
Becoming Madam Secretary
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Cassandra Campbell
-
By:
-
Stephanie Dray
About this listen
She took on titans, battled generals, and changed the world as we know it…
New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray returns with a captivating and dramatic novel about an American heroine Frances Perkins.
Raised on tales of her revolutionary ancestors, Frances Perkins arrives in New York City at the turn of the century, armed with her trusty parasol and an unyielding determination to make a difference.
When she’s not working with children in the crowded tenements in Hell’s Kitchen, Frances throws herself into the social scene in Greenwich Village, befriending an eclectic group of politicians, artists, and activists, including the millionaire socialite Mary Harriman Rumsey, the flirtatious budding author Sinclair Lewis, and the brilliant but troubled reformer Paul Wilson, with whom she falls deeply in love.
But when Frances meets a young lawyer named Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a tea dance, sparks fly in all the wrong directions. She thinks he’s a rich, arrogant dilettante who gets by on a handsome face and a famous name. He thinks she’s a priggish bluestocking and insufferable do-gooder. Neither knows it yet, but over the next twenty years, they will form a historic partnership that will carry them both to the White House.
Frances is destined to rise in a political world dominated by men, facing down the Great Depression as FDR’s most trusted lieutenant—even as she struggles to balance the demands of a public career with marriage and motherhood. And when vicious political attacks mount and personal tragedies threaten to derail her ambitions, she must decide what she’s willing to do—and what she’s willing to sacrifice—to save a nation.
©2024 Stephanie Dray (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
A Most Tolerant Little Town
- The Explosive Beginning of School Desegregation
- By: Rachel Louise Martin
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Megan Tusing
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In graduate school, Rachel Martin was sent to a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians, where locals wanted to build a museum to commemorate the events of September 1956, when Clinton High School became the first school in the former Confederacy to attempt court mandated desegregation.
-
-
Amazing read!
- By Chris Thompson on 02-07-25
-
Finding Margaret Fuller
- A Novel
- By: Allison Pataki
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young, brazen, beautiful, and unapologetically brilliant, Margaret Fuller accepts an invitation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the celebrated Sage of Concord, to meet his coterie of enlightened friends. There she becomes “the radiant genius and fiery heart” of the Transcendentalists, a role model to a young Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne and the scandalous Scarlet Letter, a friend to Henry David Thoreau as he ventures out to Walden Pond . . . and a muse to Emerson. But Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama.
-
-
I must’ve missed this group of thinkers in high school being friends
- By Liesl on 04-20-24
By: Allison Pataki
-
The Canary Girls
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Chiaverini
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early in the Great War, men left Britain’s factories in droves to enlist. Struggling to keep up production, arsenals hired women to build the weapons the military urgently needed. “Be the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun,” the recruitment posters beckoned. Thousands of women—cooks, maids, shopgirls, and housewives—answered their nation’s call. These “munitionettes” worked grueling shifts often seven days a week, handling TNT and other explosives with little protective gear.
-
-
A Novel Worth Listening To.
- By Ana Reader on 03-17-24
-
When We Were the Kennedys
- A Memoir from Mexico, Maine
- By: Monica Wood
- Narrated by: Monica Wood
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1963, Mexico, Maine. The Wood family is much like its close, Catholic, immigrant neighbors, all dependent on a father's wages from the Oxford Paper Company. Until the sudden death of Dad, when Mum and the four closely connected Wood girls are set adrift. Funny and to-the-bone moving, When We Were the Kennedys is the story of how this family saves itself, at first by depending on Father Bob, Mum's youngest brother, a charismatic Catholic priest who feels his new responsibilities deeply.
-
-
Cried and laughed.
- By Nancy N Barcelo on 07-03-15
By: Monica Wood
-
Her Hidden Genius
- A Novel
- By: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosalind Franklin has always been an outsider - brilliant, but different. Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, she feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its secrets. Rosalind knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture - one more after thousands - she can unlock the building blocks of life.
-
-
Loved this!
- By coffee shop owner on 02-03-22
By: Marie Benedict
-
America's First Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, best-selling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph - a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.
-
-
Great Story Great Narration
- By MissSusie66 on 03-30-16
By: Stephanie Dray, and others
-
A Most Tolerant Little Town
- The Explosive Beginning of School Desegregation
- By: Rachel Louise Martin
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Megan Tusing
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In graduate school, Rachel Martin was sent to a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians, where locals wanted to build a museum to commemorate the events of September 1956, when Clinton High School became the first school in the former Confederacy to attempt court mandated desegregation.
-
-
Amazing read!
- By Chris Thompson on 02-07-25
-
Finding Margaret Fuller
- A Novel
- By: Allison Pataki
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young, brazen, beautiful, and unapologetically brilliant, Margaret Fuller accepts an invitation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the celebrated Sage of Concord, to meet his coterie of enlightened friends. There she becomes “the radiant genius and fiery heart” of the Transcendentalists, a role model to a young Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne and the scandalous Scarlet Letter, a friend to Henry David Thoreau as he ventures out to Walden Pond . . . and a muse to Emerson. But Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama.
-
-
I must’ve missed this group of thinkers in high school being friends
- By Liesl on 04-20-24
By: Allison Pataki
-
The Canary Girls
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Chiaverini
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early in the Great War, men left Britain’s factories in droves to enlist. Struggling to keep up production, arsenals hired women to build the weapons the military urgently needed. “Be the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun,” the recruitment posters beckoned. Thousands of women—cooks, maids, shopgirls, and housewives—answered their nation’s call. These “munitionettes” worked grueling shifts often seven days a week, handling TNT and other explosives with little protective gear.
-
-
A Novel Worth Listening To.
- By Ana Reader on 03-17-24
-
When We Were the Kennedys
- A Memoir from Mexico, Maine
- By: Monica Wood
- Narrated by: Monica Wood
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1963, Mexico, Maine. The Wood family is much like its close, Catholic, immigrant neighbors, all dependent on a father's wages from the Oxford Paper Company. Until the sudden death of Dad, when Mum and the four closely connected Wood girls are set adrift. Funny and to-the-bone moving, When We Were the Kennedys is the story of how this family saves itself, at first by depending on Father Bob, Mum's youngest brother, a charismatic Catholic priest who feels his new responsibilities deeply.
-
-
Cried and laughed.
- By Nancy N Barcelo on 07-03-15
By: Monica Wood
-
Her Hidden Genius
- A Novel
- By: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rosalind Franklin has always been an outsider - brilliant, but different. Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, she feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its secrets. Rosalind knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture - one more after thousands - she can unlock the building blocks of life.
-
-
Loved this!
- By coffee shop owner on 02-03-22
By: Marie Benedict
-
America's First Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, best-selling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph - a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.
-
-
Great Story Great Narration
- By MissSusie66 on 03-30-16
By: Stephanie Dray, and others
-
The Orphan Keeper
- By: Camron Wright
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seven-year-old Chellamuthu's life - and his destiny - is forever changed when he is kidnapped from his village in Southern India and sold to the Lincoln Home for Homeless Children. His family is desperate to find him, and Chellamuthu anxiously tells the Indian orphanage that he is not an orphan, he has a mother who loves him. But he is told not to worry, he will soon be adopted by a loving family in America.
-
-
5 Star Worthy
- By Kari on 10-26-16
By: Camron Wright
-
The Queens of Crime
- A Novel
- By: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Bessie Carter
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France.
-
-
Great story, Fantastic narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-26-25
By: Marie Benedict
-
The Women of Chateau Lafayette
- By: Stephanie Dray
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert, Emma Bering, Rachel L. Jacobs
- Length: 23 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An epic saga from New York Times best-selling author Stephanie Dray based on the true story of an extraordinary castle in the heart of France and the remarkable women bound by its legacy.
-
-
An absolute masterpiece of a book!
- By Kindle Customer on 05-15-21
By: Stephanie Dray
-
The Other Einstein
- By: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most 20-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.
-
-
Re writing history
- By PJ Goetz on 11-08-19
By: Marie Benedict
-
The Booklover's Library
- By: Madeline Martin
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job. She and her beloved daughter Olivia have always managed just fine on their own, but with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she’s left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots’ Booklover’s Library to take a chance on her with a job.
-
-
excellent & historically accurate.
- By Kindle Customer on 10-19-24
By: Madeline Martin
-
Lady Clementine
- A Novel
- By: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Sastre
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1909, Clementine steps off a train with her new husband, Winston. An angry woman emerges from the crowd to attack, shoving him in the direction of an oncoming train. Just before he stumbles, Clementine grabs him by his suit jacket. This will not be the last time Clementine Churchill will save her husband. Lady Clementine is the ferocious story of the ambitious woman beside Winston Churchill, the story of a partner who did not flinch through the sweeping darkness of war, and who would not surrender either to expectations or to enemies.
-
-
Not a fan
- By Chris Hedges on 02-18-20
By: Marie Benedict
-
Signal Moon
- A Short Story
- By: Kate Quinn
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld, Andrew Gibson
- Length: 1 hr and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yorkshire, 1943. Lily Baines, a bright young debutante increasingly ground down by an endless war, has traded in her white gloves for a set of headphones. It’s her job to intercept enemy naval communications and send them to Bletchley Park for decryption. One night, she picks up a transmission that isn’t code at all—it’s a cry for help.
-
-
fun fantasy science + historical fiction
- By Leslie MN on 09-01-22
By: Kate Quinn
-
Remember Me
- A Novel of the Spanish Civil War
- By: Mario Escobar
- Narrated by: Zach Hoffman
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid the shadows of war, one family faces an impossible choice that will change their lives forever. From best seller Mario Escobar comes a 20th-century historical novel of sacrifice and resilience inspired by Spain’s famed Children of Morelia and the true events that shaped their lives.
-
-
Amazing book
- By Armando Goiz on 03-04-23
By: Mario Escobar
-
A Very English Murder
- A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery, Book 1
- By: Verity Bright
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1920. Eleanor Swift has spent the last few years travelling the world: taking tea in China, tasting alligators in Peru, escaping bandits in Persia and she has just arrived in England after a chaotic 45-day flight from South Africa. Chipstone is about the sleepiest town you could have the misfortune to meet. But then, from the edge of a quarry, through the driving rain, Eleanor is shocked to see a man shot and killed in the distance. Before she can climb down to the spot, the villain is gone and the body has vanished.
-
-
I wanted to like this so much.
- By BossyFatBabe on 06-23-20
By: Verity Bright
-
The Roaring Days of Zora Lily
- By: Noelle Salazar
- Narrated by: Natalie Duke, Jesse Vilinsky
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2023, The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History: A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer's label, leaving her to wonder—who is Zora Lily?
-
-
great listen
- By thejessa on 12-30-23
By: Noelle Salazar
-
The Social Graces
- By: Renée Rosen
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1876. In the glittering world of Manhattan's upper crust, women are valued by their pedigree, dowry, and, most importantly, connections. They have few rights and even less independence - what they do have is society. The more celebrated the hostess, the more powerful the woman. And none is more powerful than Caroline Astor - the Mrs. Astor.
-
-
Disappointing Effort
- By HistoryNerd on 05-11-21
By: Renée Rosen
-
Whale Fall
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth O'Connor
- Narrated by: Dyfrig Morris, Gabrielle Glaister, Gwyneth Keyworth, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1938, a dead whale washes up on the shores of remote Welsh island. For Manod, who has spent her whole life on the island, it feels like both a portent of doom and a symbol of what may lie beyond the island's shores. A young woman living with her father and her sister (to whom she has reluctantly but devotedly become a mother following the death of their own mother years prior), Manod can't shake her welling desire to explore life beyond the beautiful yet blisteringly harsh islands that her hardscrabble family has called home for generations.
-
-
Excellent book for audible
- By Lilly on 01-01-25
Critic reviews
"Becoming Madam Secretary is a proud anthem to a forgotten founding mother. . . . Stephanie Dray's love and respect for this American heroine shines from every page, as does her impeccable research. Unputdownable!"—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Briar Club
“Stephanie Dray is one of my absolute favorite authors of historical fiction, and her new novel Becoming Madam Secretary shows why. . . . Dray‘s unique skill is telling the big picture of Frances’s life, while at the same time making her a completely relatable wife in a difficult marriage and a working mother when that phrase was unheard of. I couldn’t stop turning the pages in this novel, which is both an inspiration and a triumph!”—Lisa Scottoline, New York Times bestselling author of Loyalty
"Stephanie Dray takes readers on an enthralling journey as Frances Perkins rises to become the country's most important cabinet member during a crossroads in American history, one with lasting ramifications. Hers is a name we should all know, and this is a novel we should all read."—Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling co-author of The First Ladies
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Carnegie's Maid
- A Novel
- By: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home.
-
-
Shallow
- By Mary Smiroldo on 06-26-18
By: Marie Benedict
-
Code Name Hélène
- A Novel
- By: Ariel Lawhon
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik, Peter Ganim
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1936, and Nancy Wake is an intrepid Australian expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name. As Lucienne Carlier, Nancy smuggles people and documents across the border and earns a new nickname from the Gestapo for her remarkable ability to evade capture: The White Mouse.
-
-
Mixed Feelings
- By carpsmarsh on 02-14-21
By: Ariel Lawhon
-
The Orphan's Daughter
- By: Sandy Taylor
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ireland, 1924. For 13-year-old Nora Doyle every day is a fight for survival in Ballybun, the rural Irish village she calls home. Each night, as she feels the cold wind blowing through the cracks of her family’s cramped cottage, Nora longs to escape the poverty surrounding her and find her place in the world. When she meets Edward, from the grand house that looms over her tiny village, she feels an unlikely kinship that is impossible to explain, and as she grows from an impulsive child into a beautiful woman, Nora spends every moment she can with him.
-
-
What a delight!
- By Virginia G. Leyen on 10-23-24
By: Sandy Taylor
-
Sisters of Night and Fog
- A WWII Novel
- By: Erika Robuck
- Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1940. In a world newly burning with war, and in spite of her American family’s wishes, Virginia d’Albert-Lake decides to stay in occupied France with her French husband. She’s sure that if they keep their heads down, they’ll survive. But is surviving enough? Nineteen-year-old Violette Szabo has seen the Nazis’ evil up close and is desperate to fight them. But when she meets the man who’ll change her life only for tragedy to strike, Violette’s adrift.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By John on 03-27-22
By: Erika Robuck
-
The Book of Lost Friends
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss, Sullivan Jones, Robin Miles, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of Before We Were Yours comes a dramatic historical novel of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives.
-
-
I want more!!!
- By Mrstlg on 04-11-20
By: Lisa Wingate
-
The Queen's Fortune
- A Novel of Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty That Outlasted the Empire
- By: Allison Pataki
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the French revolution ravages the country, Desiree Clary is faced with the life-altering truth that the world she has known and loved is gone, and it’s fallen on her to save her family from the guillotine. A chance encounter with Napoleon Bonaparte, the ambitious and charismatic young military prodigy, provides her answer. When her beloved sister, Julie, marries his brother, Joseph, Desiree and Napoleon’s futures become irrevocably linked.
-
-
Fascinating Heroine
- By HistoryNerd on 04-08-21
By: Allison Pataki
-
Carnegie's Maid
- A Novel
- By: Marie Benedict
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home.
-
-
Shallow
- By Mary Smiroldo on 06-26-18
By: Marie Benedict
-
Code Name Hélène
- A Novel
- By: Ariel Lawhon
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik, Peter Ganim
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1936, and Nancy Wake is an intrepid Australian expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name. As Lucienne Carlier, Nancy smuggles people and documents across the border and earns a new nickname from the Gestapo for her remarkable ability to evade capture: The White Mouse.
-
-
Mixed Feelings
- By carpsmarsh on 02-14-21
By: Ariel Lawhon
-
The Orphan's Daughter
- By: Sandy Taylor
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ireland, 1924. For 13-year-old Nora Doyle every day is a fight for survival in Ballybun, the rural Irish village she calls home. Each night, as she feels the cold wind blowing through the cracks of her family’s cramped cottage, Nora longs to escape the poverty surrounding her and find her place in the world. When she meets Edward, from the grand house that looms over her tiny village, she feels an unlikely kinship that is impossible to explain, and as she grows from an impulsive child into a beautiful woman, Nora spends every moment she can with him.
-
-
What a delight!
- By Virginia G. Leyen on 10-23-24
By: Sandy Taylor
-
Sisters of Night and Fog
- A WWII Novel
- By: Erika Robuck
- Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1940. In a world newly burning with war, and in spite of her American family’s wishes, Virginia d’Albert-Lake decides to stay in occupied France with her French husband. She’s sure that if they keep their heads down, they’ll survive. But is surviving enough? Nineteen-year-old Violette Szabo has seen the Nazis’ evil up close and is desperate to fight them. But when she meets the man who’ll change her life only for tragedy to strike, Violette’s adrift.
-
-
Extraordinary
- By John on 03-27-22
By: Erika Robuck
-
The Book of Lost Friends
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss, Sullivan Jones, Robin Miles, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of Before We Were Yours comes a dramatic historical novel of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives.
-
-
I want more!!!
- By Mrstlg on 04-11-20
By: Lisa Wingate
-
The Queen's Fortune
- A Novel of Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty That Outlasted the Empire
- By: Allison Pataki
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the French revolution ravages the country, Desiree Clary is faced with the life-altering truth that the world she has known and loved is gone, and it’s fallen on her to save her family from the guillotine. A chance encounter with Napoleon Bonaparte, the ambitious and charismatic young military prodigy, provides her answer. When her beloved sister, Julie, marries his brother, Joseph, Desiree and Napoleon’s futures become irrevocably linked.
-
-
Fascinating Heroine
- By HistoryNerd on 04-08-21
By: Allison Pataki
-
In the Shadow of the Greenbrier
- By: Emily Matchar
- Narrated by: Gilli Messer
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nestled in the hills of West Virginia lies White Sulphur Springs, home to the Greenbrier Resort. Long a playground for presidents and film stars, the Greenbrier has its own gravitational pull. Over ten decades, four generations of the Zelner family must grapple with their place in its shadow . . . and within their own family.
-
-
So Many Stereotypes Reinforced (I Really Wanted to Like This Book)
- By JRC 318 on 03-22-24
By: Emily Matchar
-
I Was Anastasia
- A Novel
- By: Ariel Lawhon
- Narrated by: Jane Collingwood, Sian Thomas, Ariel Lawhon
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Russia, July 17, 1918: Under direct orders from Vladimir Lenin, Bolshevik secret police force Anastasia Romanov, along with the entire imperial family, into a damp basement in Siberia where they face a merciless firing squad. None survives. At least that is what the executioners have always claimed.
-
-
Even knowing the true story,still enjoyed the book
- By Emily on 04-02-18
By: Ariel Lawhon
-
The Girls in the Picture
- A Novel
- By: Melanie Benjamin
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1914, and 25-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles, where she is determined to live independently as an artist. But the word on everyone's lips these days is "flickers" - the silent moving pictures enthralling theatergoers. Turn any corner in this burgeoning town and you'll find made-up actors running around, as a movie camera captures it all. In this fledgling industry, Frances finds her true calling: writing stories for this wondrous new medium.
-
-
Melodramatic
- By Kay on 02-12-18
By: Melanie Benjamin
-
The Romanov Empress
- A Novel of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna
- By: C. W. Gortner
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Narrated by the mother of Russia’s last tsar, this vivid, historically authentic novel brings to life the courageous story of Maria Feodorovna, one of Imperial Russia’s most compelling women, who witnessed the splendor and tragic downfall of the Romanovs as she fought to save her dynasty in its final years.
-
-
Pure Excellence!
- By Bunny on 09-09-18
By: C. W. Gortner
-
The Color of Light
- By: Karen White
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At thirty-two, Jillian Parrish finally finds the courage to put herself in the driver’s seat of her life. Pregnant and recently divorced, she and her seven-year-old daughter find refuge and solace on Pawleys Island, South Carolina—Jillian’s only source of happy childhood memories. Summers spent at her grandmother’s beach house had been Jillian’s sanctuary from indifferent parents—until her best friend Lauren Mills disappeared, never to be found.
-
-
This author provides everything I need in a good read.
- By Mrs.MerryChristmasClaus on 03-11-24
By: Karen White
-
No One Ever Asked
- A Novel
- By: Katie Ganshert
- Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When an impoverished school district loses its accreditation and the affluent community of Crystal Ridge has no choice but to open their school doors, the lives of three very different women converge: Camille Gray - the wife of an executive, mother of three, long-standing PTA chairwoman, and champion fund-raiser - faced with a shocking discovery; Jen Covington, the career nurse whose long, painful journey to motherhood finally resulted in adoption; and 22-year-old Anaya Jones - the first woman in her family to graduate college and a brand-new teacher at Crystal Ridge's top elementary school, unprepared for the powder-keg situation....
-
-
Thought Provoking
- By Tamara on 06-22-18
By: Katie Ganshert
-
The Story Collector
- By: Evie Woods
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One hundred years ago, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate fairy stories from Irish to English. But all is not as it seems and Anna soon finds herself at the heart of a mystery that threatens her very way of life. In New York in the present day, Sarah Harper boards a plane bound for the West Coast of Ireland. But once there, she finds she has unearthed dark secrets – secrets that tread the line between the everyday and the otherworldly, the seen and the unseen.
-
-
Finding your place when you’re so lost
- By Bobbi Stoffers on 08-05-24
By: Evie Woods
-
The Little Orphan Girl
- By: Sandy Taylor
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Cissy Ryan’s real mother comes to claim her from the workhouse, it’s not how she imagined. Her family’s tumbledown cottage has ice on the inside of its windows and is in an isolated, poverty-stricken village in the muddy Irish countryside. But when Cissy is allowed to help neighbour Colm Doyle and his horse named Blue on their milk round one morning, Cissy starts to feel as though friendship could get her through anything.
-
-
Beautiful heart breaking story.
- By kanga2012 on 07-08-20
By: Sandy Taylor
-
The Briar Club
- A Novel
- By: Kate Quinn
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship. Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own.
-
-
Best writing and narrator!!
- By KareBear on 08-07-24
By: Kate Quinn
-
The Wall
- By: John Hersey
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 29 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Riveting and compelling, The Wall tells the inspiring story of 40 men and women who escape the dehumanizing horror of the Warsaw ghetto. John Hersey's novel documents the Warsaw ghetto both as an emblem of Nazi persecution and as a personal confrontation with torture, starvation, humiliation, and cruelty - a gripping and visceral story, impossible to pause.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Phil on 06-14-21
By: John Hersey
-
The Women of Chateau Lafayette
- By: Stephanie Dray
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert, Emma Bering, Rachel L. Jacobs
- Length: 23 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An epic saga from New York Times best-selling author Stephanie Dray based on the true story of an extraordinary castle in the heart of France and the remarkable women bound by its legacy.
-
-
An absolute masterpiece of a book!
- By Kindle Customer on 05-15-21
By: Stephanie Dray
-
The Lost Dresses of Italy
- By: M. A. McLaughlin
- Narrated by: Hope Newhouse, Melanie Crawley, Edoardo Camponeschi
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Verona, 1947. Textile historian Marianne Baxter comes to post-war Italy with one thing on her mind: three pristine Victorian dresses once owned by the famous poet Christina Rossetti. Hidden away in a trunk for nearly a century, they were recently discovered at the Fondazione Museo Menigatti and Marianne’s expertise is needed before they go on exhibit. Still grieving the loss of her husband, the trip is also a reason for Marianne to start over.
-
-
Boring
- By Patpro on 03-05-25
By: M. A. McLaughlin
What listeners say about Becoming Madam Secretary
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Katie Hughes
- 03-14-24
Outstanding!
I have no complaints. This far exceeded my expectations, which were high to begin with because I love her books!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- E. Bradford
- 05-14-24
Read this book!
Should be part of every HS students literature readings! Francis Perkins history is American history.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Barry J. Fraser
- 10-07-24
A woman we all owe a debt to.
The author presented Francis Perkins as a fascinating and likable human being, and made her record of accomplishmentsunforgettable
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 04-02-24
I loved it!
Stephanie Dray made me fall in love with a Francine Perkins. I did not want the book to end!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Judy
- 07-02-24
History I should have known
This is an amazing story of an even more amazing American legend we should all learn about and be thankful for.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John
- 07-01-24
Such a compelling story
What a brave woman, responsible for so many of our safety nets. FP fought an uphill battle all her life. We owe her so much.
A terrific book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Merredith Peterson
- 08-24-24
Thank you, Frances Perkins
This fictionalized biography of Frances Perkins explains so many aspects of the labor movement, FDR, the New Deal, and the woman herself that I cried when it was done because I was so moved by her accomplishments in spite of the barriers and setbacks. The fictionalization brought her to life better than a biography could, This is so good that I will purchase the hardcover book, Must read for any free thinking person.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Donna D.
- 09-25-24
The narration of the remarkable events of Francis Perkins
I thoroughly enjoyed everything about this book from the narration to Francis‘s life. The only thing I wish I could have seen was Butter’s part in each chapter. it would’ve been icing on the cake..
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lana
- 01-05-25
Incredible story of a remarkable woman in our nations history.
Excellent recounting of Frances Perkins’ achievements. Interesting book with a lot of history, told in an engaging storyline.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Taylor Glasenapp
- 01-04-25
Interesting & Great Read
I was enthralled by the book and loved learning about a strong, interesting woman who was ahead of her time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!