California Golden
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Christine Lakin
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By:
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Melanie Benjamin
About this listen
Two sisters navigate the thrilling, euphoric early days of California surf culture in this dazzling saga of ambition, sacrifice, and the tangled ties between mothers and daughters from the New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife.
“A shimmering rendering . . . pairs the surf culture of the Beach Boys with the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll of Daisy Jones & The Six.”—Entertainment Weekly (“Best Books of the Summer”)
Southern California, 1960s: endless sunny days surfing in Malibu, followed by glittering neon nights at Whisky a Go Go. In an era when women are expected to be housewives, Carol Donnelly breaks the mold as a legendary female surfer struggling to compete in a male-dominated sport—and her daughters, Mindy and Ginger, bear the weight of Carol’s unconventional lifestyle.
The Donnelly sisters grow up enduring their mother’s absence—physically, when she’s at the beach, and emotionally, the rare times she’s at home. To escape questions about Carol’s whereabouts—and to chase her elusive affection—they cut school to spend their days in the surf. From her first time on a board, Mindy is a natural, but Ginger, two years younger, feels out of place in the water.
As they grow up and their lives diverge, Mindy and Ginger’s relationship ebbs and flows. Mindy finds herself swept up in celebrity, complete with beachside love affairs, parties at the Playboy Club, and a USO tour in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Ginger, desperate for a community of her own, is tugged into the dangerous counterculture of drugs and cults. But through it all, their sense of duty to each other survives, as the girls are forever connected by the emotional damage they carry from their unorthodox childhood.
A gripping, emotional story set at a time when mothers were expected to be Donna Reed, not Gidget, California Golden is an unforgettable novel about three women living in a society that was shifting as tempestuously as the breaking waves.
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June 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island prepare for the first summer season after the sacrifice of war, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly’s year-round caretaker and a descendant of the island’s settlers, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of shining possibility. While Emilia spent the war years caring for her incapacitated mother, Olive traveled the world, married fascinating men, and involved herself in political causes.
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Critic reviews
“Melanie Benjamin pairs the surf culture of the Beach Boys with the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll of Daisy Jones & the Six. . . . Benjamin’s novel is a portrait of three women beset by shifting cultural tides and a shimmering rendering of the promises and heartbreak of Southern California.”—Entertainment Weekly
“If you’re looking for a meticulously detailed breakdown of surf culture, look no further than Melanie Benjamin’s new novel . . . [a book] teeming with sand, sun, water, hot-pink bikinis and hamburger stands. . . . California Golden plants its feet firmly on the board and rides a powerful wave of nostalgia, eyes focused on the opportunities and dangers ahead.”—Los Angeles Times
“Benjamin vividly evokes the squalor and splendor of California surfing culture in this richly-textured novel that explores sisterhood, motherhood, ambition and friendship, with characters who rise alive from the page. It’s rare to find such raw, honest sympathy for human beings and their capacity for mistakes and redemption. California Golden is a breath of bracing salt air.”—Beatriz Williams, author of A Hundred Summers
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Amazing!!
- By S. McGowan on 04-03-11
By: Nancy Werlin
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Scars and Stilettos - 2nd Edition
- By: Harmony Dust
- Narrated by: Harmony Dust
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Scars and Stilettos: At 13, after being abandoned by her mother one summer and left to take care of her younger brother, Harmony becomes susceptible to a relationship that turns out to be toxic, abusive, and ultimately exploitative. She eventually finds herself working in a strip club at the age of 19, and her boyfriend becomes her pimp, controlling her every move and taking all of her money. Ultimately, she discovers a path to freedom and a whole new life.
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A religious book
- By Amazonbuyer on 10-12-21
By: Harmony Dust
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Fault Lines
- A Novel
- By: Emily Itami
- Narrated by: Lydia Wilson
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children, and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.
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Confused by the choice of narrator
- By Bri T. on 02-13-22
By: Emily Itami
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Summer at Willow Lake
- The Lakeshore Chronicles, Book 1
- By: Susan Wiggs
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Real estate expert Olivia Bellamy reluctantly trades a trendy Manhattan summer for her family's old resort camp in the Catskills, where her primary task will be renovating the bungalow colony for her grandparents, who want one last summer together filled with fun, friends and family. A posh resort in its heyday, the camp is now in disarray and Olivia is forced to hire contractor Connor Davis - a still-smoldering flame from her own summers at camp.
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Finding Love at Summer Camp
- By Pamela Dale Foster on 02-13-15
By: Susan Wiggs
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Just Breathe
- By: Susan Wiggs
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Chicago cartoonist Sarah Moon tackles life's real issues with a healthy dose of sharp wit in her syndicated comic strip Just Breathe. As Sarah's cartoon alter ego, Shirl, undergoes artificial insemination, her situation begins to mirror Sarah's own difficult attempts to conceive. However, Sarah's dreams of the future did not include her husband's infidelity: snag number two in Sarah's so-called perfect life.
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Predictable
- By TRACY on 02-11-09
By: Susan Wiggs
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Aggro
- An Emotional Forbidden Romance
- By: CoraLee June, Carrie Gray
- Narrated by: Addison Barnes
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Two boys. One tragedy. Grief bonds us. The mystery of this murder will break us. My best friend was brutally ripped from this world, but her brother and boyfriend are still here. One of them wants to use me. The other wants to forget me. Both of them make me feel alive. We’ll find Violet’s murderer, no matter the cost. Two boys. One tragedy. Grief bonds us. Love will tear us apart.
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The Final Epilogue 😏
- By Karen Dee on 09-09-20
By: CoraLee June, and others
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Surfside Sisters
- A Novel
- By: Nancy Thayer
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
A Nantucket woman returns home to find that reunions aren’t always simple, in this heartwarming novel from the New York Times bestselling author. Keely Green always dreamed of leaving the beautiful shores of Nantucket to become a writer. Now she’s a bestselling novelist living in New York City, attending glamorous cocktail parties, mingling with the literary elite, and dating a charming pediatric surgeon. But a moment of clarity strikes when Keely’s boyfriend suddenly wants to settle down and her editor rejects her latest novel.
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Too fluffy!
- By LoRe Bolling on 07-10-19
By: Nancy Thayer
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To Be With You
- By: TJ O'Shea
- Narrated by: Amy Deuchler
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Leah Vasquez and Victoria Lockwood should not fall in love. They're smart enough to know a star-crossed lovers situation never works. Leah's a loner from the poor side of town, working two jobs, and aching to leave their sleepy hometown in her rear view forever. Victoria lives in a mansion with her overbearing parents, surrounded by friends and known to none of them, living what others consider a charmed life. When Leah rescues Victoria from a freak rainstorm, they discover an unexpected understanding, and an undeniable spark.
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Excuse Me While I Weep…
- By HunniBFly84 on 10-12-24
By: TJ O'Shea
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Swear on This Life
- A Novel
- By: Renée Carlino
- Narrated by: Traci Odom
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A struggling writer must come to terms with her past, present, and future after she discovers that she's the inspiration for a pseudonymously published best-selling novel.
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Outstanding Story!
- By Jen Seagraves on 07-28-20
By: Renée Carlino
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A Beach Wish
- A Novel
- By: Shelley Noble
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johannsson
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Zoe Bascombe has never said no to her family. When she blew her Julliard audition, she caved to their wishes and went to business school. But when her mother dies and leaves instructions for Zoe to spread her ashes at a place called Wind Chime Beach, she defies her brothers and starts out for a New England town none of them has ever heard of and discovers a side of her garden club mother that her wildest dreams hadn’t imagined. Zoe has another family.
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Profanity.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-30-22
By: Shelley Noble
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The Descendants
- By: Kaui Hart Hemmings
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Matthew King was once considered one of the most fortunate men in Hawaii. His missionary ancestors who came to the islands were financially and culturally progressive - one even married a Hawaiian princess, making Matt a royal descendant and one of the state’s largest landowners. But now his luck has changed. His two daughters are out of control - 10-year-old Scottie has a smart-ass attitude and a desperate need for attention and 17-year-old Alex is a recovering drug addict.
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Try it, you'll love it!
- By Pamela Harvey on 07-04-11
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Embassy Wife
- A Novel
- By: Katie Crouch
- Narrated by: Marni Penning
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Persephone Wilder, a displaced genius posing as the wife of an American diplomat in Namibia, takes her job as a representative of her country seriously and comes up with an intricate set of rules to survive a range of problems: how to dress in hundred-degree weather without showing too much skin, how not to look drunk at embassy functions, and how to eat roasted oryx with grace. She also suspects her husband is not actually the ambassador’s general counsel but instead a secret agent in the CIA. She takes the new trailing spouse, Amanda Evans, under her wing....
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Have narrator re-record this book
- By Amazon Customer on 09-30-21
By: Katie Crouch
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Where I Left Her
- By: Amber Garza
- Narrated by: Vivienne Leheny
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Whitney had some misgivings when she dropped her increasingly moody teenage daughter, Amelia, off at Lauren’s house. She’d never met the parents, and usually she’d go in, but Amelia clearly wasn’t going to let something so humiliating happen, so instead Whitney waved to her daughter before pulling away from the little house with the roses in front. But when she goes back the next day, an elderly couple answers the door - Amelia and Lauren aren’t there, and this couple swears they never were, that she’s at the wrong house.
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Kept me guessing!!
- By Sheppardspie on 09-13-21
By: Amber Garza
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Between Hello and Goodbye
- Between Hello and Goodbye, Book 1
- By: Emma Scott
- Narrated by: Teddy Hamilton, Desireé Ketchum
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Faith Benson isn’t your emergency contact, she’s the party-girl friend you call for a good time. She's the gal-pal who loves mimosas at brunch and martinis at Happy Hour. But her carefree lifestyle threatens her job at a top Seattle ad agency; there’s no one better at landing big accounts (when she shows up). But now her boss demands she take a leave of absence to get her head on straight.
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Listen between the lines❤️
- By Val on 03-24-23
By: Emma Scott
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What listeners say about California Golden
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- jjrolle
- 08-23-23
Entertaining!
Just an all-round entertaining story. I am glad to have a better understanding of the rise of surfing as a sport and culture, particularly from female perspectives/experiences.
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- al
- 08-22-23
Could Have Been Much Better
If You grew up in the time period, you will enjoy it, but with a little less of the "bum life" it could have so much better
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-04-23
Ughhh - i tough to get through
I really wanted to love this but it was pretty bad. The story was so predictable and almost like a bad romance novel. I finished it under protest.
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