Secret Turning
A Collection of Short Stories
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Siniari
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By:
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Stephen Siniari
About this listen
In this follow-up volume to Big in Heaven, stories of life at St. Alexander the Whirling Dervish parish continue. Gather with the boys at Shooky's Taproom, or hang out in the church hall with the Teuta Ladies Baking Society, and catch up on all the gossip about Father Naum and his friends and parishioners, as their lives unfold in struggles, hope, temptations, faith, and love.
You'll come away seeing your own life and those around you with new, more compassionate eyes.
©2022 Stephen Siniari (P)2022 Stephen SiniariListeners also enjoyed...
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Emotional & Powerful
- By Miss Toni on 06-30-13
By: Maya Angelou
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Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen
- By: Susan Gregg Gilmore
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In the latest novel from Susan Gregg Gilmore, sometimes you have to return to the place where you began to arrive at the place where you belong.
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Not what I expected but........
- By Coach "J" on 03-11-16
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Liberating Paris
- A Novel
- By: Linda Bloodworth Thomason
- Narrated by: Cynthia Darlow
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Woodrow McIlmore, the town's golden boy and local gynecologist, is married to his beautiful high school sweetheart, Milan, and seems by all appearances to be leading the perfect life with his two children and extended family and friends. But when Wood's daughter announces that she is smitten with a college classmate and intends to marry him, her parents are stunned.
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Deeply moving, a great listen
- By Cynthia on 11-27-05
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Very Valentine
- A Novel (Valentine Trilogy, Book 1)
- By: Adriana Trigiani
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The adventures of an extraordinary and unforgettable woman as she attempts to rescue her family’s struggling shoe business and find love at the same time, Very Valentine sweeps the listener from the streets of Manhattan to the picturesque hills of Italy.
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Meh... that's all I can say
- By Tammie on 08-17-23
By: Adriana Trigiani
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Trading Dreams at Midnight
- By: Diane McKinney-Whetstone
- Narrated by: Shari Peele
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Diane McKinney-Whetstone, the award-winning and best-selling author of Tumbling, presents Trading Dreams at Midnight - - an Essence Book Club Recommended Read. Back in 1984, 15-year-old Neena's mother left and never came back. And now Neena is following in her footsteps.
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Hard to follow
- By Nevada on 08-13-10
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In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
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My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
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Plantation
- A Lowcountry Tale
- By: Dorothea Benton Frank
- Narrated by: Susie Breck
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Abridged
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When Caroline Wimbley Levine learns that her mother, Miss Lavinia, has supposedly gone mad, she leaves the big city bustle of Manhattan and returns to Tall Pines Plantation. Caroline originally left Tall Pines to escape her feisty, eccentric mother and her drunken brother, Trip. When Miss Lavinia dies, Caroline is forced to come to terms with her family's troubled history as well as her failing relationship with her husband.
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Abridged!!
- By Teresa on 04-18-16
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Bone
- By: Yrsa Daley-Ward, Kiese Laymon - foreword
- Narrated by: Yrsa Daley-Ward, Kiese Laymon
- Length: 1 hr and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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From navigating the oft competing worlds of religion and desire, to balancing society’s expectations with the raw experience of being a woman in the world; from detailing the experiences of growing up as a first generation black British woman, to working through situations of dependence and abuse; from finding solace in the echoing caverns of depression and loss, to exploring the vulnerability and redemption in falling in love, each of the raw and immediate poems in Daley-Ward’s bone resonates to the core of what it means to be human.
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Visceral,blood hot, thrilling poetry-prose
- By Pam on 12-28-22
By: Yrsa Daley-Ward, and others
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After Visiting Friends
- A Son's Story
- By: Michael Hainey
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone.
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Son's Search for Father Brings on Self-knowledge
- By sheila kehoe on 08-15-13
By: Michael Hainey
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How to Be an American Housewife
- A Novel
- By: Margaret Dilloway
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington, Emily Durante
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways.
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big disappointment
- By Kirsten on 04-12-12
What listeners say about Secret Turning
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Charlie Stayton
- 05-30-22
A Wonderful Experience
Fr. Stephen Siniari’s book Secret Turning is a masterpiece of storytelling. His descriptive prose gives a beautiful and insightful look into the everyday life of a diverse and vibrant Orthodox Parish. While listening to the audible book, it was easy to find myself transported to the yard with Misto telling his story or sitting next to Ms. Ruthie in her Sunday best with gloves. Fr. Siniari’s ability to weave a story with his incredible skill will have you unable to stop once you start. Few authors can paint a picture with words as vibrant as Fr. Siniari. The audible book is just a little over eight hours but is well worth it! This is also the perfect companion to his previous book Big in Heaven. I highly recommend this book both for Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike you will find insight into the humanity of man and his everyday struggle to turn toward God.
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- Melissa C.
- 06-08-22
A glimpse through the eyes of a priest
I loved this compilation of short stories. Father Stephen is a fantastic storyteller. I felt as though I knew each character personally. Each emotion that they felt, every visual they saw, every situation they experienced, I was there in my mind. It is easy as a Christian to become disenchanted with the Church because it is made up of broken people. Broken people sin, and hurt one another. But Secret Turning helps us to see the real life needs of our fellow man. We all have secret places in our hearts that we only let a few select people know about and we all carry around untold burdens and pains. Even though I have no idea what it is like to live in the parts of our country and the world where these stories take place, I can relate to the humanness of the characters. Thank you Fr. Stephen sharing with us your loving perspective. I can only hope that my brothers and sisters in Christ are able to see my own lumps and bumps the way you do, with the eyes of our Heavenly Father.
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- marsha roberts
- 06-21-22
Great audiobook, great narration!
Secret Turning by Father Stephen Siniari is a collection of stories about Father Naum and the fictional Parish of St Alexander the Whirling Dervish Orthodox Church. In the forward, Bruce Seraphim Felt states the stories of Father Stephen are different and they are, in a way that they pull you in and you feel you are there with the characters. You feel you know them. You laugh with them and you cry with them. I listened to the audiobook, which I highly recommend. The author, Father Stephen, narrated. His voice was perfect in pulling you into the stories with him. His inflection in portraying the characters was perfect. You feel like he is the character. You could feel his emotions in his voice as he read the stories. This is not a book to listen to in a hurry. You must stop and think about each story. Each story pulls you in and you can’t help but ponder on them. More than once I felt like I was sitting among the characters as Father Stephan narrated. This is a book that you will treasure and listen to again and again.
I received a copy of this audiobook for an honest review. I also bought the e-book so I could read and re-read the stories.
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- Amber
- 06-07-22
Poetic and Perplexing
"Secret Turning" by Stephen Siniari has been a perplexing book for me. This book of short stories is about the community of the fictional St. Alexander the Whirling Dervish parish. A community to which I had a hard time connecting until the end of the book. For the first half of the book, I didn’t feel much affinity for any of the characters. Many of the stories don't connect with my experiences in the parishes I have been blessed to join. That does not mean that I believe the stories aren’t genuine. Perhaps, I had a hard time connecting with them because there were several times characters and places felt lost in their descriptions. There was clearly a lot of care put into the poetry of the words, but it was all spelled out so exactly there was little room for the unveiling of character. They were what they were described as and nothing else. I could never quite get my head around what the community was like beyond appearances and the direct insights of the story's narrator.
There were moments that genuinely touched me in this book, but overall, it wasn’t for me. That being said, it might be perfect for those who enjoy detailed character descriptions, gritty short stories, and fiction about Orthodox characters. It is fantastic that Orthodox writers are publishing more fiction that is readily available to order! There is so much truth that can shine through in stories, and I hope Stephen Siniari and other Orthodox authors continue to be supported in this work!
A note on the audiobook. The audio tends to be soft, and I found I had to turn it up often to not lose the thread of the story. I am guessing a quieter environment or headphones would help with this.
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