
Shae
A Novel
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

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $14.81
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kira Fixx
-
By:
-
Mesha Maren
About this listen
From “a highest-order storyteller of Southern noir” (Electric Literature), a queer coming-of-age novel about addiction, belonging, and loving a place that doesn't always love you back.
When sixteen-year-old Shae meets Cam, who is new to their small town in West Virginia, she thinks she has found someone who is everything she has ever wanted in a companion. The two become fast friends, and then more. And when Shae ends up pregnant, Cam begins a different transition—trying on clothes that Shae can no longer fit into and using female pronouns. Shae tries to be fully supportive as Cam becomes the person she wants and needs to be.
After a traumatic C-section and the birth of their daughter, Eva, Shae is given opioids to manage the intense pain. During the first year of Eva’s life, Shae’s dependence shifts from pain management to addiction, and her days begin to revolve around getting more pills. In the heart of West Virginia, opioids are dispensed as freely as candy, and Shae is just one of many to fall victim to addiction. Meanwhile, as Cam continues to transition, she embraces new relationships and faces the reality of being a trans woman in rural America.
Shae is as much about these two young women as it is about the home they both love despite its limitations. Following the acclaimed Sugar Run and Perpetual West, this is Mesha Maren’s most intense and intimate novel yet.
©2024 Mesha Maren (P)2024 Algonquin BooksCritic reviews
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2024
“Most Anticipated Queer Adult Fiction, January-June 2024”—LGBTQ Reads
“Mesha Maren paints a vivid, unforgettable portrait of two young women—one cis and one trans—living in West Virginia and trying to break free from the confinements of gender, class, and sexuality. Mesha Maren is a visionary storyteller and her prose is incandescent. The sentences shimmer with precision, elegance, and grit. It’s the kind of book that gets under your skin. I couldn't put it down. Shae is a beautiful, big-hearted novel about love, desire, and daring to be one’s self. I will be thinking about the characters for a long time.”—Carter Sickels, author of The Prettiest Star
“Maren brilliantly gives voice to a New South, introducing us to two unforgettable characters whose journeys echo the struggles of queer people across the country. This book is essential for the new queer canon emerging from Southern writers. I can’t wait to put this in the hands of so many people who need it and will no doubt see themselves in this beautiful narrative.”—Garrard Conley, author of Boy Erased and All the World Beside
"An expansive, quietly devastating novel that fearlessly explores queer love, motherhood and the siren call of addiction."—Jenny Offill, author of Weather
Related to this topic
-
The Honeymoon
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Rose Robinson, Sean Burke, Leena Makoff, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy and Jonah, wealthy entrepreneurs with a spoiled son, hide sins from their past—one involving a death on a cruise, the other a crime in Bali. Nathan and Samantha, the hot ex-nanny turned trophy wife, grapple with infertility and a shocking paternity secret. Bartosz and Angelika (he’s a chef, she’s a former sex worker) carry debts to the other couples they don’t even realize they owe. Over fourteen days, the couples bond—but their pasts are too deeply intertwined to stay hidden. The sly concierge, Putu, knows more than he lets on.
-
-
Great storytelling!
- By Ashley R on 03-31-25
By: Jane E. James
-
Hitchhikers
- By: Ben H. Winters
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?
-
-
The ever present battle between past and future.
- By Kindle Customer on 03-14-25
By: Ben H. Winters
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
-
-
Seriously, that was the ending?
- By alicia in athens on 02-13-25
-
The Honeymoon
- By: Jane E. James
- Narrated by: Rose Robinson, Sean Burke, Leena Makoff, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy and Jonah, wealthy entrepreneurs with a spoiled son, hide sins from their past—one involving a death on a cruise, the other a crime in Bali. Nathan and Samantha, the hot ex-nanny turned trophy wife, grapple with infertility and a shocking paternity secret. Bartosz and Angelika (he’s a chef, she’s a former sex worker) carry debts to the other couples they don’t even realize they owe. Over fourteen days, the couples bond—but their pasts are too deeply intertwined to stay hidden. The sly concierge, Putu, knows more than he lets on.
-
-
Great storytelling!
- By Ashley R on 03-31-25
By: Jane E. James
-
Hitchhikers
- By: Ben H. Winters
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?
-
-
The ever present battle between past and future.
- By Kindle Customer on 03-14-25
By: Ben H. Winters
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
-
-
Seriously, that was the ending?
- By alicia in athens on 02-13-25
What listeners say about Shae
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jessica Long
- 05-28-24
Wow
This was a hard one to listen to, but the author does a great job of putting you there—tastes sounds feelings smells sights—
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!