
The Life She Was Given
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Narrated by:
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Lori Gardner
About this listen
From acclaimed author Ellen Marie Wiseman comes a vivid, daring novel about the devastating power of family secrets - beginning in the poignant, lurid world of a Depression-era traveling circus and coming full circle in the transformative 1950s.
On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn't allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. She's never even ventured beyond her narrow room. Momma insists it's for Lilly's own protection, that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time - and sold to the circus sideshow.
More than two decades later, 19-year-old Julia Blackwood has inherited her parents' estate and horse farm. For Julia, home was an unhappy place full of strict rules and forbidden rooms, and she hopes that returning might erase those painful memories. Instead, she becomes immersed in a mystery involving a hidden attic room and photos of circus scenes featuring a striking young girl.
At first The Barlow Brothers' Circus is just another prison for Lilly. But in this ragtag, sometimes brutal world, Lilly discovers strength, friendship, and a rare affinity for animals. Soon, thanks to elephants Pepper and JoJo and their handler, Cole, Lilly is no longer a sideshow spectacle but the circus' biggest attraction...until tragedy and cruelty collide.
It will fall to Julia to learn the truth about Lilly's fate and her family's shocking betrayal and find a way to make Blackwood Manor into a place of healing at last. Moving between Julia's and Lilly's stories, Ellen Marie Wiseman portrays two extraordinary, very different women in a novel that, while tender and heartbreaking, offers moments of joy and indomitable hope.
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Story
In a North Carolina mountain town filled with moonshine and rotten husbands, Sadie Blue is only the latest girl to face a dead-end future at the mercy of a dangerous drunk. She's been married to Roy Tupkin for 15 days, and she knows now that she should have listened to the folks who said he was trouble. But when a stranger sweeps in and knocks the world off-kilter for everyone in town, Sadie begins to think there might be more to life than being Roy's wife.
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The story never fully evolved
- By Samantha Russell on 08-14-19
By: Leah Weiss
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Coal River
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: C. S. E. Cooney
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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As a child, Emma Malloy left isolated Coal River, Pennsylvania, vowing never to return. Now, orphaned and penniless at 19, she accepts a train ticket from her aunt and uncle and travels back to the rough-hewn community. Treated like a servant by her relatives, Emma works for free in the company store. There, miners and their impoverished families must pay inflated prices for food, clothing, and tools while those who owe money are turned away to starve.
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Best book I've listened to all year.
- By Nathan Vidrine on 03-25-16
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The Undertaker’s Assistant
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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"The dead can't hurt you. Only the living can." Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies - and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer's shortcomings.
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A riveting story that will keep your interest.
- By Patricia on 08-02-19
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The Nurse’s Secret
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In the slums of 1880s New York, Una Kelly has grown up to be a rough-and-tumble grifter, able to filch a pocketbook in five seconds flat. But when another con-woman pins her for a murder she didn't commit, Una is forced to flee. Running from the police, Una lies her way into an unlikely refuge: the nursing school at Bellevue Hospital.
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Predictable
- By Lorraine E. Collins on 07-05-22
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The Saints of Swallow Hill
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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During the Great Depression, labor camps crop up in remote areas throughout the American South. Destitute workers live under terrible conditions. Trapped in these isolated locations, workers are entirely dependent on the often greedy, abusive camp owners who provide food and housing at grossly inflated prices. But for the most desperate among America's vast unemployed, these camps are often the last and only option.
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great story
- By Chrysta Hiser on 02-27-22
By: Donna Everhart
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All the Little Hopes
- By: Leah Weiss
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Deep in the tobacco land of North Carolina, nothing's been the same since the boys shipped off to war and worry took their place. Thirteen-year-old Lucy Brown is precocious and itching for adventure. Then Allie Bert Tucker wanders into town, an outcast with a puzzling past, and Lucy figures the two of them can solve any curious crime they find - just like her hero, Nancy Drew. Their chance comes when a man goes missing, a woman stops speaking, and an eccentric gives the girls a mystery to solve that takes them beyond the ordinary.
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Leah Weiss is a gifted author
- By MelissaFBrown on 08-03-21
By: Leah Weiss
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The Next Ship Home
- A Novel of Ellis Island
- By: Heather Webb
- Narrated by: Kathryn Markey
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Ellis Island, 1902. Francesca arrives on the shores of America, her sights set on a better life than the one she left in Italy. That same day, aspiring linguist Alma reports to her first day of work at the immigrant processing center. Ellis, though, is not the refuge it first appears thanks to President Roosevelt's attempts to deter crime. Francesca and Alma will have to rely on each other to escape its corruption and claim the American dreams they were promised.
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Fully human and timely immigrant story of the heart
- By Syd Young on 03-19-22
By: Heather Webb
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The Second Life of Mirielle West
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Nicole Poole
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Los Angeles, 1920s: Socialite Mirielle West's days are crowded with shopping, luncheons, and prepping for the myriad glittering parties she attends with her actor husband, Charlie. She's been too busy to even notice the small patch of pale skin on the back of her hand. Other than an occasional overindulgence in gin and champagne, which helps to numb the pain of recent tragedy, Mirielle is the picture of health. But her doctor insists on more tests, and Mirielle reluctantly agrees. The diagnosis - leprosy - is devastating and unthinkable.
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Unique historical fiction not often told
- By TCS on 04-21-22
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This I Know
- By: Eldonna Edwards
- Narrated by: Bailey Carr
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Eleven-year-old Grace Carter has a talent for hiding things. She's had plenty of practice, burying thoughts and feelings that might anger her strict evangelical pastor father. The Knowing, as Grace calls it, offers glimpses of people's pasts and futures. It enables her to see into the depth of her mother's sadness, and even allows Grace to talk to Isaac, her twin brother who died at birth. To her wise, loving Aunt Pearl, the Knowing is a family gift; to her daddy, it's close to witchcraft.
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Beautiful Story
- By Shirl on 05-23-18
By: Eldonna Edwards
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The Education of Dixie Dupree
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1969 Dixie Dupree is 11 years old and already an expert liar. Sometimes the lies are for her mama Evie's sake - to explain away a bruise brought on by her quick-as-lightning temper. And sometimes the lies are to spite Evie, who longs to leave her unhappy marriage in Perry County, Alabama, and return to her beloved New Hampshire. But for Dixie and her brother, Alabama is home, a place of pine-scented breezes and hot, languid afternoons.
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Not Quite Believable!!!
- By Gwendolyn Washington on 11-20-16
By: Donna Everhart
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A Fall of Marigolds
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries...and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she's made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her?
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Beautiful!
- By R. Burnham on 03-29-15
By: Susan Meissner
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All the Forgivenesses
- By: Elizabeth Hardinger
- Narrated by: Stephanie Einstein
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up on their hardscrabble farm in rural Kentucky, 15-year-old Albertina "Bertie" Winslow has learned a lot from her mama, Polly. She knows how to lance a boil, make a pie crust, butcher a pig, and tend to every chore that needs doing. What she doesn't know, but is forced to reckon with all too soon, is how to look after children as a mother should. When Polly succumbs to a long illness, Bertie takes on responsibility for her four younger siblings and their dissolute, unreliable daddy.
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Wonderful life story
- By gayle boyce on 10-01-19
What listeners say about The Life She Was Given
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- NGray
- 10-20-17
Good book but hard to read at times!
The book is well written but the story is very hard to hear/read. It is a reflection of how cruel humans can be,not only to animals but to humans. It is definitely a page turner and a reminder that we all have a limited amount of time here on earth and that it is very precious.
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- BookTramp
- 05-08-23
It was a good storyline
I enjoyed the main characters & the story itself. The animal treatment was pretty hard to take but I know in a period piece it’s not uncommon. The characters in the story were compelling however things did get somewhat predictable as it developed. Overall I enjoyed listening.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-14-18
Struggle
This book is a great story, touching, tear-jerking at times and exhilarating at other times. #Thankful #GreatStory #Tagsgiving #Sweepstakes
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- Midge
- 05-28-18
great story
So far, have not read one book I did not love by Ellen Wiseman. All her stories are on different matter, but are always excellent. Each one is better than the last.
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- Sloopyjo
- 10-09-17
Trigger Alert
A gripping story, but readers beware, a main character (female) lives a long life riddled with trauma from birth to death - often described in detail.
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- KyMomof4
- 09-06-20
I really enjoyed this book, easy read.
Somewhat what I expected of the story but with a nice little surprise twist at the end.
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- Betsy T
- 10-19-21
Outstanding
Excellent story with surprises, heartaches and betrayals. Don't miss this fantastic read - worth your time.....
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- Kindle Customer
- 03-09-23
Very enjoyable
Enjoyable quick read that I couldn’t put down. I will check out more books by this author.
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- Stephanie 💞 Amazon
- 05-08-23
Can't believe the negative reviews. I loved it!!
Well written, great story, a great read!!! give it a chance. One of my favorites on Audible originals to date.
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- Ella
- 06-04-23
Excellent
I read a lot and it has to be good to keep my attention. Beautiful read.
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