-
Drowning Ruth
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Blair Brown
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
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
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $13.46
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Deftly written and emotionally powerful, Drowning Ruth is a stunning portrait of the ties that bind sisters together and the forces that tear them apart, of the dangers of keeping secrets and the explosive repercussions when they are exposed. A mesmerizing and achingly beautiful debut.
Winter, 1919. Amanda Starkey spends her days nursing soldiers wounded in the Great War. Finding herself suddenly overwhelmed, she flees Milwaukee and retreats to her family's farm on Nagawaukee Lake, seeking comfort with her younger sister, Mathilda, and three-year-old niece, Ruth. But very soon, Amanda comes to see that her old home is no refuge—she has carried her troubles with her. On one terrible night almost a year later, Amanda loses nearly everything that is dearest to her when her sister mysteriously disappears and is later found drowned beneath the ice that covers the lake. When Mathilda's husband comes home from the war, wounded and troubled himself, he finds that Amanda has taken charge of Ruth and the farm, assuming her responsibility with a frightening intensity. Wry and guarded, Amanda tells the story of her family in careful doses, as anxious to hide from herself as from us the secrets of her own past and of that night.
Ruth, haunted by her own memory of that fateful night, grows up under the watchful eye of her prickly and possessive aunt and gradually becomes aware of the odd events of her childhood. As she tells her own story with increasing clarity, she reveals the mounting toll that her aunt's secrets exact from her family and everyone around her, until the heartrending truth is uncovered.
Guiding us through the lives of the Starkey women, Christina Schwarz's first novel shows her compassion and a unique understanding of the American landscape and the people who live on it.
(P)2000 Random House, Inc.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
All the Best People
- By: Sonja Yoerg
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family's auto shop, and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else. But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won't reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn't the television.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Samantha on 05-20-17
By: Sonja Yoerg
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
The Invention of Wings
- A Novel
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Adepero Oduye, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
-
-
If it Weren't True, I Wouldn't Have Believed it
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Sue Monk Kidd
-
Hello Beautiful
- A Novel
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Maura Tierney
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all.
-
-
Book was great, performance terrible
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-23
By: Ann Napolitano
-
Mad Honey
- A Novel
- By: Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan
- Narrated by: Carrie Coon, Key Taw, Jodi Picoult, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.
-
-
Good writing but...
- By Suzanna on 10-08-22
By: Jodi Picoult, and others
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
All the Best People
- By: Sonja Yoerg
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family's auto shop, and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else. But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won't reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn't the television.
-
-
Fantastic
- By Samantha on 05-20-17
By: Sonja Yoerg
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
The Invention of Wings
- A Novel
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Adepero Oduye, Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world - and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.
-
-
If it Weren't True, I Wouldn't Have Believed it
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Sue Monk Kidd
-
Hello Beautiful
- A Novel
- By: Ann Napolitano
- Narrated by: Maura Tierney
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all.
-
-
Book was great, performance terrible
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-23
By: Ann Napolitano
-
Mad Honey
- A Novel
- By: Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan
- Narrated by: Carrie Coon, Key Taw, Jodi Picoult, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.
-
-
Good writing but...
- By Suzanna on 10-08-22
By: Jodi Picoult, and others
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
White Oleander
- By: Janet Fitch
- Narrated by: Oprah Winfrey
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this gripping first novel, a young girl, orphaned when her mother murders an ex-lover, endures the shuffle of a foster child's life. Oprah enjoyed her book club pick so much that she narrates the audiobook edition!
Browse more Oprah Picks.
-
-
White Oleander
- By Tracy on 04-09-04
By: Janet Fitch
-
Tara Road
- A Novel
- By: Maeve Binchy
- Narrated by: Katherine Borowitz
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ria lived on Tara Road in Dublin with her dashing husband, Danny, and their two children. She fully believed she was happily married, right up until the day Danny told her he was leaving her to be with his young, pregnant girlfriend. By a chance phone call, Ria meets Marilyn, a woman from New England unable to come to terms with her only son's death and now separated from her husband. The two women exchange houses for the summer with extraordinary consequences, each learning that the other has a deep secret that can never be revealed.
-
-
Material good - quality, not-so-much
- By B. W. on 09-05-08
By: Maeve Binchy
-
The Book of Ruth
- By: Jane Hamilton
- Narrated by: Angela Jayne Rogers
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in a world of physical and emotional poverty, Ruth believes her shrewish mother's assessment of her - that she is dimwitted and worthless. When she marries an emotionally unstable ne'er-do-well, her troubles only multiply. Her job at the dry cleaners can't afford her little family the luxury of moving out of her mother's house. As the incessant bickering between her troubled husband and her abusive mother reaches a violent climax, Ruth must find a way to survive.
-
-
It Enters Your Soul
- By C. Byrnes on 03-30-09
By: Jane Hamilton
-
The Winter People
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer McMahon
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Kathe Mazur
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, 19-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary....
-
-
Get past the narration of the first chapter
- By Brook on 04-19-14
By: Jennifer McMahon
-
The Witch's Kind
- By: Louisa Morgan
- Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barrie Anne Blythe and her aunt Charlotte have always known that the other residents of their small coastal community find them peculiar - two women living alone on the outskirts of town. It is the price of concealing their strange and dangerous family secret. But two events threaten to upend their lives forever. The first is the arrival of a mysterious abandoned baby with a hint of power like their own. The second is the sudden reappearance of Barrie Anne's long-lost husband - who is not quite the man she thought she married.
-
-
Weakly entertaining.
- By T Muel on 08-14-19
By: Louisa Morgan
-
Cane River
- By: Lalita Tademy
- Narrated by: Shari Belafonte, Jo Marie Payton, Edwina Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were women whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the 20th century. Through it all, they fought to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.
-
-
Cane River
- By Betty on 06-06-04
By: Lalita Tademy
-
The Book Eaters
- By: Sunyi Dean
- Narrated by: Katie Erich
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
-
-
Book worth a college course on it's own.
- By SW;MDA on 10-08-22
By: Sunyi Dean
-
The Fifth Season: Booktrack Edition
- The Broken Earth, Book 1
- By: N. K. Jemisin
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the way the world ends...for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
-
-
I would give this less than one star if I could.
- By Christin on 02-12-20
By: N. K. Jemisin
-
The Husband's Secret
- By: Liane Moriarty
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret - something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive....
-
-
Soap Opera Digest
- By FanB14 on 02-06-14
By: Liane Moriarty
-
The Secret Life of Bees
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.
-
-
Awesome narrator
- By Joey on 05-17-10
By: Sue Monk Kidd
-
Truly Madly Guilty
- By: Liane Moriarty
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit, busy life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other. Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate.
-
-
seriously, stop analyzing and enjoy the ride
- By patty mastracco on 08-01-16
By: Liane Moriarty
-
Cephrael's Hand
- A Pattern of Shadow and Light, Book 1
- By: Melissa McPhail
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 32 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Alorin...300 years after the genocidal Adept Wars, the realm is dying, and the blessed Adept race dies with it. One man holds the secret to reverting this decline: Bjorn van Gelderan, a dangerous and enigmatic man whose shocking betrayal three centuries past earned him a traitor's brand. It is the Adept Vestal Raine D'Lacourte's mission to learn what Bjorn knows in the hope of salvaging his race. But first he'll have to find him....
-
-
This is a great book!!!
- By Dason on 07-30-16
By: Melissa McPhail
Critic reviews
"A remarkable debut: surprising, unsettling and sure." --The New York Times Book Review
"A strong sense of portent and unusually vivid characters distinguish this mesmerizing first novel about horrifying family secrets and nearly annihilating guilt. Drowning Ruth is a complex and rewarding debut." --Anita Shreve, author of Fortune's Rocks and The Pilot's Wife
Related to this topic
-
The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a "softheaded goose" by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
-
-
Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
-
-
Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
-
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
- By: Tiffany Baker
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Truly Plaice, an overly large and ungainly girl, is the polar opposite of her sister, Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. With their parents dead, Truly and Serena Jane are separated: Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation.
-
-
meh...
- By Victoria on 02-25-09
By: Tiffany Baker
-
Promise
- A Novel
- By: Minrose Gwin
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel.
-
-
Mostly Disappointing
- By Anjoli on 06-15-19
By: Minrose Gwin
-
I Will Send Rain
- A Novel
- By: Rae Meadows
- Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie Bell can't escape the dust. It's in her hair, covering the windowsills, coating the animals in the barn, and in the corners of her children's dry, cracked lips. It's 1934, and the Bell farm in Mulehead, Oklahoma, is struggling as the earliest storms of the Dust Bowl descend. The wheat harvests are drying out, and people are packing up their belongings as storms lay waste to the Great Plains.
-
-
We've seen pictures of the Dust Bowl
- By Henwhisperer on 10-12-16
By: Rae Meadows
-
The Walking People
- By: Mary Beth Keane
- Narrated by: Sile Bermingham
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Greta Cahill never believed she would leave her village in the west of Ireland until she found herself on a ship bound for New York, along with her sister Johanna and a boy named Michael Ward. Labeled a "softheaded goose" by her family, Greta discovers that in America she can fall in love, raise her own family, and earn a living.
-
-
Irish immigratn story
- By Chrissie on 09-10-13
By: Mary Beth Keane
-
Rush Home Road
- By: Lori Lansens
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a 70-year-old woman finds a five-year-old girl abandoned on her doorstep, she is thrust into a sorrowful past that can only be conquered with the help of the girl who opened her memory - the very girl she is trying to save. This first novel, according to author Jacquelyn Mitchard, is one of "exquisite power, honesty, and conviction...quite nearly without flaws."
-
-
filthy language and violent content
- By Anna on 12-16-11
By: Lori Lansens
-
The Lost Girls
- A Novel
- By: Heather Young
- Narrated by: Alice Rosengard, Laurel Schroeder
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father commits suicide, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine.
-
-
Engaging story spanning three generations.
- By LilMissMolly on 09-23-16
By: Heather Young
-
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
- By: Tiffany Baker
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Truly Plaice, an overly large and ungainly girl, is the polar opposite of her sister, Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. With their parents dead, Truly and Serena Jane are separated: Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation.
-
-
meh...
- By Victoria on 02-25-09
By: Tiffany Baker
-
Promise
- A Novel
- By: Minrose Gwin
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel.
-
-
Mostly Disappointing
- By Anjoli on 06-15-19
By: Minrose Gwin
-
I Will Send Rain
- A Novel
- By: Rae Meadows
- Narrated by: Emily Sutton-Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie Bell can't escape the dust. It's in her hair, covering the windowsills, coating the animals in the barn, and in the corners of her children's dry, cracked lips. It's 1934, and the Bell farm in Mulehead, Oklahoma, is struggling as the earliest storms of the Dust Bowl descend. The wheat harvests are drying out, and people are packing up their belongings as storms lay waste to the Great Plains.
-
-
We've seen pictures of the Dust Bowl
- By Henwhisperer on 10-12-16
By: Rae Meadows
-
The Sound of Glass
- By: Karen White
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer, Susan Bennett
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward's husband, Cal, when she receives unexpected news - Cal's family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by Cal's reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt. Charting the course of an uncertain life - and feeling guilt from her husband's tragic death - Merritt travels from her home in Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal's unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff.
-
-
You'll LAUGH, LOVE, and maybe CRY a little
- By Jennifer on 08-08-15
By: Karen White
-
The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove
- A Novel
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bezellia Grove was born into the most prominent of Nashville families, but that didn’t stop her from having an alcoholic mother and a distant, adulterous father. Her nanny, Maizelle, and Nathaniel, the handyman, are the people who have taken care of her since she can remember. She considers them family, but her parents just consider them servants because they are Black. When Bezellia has a clandestine romance with Nathaniel's son, Whites and Blacks unite in fury at the young couple.
-
-
light southern fiction
- By suzanne on 02-08-13
-
Falling Home
- By: Karen White
- Narrated by: Lyssa Browne
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cassie Madison has it all: A high-powered advertising career; a stylish Manhattan apartment; and a sophisticated, rich, and gorgeous fiancé. It's a far cry from her childhood in Walton, Georgia, home of the annual Kudzu Festival and hot, sticky summers. And then there are all the bad memories, the heartache. When Cassie's estranged sister calls to say that her father is dying, Cassie knows it's time to set aside her feelings and go home and face the sister she hasn't seen in 15 years.
-
-
Could not finish
- By G. Moore on 06-08-11
By: Karen White
-
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
-
-
Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
-
The Plague of Doves
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James, Kathleen McInerney
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
-
-
Avoid this Plague
- By Andre on 05-16-08
By: Louise Erdrich
-
The Secrets She Carried
- By: Barbara Davis
- Narrated by: Tiffany Morgan
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though Peak Plantation has been in her family for generations, Leslie Nichols can't wait to rid herself of the farm left to her by her estranged grandmother Maggie. But Leslie isn't the only one with a claim to Peak. Jay Davenport, Peak's reclusive caretaker, has his own reasons for holding onto the land bequeathed to him by Leslie's grandmother. Before she died, Maggie hinted at a terrible secret surrounding Adele Laveau, a lady's maid who came to Peak during the 1930s and died under mysterious circumstances.
-
-
Best book of the year
- By Joanne Tailele on 10-08-18
By: Barbara Davis
-
This Side of the Sky
- By: Elyse Singleton
- Narrated by: Myra Taylor, Sharon Washington, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning journalist Elyse Singleton delivers what Essence calls “a gem - the perfect book to curl up with.”
Best friends Lilian and Myraleen, two African American women from rural Mississippi, travel to Europe during World War II to act as members of the Women’s Army Corps. During this time of segregation and destruction, both women discover love and heartbreak, triumph and defeat.
-
-
A Breath of Fresh Air
- By Adina Andreu on 07-19-12
By: Elyse Singleton
-
The Promise
- By: Ann Weisgarber
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1900. Young pianist Catherine Wainwright flees the fashionable town of Dayton, Ohio in the wake of a terrible scandal. Heartbroken and facing destitution, she finds herself striking up correspondence with a childhood admirer, the recently widowed Oscar Williams. In desperation she agrees to marry him, but when Catherine travels to Oscar's farm on Galveston Island, Texas—a thousand miles from home—she finds she is little prepared for the life that awaits her.
-
-
Beautifully written and read
- By RueRue on 04-21-14
By: Ann Weisgarber
-
Evergreen Falls
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A long-forgotten secret, a scandalous attraction and a place where two women's lives are changed forever. 1926: Violet Armstrong is one of the few remaining members of staff working at the grand Evergreen Spa Hotel as it closes down over winter. Only a handful of guests are left, including the heir to a rich grazing family, his sister and her suave suitor. When a snowstorm moves in, the hotel is cut off and they are all trapped. No-one could have predicted what would unfold.
-
-
Soooo Boring
- By Merford on 10-09-19
-
Orphan Number Eight
- A Novel
- By: Kim van Alkemade
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt, Ginny Auer
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City's Lower East Side. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother, Sam, and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans.
-
-
Stopped after a few hours
- By Tamara on 01-03-20
By: Kim van Alkemade
-
Among the Lesser Gods
- By: Margo Catts
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child to her mother's abandonment and now an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Yet when her grandmother calls and asks her to watch over the children of a recent widower in a small, isolated town in Colorado, she takes it as a chance to finally organize her life.
-
-
Without a doubt...
- By RueRue on 10-07-19
By: Margo Catts
-
Angel of Harlem
- By: Kuwanna Haulsey
- Narrated by: Brenda Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by the extraordinary events of Dr. May Chinn’s life, Angel of Harlem is a deeply affecting story of love and transcendence. Weaving seamlessly scenes from the battlefields of the Civil War, during which her father escaped from slavery, to the Harlem living rooms and kitchen tables where May is sometimes forced to operate on her patients, this fascinating novel lays bare the heart of a woman who changed the face of medicine.
-
-
Really Enjoyed!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-08-19
By: Kuwanna Haulsey
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Cane River
- By: Lalita Tademy
- Narrated by: Shari Belafonte, Jo Marie Payton, Edwina Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were women whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the 20th century. Through it all, they fought to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.
-
-
Cane River
- By Betty on 06-06-04
By: Lalita Tademy
-
The Reader
- By: Bernhard Schlink, Carol Janeway - translator
- Narrated by: Campbell Scott
- Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When he falls ill on his way home from school, 15-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover--then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.
-
-
Dysfunctional
- By Ella on 12-09-08
By: Bernhard Schlink, and others
-
Gap Creek
- The Story of a Marriage
- By: Robert Morgan
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Julie Harmon works "hard as a man", they say, so hard that at times she's not sure she can stop. People depend on her to slaughter the hogs and nurse the dying. People are weak, and there is so much to do. At just 17 she marries and moves down into the valley of Gap Creek, where perhaps life will be better. But Julie and Hank's new life in the valley, in the last years of the 19th century, is more complicated than the couple ever imagined.
-
-
GAP creek Review
- By Naomi Prusi on 06-15-21
By: Robert Morgan
-
Midwives
- A Novel
- By: Chris Bohjalian
- Narrated by: Kate Burton
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The time is 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a dedicated midwife in the rural community of Reddington, Vermont, for 15 years. But one treacherous winter night, in a house isolated by icy roads and failed telephone lines, Sibyl takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She performs an emergency Caesarean section on its mother, who appears to have died in labor.
-
-
Why Abridged
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 11-06-13
By: Chris Bohjalian
-
Tara Road
- A Novel
- By: Maeve Binchy
- Narrated by: Katherine Borowitz
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ria lived on Tara Road in Dublin with her dashing husband, Danny, and their two children. She fully believed she was happily married, right up until the day Danny told her he was leaving her to be with his young, pregnant girlfriend. By a chance phone call, Ria meets Marilyn, a woman from New England unable to come to terms with her only son's death and now separated from her husband. The two women exchange houses for the summer with extraordinary consequences, each learning that the other has a deep secret that can never be revealed.
-
-
Material good - quality, not-so-much
- By B. W. on 09-05-08
By: Maeve Binchy
-
House of Sand and Fog
- By: Andre Dubus III
- Narrated by: Andre Dubus III, Fontaine Dollas Dubus
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.
-
-
I suspect I am going to be in the minority . . .
- By BogKid on 01-12-04
By: Andre Dubus III
-
Cane River
- By: Lalita Tademy
- Narrated by: Shari Belafonte, Jo Marie Payton, Edwina Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were women whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the 20th century. Through it all, they fought to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.
-
-
Cane River
- By Betty on 06-06-04
By: Lalita Tademy
-
The Reader
- By: Bernhard Schlink, Carol Janeway - translator
- Narrated by: Campbell Scott
- Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When he falls ill on his way home from school, 15-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover--then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.
-
-
Dysfunctional
- By Ella on 12-09-08
By: Bernhard Schlink, and others
-
Gap Creek
- The Story of a Marriage
- By: Robert Morgan
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Julie Harmon works "hard as a man", they say, so hard that at times she's not sure she can stop. People depend on her to slaughter the hogs and nurse the dying. People are weak, and there is so much to do. At just 17 she marries and moves down into the valley of Gap Creek, where perhaps life will be better. But Julie and Hank's new life in the valley, in the last years of the 19th century, is more complicated than the couple ever imagined.
-
-
GAP creek Review
- By Naomi Prusi on 06-15-21
By: Robert Morgan
-
Midwives
- A Novel
- By: Chris Bohjalian
- Narrated by: Kate Burton
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The time is 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a dedicated midwife in the rural community of Reddington, Vermont, for 15 years. But one treacherous winter night, in a house isolated by icy roads and failed telephone lines, Sibyl takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She performs an emergency Caesarean section on its mother, who appears to have died in labor.
-
-
Why Abridged
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 11-06-13
By: Chris Bohjalian
-
Tara Road
- A Novel
- By: Maeve Binchy
- Narrated by: Katherine Borowitz
- Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ria lived on Tara Road in Dublin with her dashing husband, Danny, and their two children. She fully believed she was happily married, right up until the day Danny told her he was leaving her to be with his young, pregnant girlfriend. By a chance phone call, Ria meets Marilyn, a woman from New England unable to come to terms with her only son's death and now separated from her husband. The two women exchange houses for the summer with extraordinary consequences, each learning that the other has a deep secret that can never be revealed.
-
-
Material good - quality, not-so-much
- By B. W. on 09-05-08
By: Maeve Binchy
-
House of Sand and Fog
- By: Andre Dubus III
- Narrated by: Andre Dubus III, Fontaine Dollas Dubus
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.
-
-
I suspect I am going to be in the minority . . .
- By BogKid on 01-12-04
By: Andre Dubus III
-
Icy Sparks
- By: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
- Narrated by: Kate Miller
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A funny, sad, and transcendent story of a young girl growing up in Appalachia. The New York Times Book Review called this Oprah Book Club selection "vivid and unforgettable."
-
-
Icy made me warm.
- By Alene on 03-28-03
By: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
-
The Book of Ruth
- By: Jane Hamilton
- Narrated by: Angela Jayne Rogers
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing up in a world of physical and emotional poverty, Ruth believes her shrewish mother's assessment of her - that she is dimwitted and worthless. When she marries an emotionally unstable ne'er-do-well, her troubles only multiply. Her job at the dry cleaners can't afford her little family the luxury of moving out of her mother's house. As the incessant bickering between her troubled husband and her abusive mother reaches a violent climax, Ruth must find a way to survive.
-
-
It Enters Your Soul
- By C. Byrnes on 03-30-09
By: Jane Hamilton
-
Rapture of Canaan
- By: Sheri Reynolds
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Novelist Sheri Reynolds weaves lyrical prose and folksy dialogue into her spellbinding tales. The Rapture of Canaan, a New York Times best-seller, is the moving story of a teenaged girl clashing with her harshly controlled world. Growing up in a closed religious community deep in the rural South, 15-year-old Ninah Huff painstakingly and obediently follows her church’s many rules—she knows that public humiliation follows the smallest transgression
-
-
Really good story
- By mctoria on 08-15-24
By: Sheri Reynolds
-
That Bird Has My Wings
- The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row
- By: Jarvis Jay Masters
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1990, while serving a sentence in San Quentin for armed robbery, Jarvis Jay Masters was implicated as an accessory in the murder of a prison guard. A 23-year-old Black man, Jarvis was sentenced to death in the gas chamber. While in the maximum security section of Death Row, using the only instrument available to him—a ball-point pen filler—Masters's astounding memoir is a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit and the talent of a fine writer.
-
-
Amazing books !
- By HD on 12-12-22
-
Say You're One of Them
- By: Uwem Akpan
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, Dion Graham, Kevin R. Free
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few listeners will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.
-
-
Save your Money!
- By Michal A. Joyner on 11-20-09
By: Uwem Akpan
-
Back Roads
- By: Tawni O'Dell
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harley Altmyer should be in college drinking Rolling Rock and chasing girls. He should be freed from his closed-minded, stricken coal town, with its lack of jobs and no sense of humor. Instead, he's constantly reminded of just how messed up his life is. With his mother in jail for killing his abusive father, Harley is an orphan with the responsibilities of an adult and the fiery, aggressive libido of a teenager.
-
-
An unexpected twist
- By Leticia Porche on 01-02-20
By: Tawni O'Dell
-
Sea Glass
- By: Anita Shreve
- Narrated by: Judith Ann Gantly
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Honora and Sexton are just settling into their new marriage, and have just bought their beloved New Hampshire house, when the economy crashes and everything in their world changes. Anita Shreve presents a "literary novel of the caliber and craft of Edith Wharton or Henry James," says the Baltimore Sun.
-
-
surprising -
- By Dorothy on 03-21-03
By: Anita Shreve
-
We Were the Mulvaneys
- By: Joyce Carol Oates
- Narrated by: Scott Shina
- Length: 22 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Judd is the youngest of the four Mulvaney children - three boys and a girl - on their parents’ lush farm in upstate New York. In his childhood, Judd is swept along by the sheer energy of the Mulvaneys and their wealth of beloved family stories. But now, 30 years old, Judd looks back through his memories to tell the secrets that eventually ripped apart the fabric of his storybook family.
-
-
Overlooked Masterpiece
- By Jason on 10-26-12
-
The Deep End of the Ocean
- By: Jacquelyn Mitchard
- Narrated by: Dana Ivey
- Length: 3 hrs and 7 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Both highly suspenseful and deeply moving, The Deep End of the Ocean imagines every mother's worst nightmare - the disappearance of a child - as it explores a family's struggle to endure, even against extraordinary odds. Filled with compassion, humor, and brilliant observations about the texture of real life, here is a story of rare power, one that will touch listeners' hearts and make them celebrate the emotions that make us all one.
-
-
Great reading, but way too much cut out
- By Peter Darling on 03-09-17
-
A Lesson Before Dying
- By: Ernest J. Gaines
- Narrated by: Lionel Mark Smith, Roger Guenveur Smith
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jefferson is an innocent and unwitting party to a deadly liquor store shoot-out in the 1940s. As the only survivor, he is tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, a university-trained teacher at the plantation school, is persuaded to visit Jefferson in his cell. Wiggins is torn between staying in his native Cajun community or moving on. The 2 men gradually form a bond as they jointly discover the simple heroism of resisting - and denying - the expected.
-
-
Misses the mark
- By Amie on 02-09-12
By: Ernest J. Gaines
-
The Sun Does Shine
- By: Anthony Ray Hinton, Lara Love Hardin, Bryan Stevenson - foreword
- Narrated by: Bryan Stevenson - foreword, Kevin R. Free
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only 29 years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free. But with an incompetent defense attorney and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in despairing silence.
-
-
DOWN WITH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT!!!
- By MUDDBONE on 04-29-18
By: Anthony Ray Hinton, and others
-
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
- By: Carson McCullers
- Narrated by: Cherry Jones
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carson McCullers was all of 23 when she published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She became an overnight literary sensation, and soon such authors as Tennessee Williams were calling her "the greatest prose writer that the South [has] produced." The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter tells an unforgettable tale of moral isolation in a small southern mill town in the 1930s.
-
-
Do yourself a favor
- By Barbara on 06-08-05
By: Carson McCullers
What listeners say about Drowning Ruth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Llc
- 06-12-05
A well-written historical novel
Slow to begin but excellent character development and the narration is exceptionally elegant and distinctive. Ideal for this style of book. A very well written historical novel
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- Mindee J. Plugues
- 07-11-06
Couldn't stop listening!
This book kept me intriqued all the way through. At first I thought it was slow, but then found myself thinking about the characters after I turned it off. It is a little bit of a mystery but more than that it is a story about real people - people you could touch and feel and understand. I highly recommend it. Parts dragged a little, but I found later that even those parts added to the overall story and made the book complete.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- Hrblrmdy
- 08-31-05
Still Waters Run Deep
Set in Wisconsin, at the end of WWI, this novel explores a family?s loyalty, love and secrets.
If Ruth is still alive, why does she remember drowning? Through flashbacks, Christina Schwarz feeds us pieces of the truth, making you want to keep listening. The plot, though not totally original, is creative and a bit offbeat.
Note: This book is not a psychological thriller. It is about how life was long ago, about secrets people keep and why.
Also, other listeners have commented on Christina Schwarz?s writing style. The speakers and time periods change without notice. You will get used to the way this novel flows, so don?t let this be a reason to let this one pass you by.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rebecca
- 11-05-14
Pronunciation
Would you try another book from Christina Schwarz and/or Blair Brown?
Probably not. I prefer longer books. That said, I enjoyed the book for the most part
Would you listen to another book narrated by Blair Brown?
Part of the reason that I bought the book was that it's set in Wisconsin, where I've lived all my life. I cringed every time she tried to say Waukesha or Fond du Lac or any of the other Wisconsin cities she mispronounced. I would think a narrator would make sure she knows how to pronounce the words she's reading.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- DH
- 08-06-04
An Excellent Read
I found this book to be captivating, heart wrenching, warming, and compelling. I did not want it to end. The surprise ending is an excellent and spellbinding end! The author is a fantastic writer. I await her next novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Vivian Ford
- 03-23-04
Wonderful and engaging!
I enjoyed this book thoroughly. The story was engrossing and I came to care very much about the characters and what happened to them. I cannot wait for Christina Schwarz's next novel. I enjoyed "Drowning Ruth" so much that I went out and bought the paperback copy for my mother! Highly recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Liz
- 03-12-12
secrets, suspense and solitude
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes, it's about strong women and the choices they make at a time in history where women didn't have that many choices.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Drowning Ruth?
The actual description of ice and snow
What about Blair Brown’s performance did you like?
Clarity
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
N/A
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bailey Rose
- 08-24-24
Enjoyed the Physical Book More
I read the physical copy years ago and loved it. The time line seemed disjointed listening to it, jumpy. Overall still enjoyable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Steven
- 01-12-05
Drowning Ruth
Never thought I would enjoy this book from the write up. It really seemed like a "womens book" ladies don't take this the wrong way but it is a type of book that would appeal to women.
Maybe that statement wasn't fair. I REALLY enjoyed the book regardless of my statement.
I have even bought a copy of the hardback and many friends have borrowed it and enjoyed it as much as I did. I will say it is a little depressing and heavy on the heart as the story progresses . I recommend it to adults only because of the sensitive issues.
Thanks audible for making this available to listeners.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- D.P.
- 05-29-04
Perhaps Overrated
I was disappointed with this book, especially after the rave reviews I read here.
First, it is difficult to follow because the story changes viewpoint character (sometimes from scene to scene) and also changes point of view. It is mostly told in third-person but jumps to first-person for little asides by the two main characters. These feel almost amateurish, as if the author didn't know how to work them into the story. Another problem is that the author choose two nicknames for two different characters that sound and read similarly, Matty and Mandy.
Second, the story itself lacks focus. There are large sections of story that don't have much to do with anything. One character is off thinking something or doing something but it doesn't have any effect on anyone else nor does it impact the plot.
Third, though the "suspense" of the story isn't revealed until the ending it did not seem strong enough to this reader to carry the whole book.
Also, this reader had problems with some of the actions of the main characters. They didn't seem to make sense and were never adequately explained.
Overall this book was probably worth listening to but was not as good as the reviews here would lead one to expect.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
5 people found this helpful