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She Wanted It All
- A True Story of Sex, Murder, and a Texas Millionaire (Avon True Crime)
- By: Kathryn Casey
- Narrated by: Gillian Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Trophy wife Celeste Beard wasn't satisfied with a luxurious lifestyle and her rich Austin media mogul husband's devotion--so she took his life! The wife: She wanted everything, but her husband stood in the way. The lesbian lover: a lovestruck, middle-aged woman with a history of mental illness. She would do anything to set Celeste free. The beauty salon receptionist: Celeste hired her to tie up the loose ends...in a second conspiracy to commit murder.
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Monsters are real
- By Amazon Customer on 04-27-23
- She Wanted It All
- A True Story of Sex, Murder, and a Texas Millionaire (Avon True Crime)
- By: Kathryn Casey
- Narrated by: Gillian Vance
Monsters are real
Reviewed: 04-27-23
I followed this trial on CourtTV and since then have watched interviews with Celeste Beard on shows like Facing Evil and Reasonable Doubt, so I thought I had a pretty good idea of what kind of person she was and how she still refuses to accept any responsibility for what she's done, even aside from what she was convicted of doing. This book, though, was a revelation. I had no idea of what Celeste Beard's life before meeting Steven Beard had been like, or how she brought chaos everywhere she went. The things that she got away with before she manipulated her friend Tracey into killing her husband were jaw-dropping. The way that she treated people who loved her was horrifying. I've listened to the book a few times and still can't figure out how she got that way. All that I can come up with is that she was born without a conscience. Everyone who loved or cared about Celeste ended up dead, damaged, or in prison.
The research that went into this book is excellent, and Kathryn Casey shows great empathy for all of Celeste Beard's husbands (all of them, especially Steven Beard), the Beard family and her own daughters, while doing her best to be fair as possible to Celeste herself. Still, based on everything that Celeste is known to have done, she is exactly where she belongs.
This book is highly recommended for true crime fans, and I look forward to reading more of Kathryn Casey's work.
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2 people found this helpful
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To Have and to Kill
- Nurse Melanie McGuire, an Illicit Affair, and the Gruesome Murder of Her Husband
- By: John Glatt
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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One by one, three waterlogged suitcases were pulled from the Chesapeake Bay. In each were body parts of a man. In a forensics room, the truth was discovered: William McGuire had been horribly murdered and dismembered. William and his loving wife, a registered nurse named Melanie, had just closed on their New Jersey dream home. But Melanie had been involved in a long-term affair with a married doctor at the fertility clinic where she worked - and she had plans for the future that didn't include William.
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Couldn't get past the narrator
- By Susie Q on 03-19-20
- To Have and to Kill
- Nurse Melanie McGuire, an Illicit Affair, and the Gruesome Murder of Her Husband
- By: John Glatt
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
Good not great
Reviewed: 08-19-21
I followed this case when it broke, and figured that there was more to it than CourtTV was covering. This didn't disappoint on that count. John Glatt's books are always thorough to a fault, and the narration was wonderful; since the author is British, it just makes sense to have a British narrator. Sometimes there was too much detail -- the horrific description of the dismembered body was probably necessary, but I didn't need to be told several times that the guts spilled out. Gross! So when I listened to the book again, I skipped those parts. It's too bad that we don't know all that much about what was going on in Melanie's head -- but she probably wasn't as chatty as the other murderers that John Glatt has written about.
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1 person found this helpful
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Playing with Fire
- The True Story of a Nurse, Her Husband, and a Marriage Turned Fatal
- By: John Glatt
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing could have shocked the sleepy community of Morgantown, West Virginia, more than the lurid details that surfaced after a house fire claimed the life of Shelly Michael's husband, Jimmy. Local authorities suspected possible arson. Then they discovered that Jimmy had been dead before the fire even started - paralyzed by a fatal dose of muscle relaxant.... Did Shelly Michael, a respected nurse and mother, kill her second husband and torch her own home?
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Neverending
- By Brett on 05-11-21
- Playing with Fire
- The True Story of a Nurse, Her Husband, and a Marriage Turned Fatal
- By: John Glatt
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
All the detail you could want
Reviewed: 05-25-21
I've seen the TV versions of this story, and this book is so, so much more thorough. The presentation of the story, the depictions of the main characters and the details of the investigation and the trial are great. People who like getting into the weeds of stories like this are going to be riveted by it; others who prefer a bird's eye view, not so much. I also enjoyed the measured pace of the narration. It was easy to tell from the writing that the book wasn't written by an American, and having a British narrator seemed appropriate and after a while I didn't even notice it. This audiobook exceeded my expectations.
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1 person found this helpful
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Poisoned Blood
- A True Story of Murder, Passion, and an Astonishing Hoax
- By: Philip E. Ginsburg
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 19 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Pretty, smart, and pampered, Audrey Marie Hilley grew up in a small Alabama town believing she was entitled to the best of everything. But marriage to her high school sweetheart, a cushy secretarial job, and motherhood were not enough to satisfy Marie, and she soon began to act out in troubling ways. Only when her husband, Frank, became sick with a mysterious illness, did it seem that she was ready to put someone else's needs ahead of her own. The truth was far more disturbing.
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You sure do get your money's worth
- By Kilroy on 02-09-21
- Poisoned Blood
- A True Story of Murder, Passion, and an Astonishing Hoax
- By: Philip E. Ginsburg
- Narrated by: David Colacci
Too much crazy for TV
Reviewed: 03-24-21
I’ve seen the TV movie and the murder channel episodes about Marie Hilley, so didn’t expect too many surprises in this book. It went into an impressive amount of detail, which some people might find tiresome but I didn’t. And yes, Marie was even more of a sociopath than she’s been depicted and got away with a lot more than the crimes for which she was convicted. The delivery initially struck me as a bit flat, but proved effective. The narrator’s understated tone when describing the horrific things that Marie did actually made the content easier to follow and remember. People who can never get too far into the weeds and minutiae will like this audiobook but those who would prefer just the highlight reel should probably take a pass on it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Get Happy
- The Life of Judy Garland
- By: Gerald Clarke
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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She lived at full throttle on stage, screen, and in real life, with highs that made history and lows that finally brought down the curtain at age 47. Judy Garland died over 30 years ago, but no biography has so completely captured her spirit - and demons - until now. From her tumultuous early years as a child performer to her tragic last days, Gerald Clarke reveals the authentic Judy in a biography rich in new detail and unprecedented revelations.
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A good book, but...
- By Donna Deal on 08-27-21
- Get Happy
- The Life of Judy Garland
- By: Gerald Clarke
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
A white hot mess of a life
Reviewed: 02-08-21
Gerald Clarke excels at writing thoughtful and clear-eyed biographies of tormented souls; his biography of Truman Capote made me eager to read his book on Judy Garland and it did not disappoint. I thought that I knew all the details about her tragic life, but this book was a revelation. Without casting her as a helpless victim, misunderstood genius or drug-addled lunatic, Gerald Clarke presents a life of a woman with severe mental illness and addictions whose problems were exacerbated by bad luck, bad decisions, bad men and bad timing. At the same time, she was a brillant performer and was lost when one professional door after another closed on her, largely because of her addictions and possible bipolar disorder. The trajectory of her life and career was even more heartbreaking than I'd thought, and I ended the book understanding how she wore out and alienated the people who cared about her, and attracted people who were out to use and exploit her. It's sad that the kind of resources that are available now weren't available during her lifetime. The narration was perfect.
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His Truth Is Marching On
- John Lewis and the Power of Hope
- By: Jon Meacham, John Lewis - afterword
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Jon Meacham
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime US congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Soul of America.
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Absolutely remarkable!
- By Janie on 08-30-20
- His Truth Is Marching On
- John Lewis and the Power of Hope
- By: Jon Meacham, John Lewis - afterword
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Jon Meacham
A glimpse into an astonishing life
Reviewed: 09-20-20
I have the three-volume graphic memoir by John Lewis, but this book fleshes out that story in ways that perhaps Rep. Lewis was too modest to do. The biography goes into great detail about John Lewis' faith in ways that might be off-putting to people who aren't in his faith tradition (and some might quibble with the characterization of John Lewis as a modern saint), but it really gives insight into where he got his moral strength and values. The stories of the arrests, the beatings and yes, the torture that he endured in the 1950s and 1960s are harrowing. It only made me admire him all the more. The biography ends with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. John Lewis' political career, which is kind of an anticlimax, is summed up in an epilogue and Representative Lewis gets the last word. The narration is slow, thoughtful, and perfect for this book. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about John Lewis, or who thought that they already knew what he accomplished when he was still a very young man.
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14 people found this helpful
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My Sister, the Serial Killer
- A Novel
- By: Oyinkan Braithwaite
- Narrated by: Adepero Oduye
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit. Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works.
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That’s it?!!!
- By Danni B. on 12-26-18
- My Sister, the Serial Killer
- A Novel
- By: Oyinkan Braithwaite
- Narrated by: Adepero Oduye
Sisters are complicated
Reviewed: 04-14-20
My brother-in-law recommended this book to me, which made me wonder if he suspects that my little sister is a sociopath. Anyway, I found the family and workplace relationships much more interesting than the murders.The narrator could probably have made any story interesting since she is so self-aware and observant; most of the other characters -- except for one -- seemed one-dimensional in comparison. And it had been a while since I read a novel that was set in an African country, so I enjoyed that too. There were a couple of twists that I might have seen coming had I read the book instead of listening to it but like many others have commented, the ending was a letdown. It was just an ending, not a resolution. I do hope that Brathwaite picks up some of the loose threads in her next novel, or retells it from the other sister's point of view.
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The New Negro
- The Life of Alain Locke
- By: Jeffrey C. Stewart
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 45 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar, earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America.
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Let me guess? Locke was a gay black man?
- By Porter on 01-21-20
- The New Negro
- The Life of Alain Locke
- By: Jeffrey C. Stewart
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
I love long biographies of difficult people
Reviewed: 01-14-20
I learned a bit about Alain Locke in grad school, when studying the history of Africans and African Americans in Europe after World War I. His name popped up in most of my sources and although I was curious about him, his work wasn't central to my research. This biography is answering all of my questions about him. It's not an easy listen, though, and people who don't have a decent knowledge of African American intellectual history and the Harlem Renaissance might find it overwhelming. For me, though, it's an embarrassment of riches. I am learning about his connections with people that I had no idea he knew, like Zora Neale Hurston and Charlotte Mason. At the same time, Locke does not emerge as particularly likeable, but given the things that he has to struggle with -- not the least of which were chronically bad health and living as a gay black man -- his tendency to be manipulative, intellectually dishonest (at times) and defensive, bordering on paranoid, makes sense. I have to admit that it took me about three months of off and on reading and a few restarts to complete this tome, because of the length and its density, but I enjoy biographies like this that get into the messiness of a life. The last chapter, that discusses Locke's death and Locke's legacy, soars.
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2 people found this helpful
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Looking for Lorraine
- The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: LisaGay Hamilton
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Lorraine Hansberry, who died at thirty-four, was by all accounts a force of nature. Although best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, her short life was full of extraordinary experiences and achievements, and she had an unflinching commitment to social justice, which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. While her close friends and contemporaries, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone, have been rightly celebrated, her story has been diminished and relegated to one work—until now.
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Radiant
- By Rose Brookins on 03-20-19
- Looking for Lorraine
- The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry
- By: Imani Perry
- Narrated by: LisaGay Hamilton
We would have been great friends
Reviewed: 05-16-19
I've read Hansberry's work and had been looking for a comprehensive intellectual biography of her for a long time. This one is excellent in discussing Lorraine Hansberry's family, relationships, creative process, activism and inner life. She sounds like a lot of women that I knew in college and grad school: brilliant, energetic, fun-loving, but also passionately committed to social justice and confident in her ability to make it a reality. The book has left me feeling an immense sense of loss that she died so young, because there were so many more contributions that she could have made, and because her voice was so important to the civil rights movement, to what would become the LGBTQ community, and to the arts. At the same time, I have to feel grateful that she accomplished as much as she did in the time that she had. Someone, though, really needed to tell Lisa Gay Hamilton how to pronounce Andre Gide's name correctly ("jeed," not "guide"). Otherwise, no quibbles about her reading of this biography. This is one audiobook that I will not archive, because I will be listening to it again.
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6 people found this helpful
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The Source of Self-Regard
- Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Arguably the most celebrated and revered writer of our time now gives us a new nonfiction collection - a rich gathering of her essays, speeches, and meditations on society, culture, and art, spanning four decades.
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Refreshing thoughts
- By Amazon Customer on 04-02-19
- The Source of Self-Regard
- Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Refreshing thoughts
Reviewed: 04-02-19
I used to think that no one but Toni Morrison should narrate Toni Morrison's books, but this reading changed my mind. This is a wonderful collection of essays that showcases the breadth and depth of Morrison's thoughts as an artist, an activist, an intellectual and as someone with a deep love of humanity, and a sense of hope despite...well, everything. I'd thought that I could listen to this one essay at a time, in bites, but ended up bingeing over a couple of days. Like her other writings, it's too rich to take in all at once, and I am looking forward to seeing what I missed when I listen to it again and again.
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36 people found this helpful