
A Gorgeous Excitement
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Rebecca Lowman
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By:
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Cynthia Weiner
About this listen
One young woman’s summer of infinite possibility takes a turn she never saw coming in “this 1980s coming-of-age tale [that’s] chillingly compelling. Get ready to be transported.”—People (Best Books of the Month)
AN OPRAH DAILY BEST NEW THRILLER • A TOWN & COUNTRY AND CRIMEREADS MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK
“I haven’t felt this kind of excitement reading a story set in the ’80s since I first discovered Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz, and Bret Easton Ellis.”—Margarita Montimore, bestselling author of Oona Out of Order
There are two things Nina Jacobs is determined to do over the summer of 1986: avoid her mother’s depression-fueled rages, and lose her virginity before she starts college in the fall. Both are seemingly impossible—when her mother isn’t lying in bed for days, she’s lashing out at Nina over any perceived slight. And after a blowjob gone spectacularly wrong, Nina is the talk of Flanagan’s, the Upper East Side bar where young Manhattan society congregates. It doesn’t help that she’s Jewish, an outsider among the blue-eyed blondes who populate this rarified world. She can fit in, kind of, with enough alcohol and prescription drugs stolen from her parents’ medicine cabinet.
Flanagan’s is where she pines for the handsome, preppy, and charismatic Gardner Reed. Every girl wants to sleep with him and every guy wants to be him. After she’s introduced to cocaine, Nina plunges headlong into her pursuit of Gardner, oblivious to the warning signs. When a new medication seemingly frees her mother from darkness, and Nina and Gardner grow closer, it seems like Nina might finally get what she wants. But at what cost?
Freud called cocaine “a gorgeous excitement,” but a gorgeous excitement for the wrong guy can be lethal.
©2025 Cynthia Weiner (P)2025 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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“Informed by the author’s real-life acquaintance with ‘Preppy Killer’ Robert Chambers, this 1980s coming-of-age tale is chillingly compelling.”—People
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Clever Little Thing
- A Novel
- By: Helena Echlin
- Narrated by: Ashley Tucker
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Charlotte’s daughter Stella is sensitive and brilliant, perhaps even a genius, but a recent change in her behavior has alarmed her mother. Following the sudden death of Stella’s babysitter, Blanka, the once disruptive and anti-social child has become docile and agreeable. But what’s unsettling is that she has begun to mirror Blanka’s personality, from Blanka’s repetitive phrases to her accent, to fierce cravings for Armenian meat stew after being raised a vegetarian.
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Slow but keeps you interested
- By Autumn Sullivan on 03-08-25
By: Helena Echlin
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The Boyhood of Cain
- By: Michael Amherst
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the shadow of an ancient abbey nestled between rivers, Daniel is growing up. He is highly intelligent but little understood by his parents, and a secret passion burns inside him for love and recognition. When his father loses his job as the headmaster of the local school, his family stumbles into a rural life for which they are ill-prepared. Daniel’s sole solace is the arrival of Philip, a new boy at school, whom he worships with a confused intensity.
By: Michael Amherst
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The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Ryan
- Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
After renowned fashion designer Cressida Westcott loses both her home and her design house in the London Blitz, she has nowhere to go but the family manor house she fled decades ago. Praying that her niece and nephew will be more hospitable than her brother had been, she arrives with nothing but the clothes she stands in, at a loss as to how to rebuild her business while staying in a quaint country village.
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Delightful historical fiction
- By Kindle Customer on 01-01-23
By: Jennifer Ryan
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Awake in the Floating City
- A Novel
- By: Susanna Kwan
- Narrated by: Catherine Ho
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge and ever since, Bo has been alone. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape—but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay.
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Catherine Ho is my least favorite audio performer
- By NMwritergal on 05-15-25
By: Susanna Kwan
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The Note
- A Novel
- By: Alafair Burke
- Narrated by: Catherine Ho
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Growing up, May Hanover was a good girl, always. Well-behaved, top of her class, a compulsive rule-follower. Raised by a first-generation Chinese single mother with high expectations, May didn’t have room to slip up, let alone fail. Her friends didn’t call her the Little Sheriff for nothing. But even good girls have secrets. And regrets. When it comes to her friendship with Lauren and Kelsey, she's had her fair share of both.
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Distracting Narration
- By carol miller on 01-15-25
By: Alafair Burke
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My Good Bright Wolf
- A Memoir
- By: Sarah Moss
- Narrated by: Morven Christie
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A girl must watch her figure but never be vain. She must be intelligent but never a know-it-all. She must be ambitious, if she is clever, but not in a way that shows. She must cook and sew and make do and mend. She must know (but never say) that these skills are, in some fundamental way, flawed and frivolous—feminine. Girls must stay small, even as they grow. Women must show restraint. And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free.
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A brilliant thinker.
- By Sarah Steinberg on 12-05-24
By: Sarah Moss
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The Children's Bach
- By: Helen Garner
- Narrated by: Helen Garner
- Length: 3 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Athena and Dexter live a happy but insular life, bound by routine and the care of their young sons. When Elizabeth, an old friend from Dexter’s university days, turns up with her much younger sister, Vicki, and her lover, Philip, she brings an enticing world to their doorstep. And Athena finds herself straining at the confines of her life.
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It was a feat to finish this book.
- By Majo on 02-07-24
By: Helen Garner
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Beta Vulgaris
- A Novel
- By: Margie Sarsfield
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Elise and her boyfriend, Tom, set off for Minnesota, hoping the paycheck from the sugar beet harvest will cover the rent on their Brooklyn apartment. Amidst the grueling work and familiar anxieties about her finances, Elise starts noticing strange things: threatening phone calls, a mysterious rash, and snatches of an ominous voice coming from the beet pile. When Tom and other coworkers begin to vanish, Elise is left alone to confront the weight of her past, the horrors of her uncertain future, and the menacing but enticing siren song of the beets.
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The awful personality of the main character.
- By Gina Q. on 02-16-25
By: Margie Sarsfield
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O Sinners!
- A Novel
- By: Nicole Cuffy
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, SEVAN
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist processing the recent death of his father, a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed himself in a cult called “the nameless.” Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran named Odo, the nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “all suffering is distortion” and “see only beauty.”
By: Nicole Cuffy
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All the Other Mothers Hate Me
- By: Sarah Harman
- Narrated by: Georgina Sadler
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Florence Grimes is a thirty-one-year-old party girl who always takes the easy way out. Single, broke and unfulfilled after the humiliating end to her girl band career, she has only one reason to get out of bed each day: her ten-year-old son Dylan. But then Alfie Risby, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast frozen food empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect. Florence, for once, is faced with a task she can’t quit: She’s got to find Alfie and clear her son’s name, or risk losing Dylan forever.
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Good book!
- By Amanda Corkum on 03-13-25
By: Sarah Harman
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Going Home
- A Novel
- By: Tom Lamont
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Going Home is a sparkling, funny, bighearted story of family and what happens when three men—all of whom are completely ill-suited for fatherhood—take charge of a toddler following an unexpected loss.
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Great Story
- By E G Neufeld on 03-12-25
By: Tom Lamont
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Nobody's Empire
- A Novel
- By: Stuart Murdoch
- Narrated by: Stuart Murdoch
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It’s the early 1990s in Glasgow, Scotland, and Stephen has emerged from a lengthy hospital stay. Diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, a little-understood disease which has robbed him of any prospects of work, friends, or independent living, he moves slowly toward new goals and meets others like him, including Richard, a friend from school, and Carrie, a young woman bedridden for five years. Feeling isolated and alone, they form their own support group, and try to get by with as little money and pain as possible.
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A novel of self discovery and hope
- By Aloha Boston on 04-30-25
By: Stuart Murdoch
Night Club Scene
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Incredible in every way.
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Felt it needed more editing and maturity
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It was long and drawn out, could have made it much shorter.
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SOOO good.
Juicy, but wise, but touching too
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