Showing results by publisher "Hachette Audio" in Literary Fiction

These stories introduce us not only to ordinary people seeking to live extraordinary lives, but also to the skunk ape (a southern variant of Bigfoot), the ghost of Jesse James, and a bone-tired Jack the Giant Killer. Whether it's Appalachia, Nashville, the Carolina Coast, or a make-believe land of talking dogs, each world Earley creates is indelible.

It's 1973, and David Leveraux has landed his dream job as a Flavorist-in-Training, working in the secretive industry where chemists create the flavors for everything from the cherry in your can of soda to the butter on your popcorn. While testing a new artificial sweetener - Sweetness #9 - he notices unusual side-effects in the laboratory rats and monkeys: anxiety, obesity, mutism, and a generalized dissatisfaction with life. David tries to blow the whistle, but he swallows it instead.

Olivia Marsten never imagined she'd be a war bride. But when her childhood best friend surprises her with a marriage proposal, she reluctantly accepts. She can't bear to send him off to serve in the Navy with a broken heart...even though her heart belongs to someone else. Sparks fly the moment mysterious stranger Peter Becker lays eyes on Olivia. He never hesitated to pull her out of harm's way-risking his own life to save hers. Yet as kind as he is handsome, Peter harbors a dark secret.

The nightmares have returned. Something, or someone, wants to drag Julia Davidson back into a dreadful conflict she assumed was a distant memory. Was this, like before, the echo of another person's dream? Is she responsible to rescue faces she doesn't recognize but can't forget? Do the murky images suggest she has a part to play in whatever ominous events lie ahead?

Peter Herring was the center of Anne's universe in college, and now, a few years later, he's become the center of Anna's, and merely a minor player in his ex-girlfriend's world. That is, until Peter and Anna are invited into Anne's parents' home to visit with her dying mother, and he finds himself drawn back into her orbit. Years later, when her own mother is dying, Anna will find herself yearning to reach out to Anne, with whom she had shared such a brief but intimate bond, and find solace in that moment from long ago.

A vividly original literary novel based on the astounding true-life story of Laura Bridgman, the first deaf and blind person who learned language and blazed a trail for Helen Keller. At age two, Laura Bridgman lost four of her five senses to scarlet fever. At age seven, she was taken to Perkins Institute in Boston to determine if a child so terribly afflicted could be taught. At age 12, Charles Dickens declared her his prime interest for visiting America. And by age 20, she was considered the 19th century's second most famous woman.

When John Blessing dies and leaves behind two small children, the loss reverberates across his extended family for years to come. His young widow, Lauren, finds solace in her large clan of in-laws, while his brother's wife Kate pursues motherhood even at the expense of her marriage. John's teenage nephew Stephen finds himself involved in an act of petty theft that takes a surprising turn, and nephew Alex, a gifted student, travels to Spain and considers the world beyond his family's Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood.

Jenny Carpenter is the unrivaled pie-baking champion of Last Chance, South Carolina's annual Watermelon Festival and the town's unofficial spinster. With her dream of marriage and children on hold, she focuses on another dream, turning the local haunted house into a charming bed-and-breakfast. But her plans go off course when the home's former owner shows up on her doorstep on a dark and stormy night...

A tragic bus accident sets two families on a course toward destruction, irrevocably altering the lives of everyone in their wake. June McAllister is the wife of the local mill owner and undisputed first lady in town. But the Snow family, a group of itinerant ne'er-do-wells who live on a decrepit and cursed property, have brought her - and the town - nothing but grief. June will do anything to cover up a dark secret she discovers after the crash, one that threatens to upend her picture-perfect life, even if it means driving the Snow family out of town.

Devoted fans of Leila Meacham will devour this long, juicy audiobook. Tumbleweeds is the story of three young friends - the saint, the sinner, and the angel - growing up together in the sort of small Texas Panhandle town that lives and dies by its Friday night football games. A fateful event casts a long shadow over these three intertwined lives and leaves the listener desperate to see how it all plays out.

Howard Kapostash has not spoken in 30 years. Ever since a severe blow to the head during his days in the Army, words unravel in his mouth and letters on the page make no sense at all. Because of his extremely limited communication abilities, a small repertory of gestures and simple sounds, most people think he is disturbed. No one understands that Howard is still the same man he was before enlisting, still awed by the beauty of a landscape, still pining for his high school sweetheart, Sylvia.

When young Armstrong Todd's mother sends him to spend the summer in her native rural Mississippi, the Chicago-bred 15-year-old is unused to the segregated ways of the Deep South. So when the black youth utters a few innocuous words in French to a white woman, he has no idea of the impending firestorm he has ignited. Armstrong ends up paying the ultimate price when the offended woman's husband and his friends decide to teach the youth a lesson.

Ever since shape-shifter Elin escaped to Whidbey Island, danger has stalked her every move. Her human traits, combined with her unique supernatural gifts, make her a prized being to be possessed... or destroyed. It is only the passionate attraction she shares with were-hound Sean Black that gives her hope for her future - if she can elude the lethal predators who are hot on her scent. But Sean carries a secret that binds him to an enemy from the past and to a darker, deadlier force - a malignant evil that is hunting the women of Whidbey Island....

High above the bustling streets of Dubai, in the world's most luxurious skyscraper, reside the gods and goddesses of the modern world. Since they emerged 14 billion years ago from a bus blaring a tune remarkably similar to the Mister Softee jingle, they've wreaked mischief and havoc on mankind. Unable to control their jealousies, the gods have splintered into several factions, led by the immortal enemies XOXO, Shanice, La Felina, Fast-Cooking Ali, and Mogul Magoo. Ike Karton, an unemployed butcher from New Jersey, is their current obsession.

The redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer, when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her home to an Indian village untouched by time. There, she discovers in the jungle behind her ancestral house a spellbinding garden that harbors a terrifying secret.

Elizabeth is an ambivalent academic living in New York City with Brett and their young son, Harry. Everyone wants Elizabeth to marry Brett, including Brett, but whenever marriage comes up, the intended bride quickly changes the subject. Then Elizabeth publishes a paper on Madame Bovary that catches the eye of an impetuous movie producer, and her life turns upside down...

What do a suburban mom and her troubled daughter, two recently divorced brothers, a pair of former child stars, born-again Christian newlyweds, and a couple of young millionaires have in common? They have all been selected to compete on Lost and Found, a daring new reality TV show. In teams of two, they will race across the globe, from Egypt to Japan, from Sweden to England, to battle for a million-dollar prize.

In 1972, the town of DeClare, Oklahoma, was consumed by the terrifying murder of Gaylene Harjo and the disappearance of her baby, Nicky Jack. When the child's pajama bottoms were found on the banks of Willow Creek, everyone feared Nicky Jack was dead, although his body was never found.

Growing up poor and largely abandoned on the streets of 1920s Chicago, Anna Finnegan has struggled her entire life. Until a talent manager discovers her and brings her into the world of theater. Now years later she's about to start shooting her first movie. Arriving on location in Redstone, Texas, in 1932, Anna steps off the train and collides into Dalton Barnes. He's lived in Redstone all his life and hates how the big city out-of-towners are gawking at the small-town locals like him.

Lauren Sheehan's career in medicine came to a halt after a chain of violent events abroad. Now she's back in the safest place she knows - St. Helens, Wisconsin-cut off from career, friendship, and romance.