paris but her family—and her society—hold her back. When she meets the son of a Cuban tobacco farmer at a formal dance, love transforms her life. Together with him, she flees across the Atlantic Ocean. She’s hoping for a new beginning, she finds revolution and chaos.

Mother and daughter Charlie and Eva never sought social media fame, but when a stunning photo of Eva went viral, fame found them. Now, after more than two years documenting life on the road in their vintage Airstream trailer, the duo has temporarily settled on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Eva is happily finishing her senior year of high school and applying to college, but Charlie longs for the adventures they left behind. When Eva goes missing less than a week before her graduation, it’s Charlie who is immediately suspected of foul play.

Composed of several interconnected stories, each taking place in a year ending with the number six, ironically a number that in Chinese divination signifies “a smooth life,” Dear Chrysanthemums is a novel about the scourge of inhumanity, survival, and past trauma that never leaves. The women in these stories are cooks, musicians, dancers, protestors, mothers and daughters, friends and enemies, all inexplicably connected in one way or another.

Julian Strickland is seemingly the lone Black man in the hipster dreamland of Portland, Oregon. To his friends, he’s the coolest member of the scene: the soulful drummer from Chicago in an indie rock band that’s just about to break through. But to himself, he’s a sheltered Christian homeschool kid who used to write book reports on Leviticus. A virgin until the night of his marriage, divorced at twenty-four, he’s still in disarray two years later—pretending to fit in, wondering if any of his relationships are real.

In the nine masterful stories that comprise Thrillville, USA, debut author Taylor Koekkoek depicts Americans living on the margins of society, seeking escape from isolation and underemployment in drugs, booze, and self-destructive relationships. While the action is set largely in the rural Pacific Northwest, the characters’ malaise and disaffectedness is endemic of the country as a whole. The title takes its name from the aforementioned amusement park, but Thrillville is as much a state of mind as an actual place.

Dr. Yungman Kwak is in the twilight of his life. Every day for the last fifty years, he has brushed his teeth, slipped on his shoes, and headed to Horse Breath’s General Hospital, where, as an obstetrician, he treats the women and babies of the small rural Minnesota town he chose to call home.

It’s 2013, and much of the world still reels from the global economic collapse. Yet in the auction rooms of London, artworks are selling for record-breaking prices. Seeking a place in this gilded world is Martin, a junior specialist at a prestigious auction house. Martin spends his days catering to the whims of obscenely wealthy clients and his nights drinking in grubby pubs with his demoralized roommate. However, a chance meeting with Marina, an old university friend, presents Martin with a chance to change everything.

Ever since his girlfriend ended things, Thomas’s life has been on a downward spiral. A gifted medical student, he has spent his entire adulthood struggling to escape the legacy of his father, an esteemed psychiatrist who used him as a test subject when he was a boy. Thomas lived his entire childhood watched over by researchers lurking behind one-way glass. But now the tables have turned. Thomas is the researcher, and he’s convinced an experiment he has concocted will cure three homeless men of their delusional claims. Then the experiment careens out of control....

Addie Downs and Valerie Adler will be best friends forever. That's what Addie believes after Valerie moves across the street when they're both nine years old. But in the wake of betrayal during their teenage years, Val is swept into the popular crowd, while mousy, sullen Addie becomes her school's scapegoat.

Somewhere in North Dakota, there is a town called Owl that isn't there. Disco is over, but punk never happened. They don't have cable. They don't really have pop culture, unless you count grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. They hate the government and impregnate teenage girls. But that's not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it's perfect.

From the number-one New York Times best-selling author, a novel about three very different women who become friends while seeking refuge in an old beach house.

The last decade of Cannie's life has brought some surprises. Her life story, in fictional form, became an unexpected best-seller, and Cannie has since choosen to retreat from fame's fallout, writing science fiction under a pen name. Her daughter, Joy, has descended into the throes of moody adolescence, just in time for her bat mitzvah.

In The Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr brings back the vivid world of his best-selling The Alienist, but with a twist: this story is told by the former street urchin Stevie Taggert, whose rough life has given him wisdom beyond his years. Thus New York City, and the groundbreaking alienist Dr. Kreizler himself, are seen anew.

Fern Michaels, the New York Times best-selling author of Late Bloomer and Crown Jewel, presents a passionate and heartwarming novella that will delight and inspire listeners every holiday season.

Lucy Baker walks away from her high-flying legal career when she successfully defends yet another heinous criminal. Almost a year after her life-changing decision, Lucy has never been happier. Leaving New York City for the suburbs, tending her garden and her dog, Lucy is making future plans with her fiancé, Jonathan St. Clair - and getting acquainted with her neighbors, including the handsome, exasperating one next door, Wylie Wilson....

With her trademark wisdom and humor, Anita Diamant ( The Red Tent) considers the nature, strength, and necessity of adult female friendship. Good Harbor examines the tragedy of loss, the insidious nature of family secrets, and the redemptive power of friendship.

Beth Cardall has a secret. For 18 years, she has had no choice but to keep it to herself, but on Christmas Eve 2008, all that is about to change. For Beth, 1989 was a year marked by tragedy. She had lost any ability to trust, to hope, or to believe in herself. Then, on Christmas Day, as she rushed through a blizzard to the nearest 7-Eleven, Beth encountered Matthew, a strikingly handsome, mysterious stranger, who would single-handedly change the course of her life.

Who would ever guess that the beloved legend of Santa Claus involves a seldom-told tale of faith and friendship between two men -- one white and one black? Long ago, Santa Claus had an African partner named Pete and together they brought the spirit of Christmas to America's first settlers. These two forever changed the way families celebrate the holiday. But through the years, Pete's contribution was forgotten.

Transmission, Hari Kunzru's new novel of love and lunacy, immigration and immunity, introduces a daydreaming Indian computer geek whose luxurious fantasies about life in America are shaken when he accepts a California job offer.