
The Life She Was Given
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
Buy for $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
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.
©2017 Ellen Marie Wiseman (P)2017 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
What She Left Behind
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten years ago, Izzy Stone's mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother's apparent insanity, Izzy, now 17, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy's help in cataloguing items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.
-
-
Ug.
- By Marina on 12-30-14
-
The Orphan Collector
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Rachel Botchan
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1918, 13-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia's overcrowded streets and slums, and from the anti-German sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the US Army, hoping to prove his loyalty. But an even more urgent threat has arrived. Spanish influenza is spreading through the city. Soon, dead and dying are everywhere. With no food at home, Pia must venture out in search of supplies, leaving her infant twin brothers alone....
-
-
Author is an AMAZING storyteller!
- By Nicole Newman on 08-06-20
-
Coal River
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: C. S. E. Cooney
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Best book I've listened to all year.
- By Nathan Vidrine on 03-25-16
-
The Lost Girls of Willowbrook
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sage Winters always knew her sister was a little different even though they were identical twins. They loved the same things and shared a deep understanding, but Rosemary—awake to every emotion, easily moved to joy or tears—seemed to need more protection from the world. Six years after Rosemary's death from pneumonia, Sage, now sixteen, still misses her deeply. Their mother perished in a car crash, and Sage's stepfather, Alan, resents being burdened by a responsibility he never wanted.
-
-
Repetitive
- By Damaris Ward on 09-03-23
-
The Second Life of Mirielle West
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Nicole Poole
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Unique historical fiction not often told
- By TCS on 04-21-22
-
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
-
What She Left Behind
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten years ago, Izzy Stone's mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother's apparent insanity, Izzy, now 17, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy's help in cataloguing items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.
-
-
Ug.
- By Marina on 12-30-14
-
The Orphan Collector
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Rachel Botchan
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1918, 13-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia's overcrowded streets and slums, and from the anti-German sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the US Army, hoping to prove his loyalty. But an even more urgent threat has arrived. Spanish influenza is spreading through the city. Soon, dead and dying are everywhere. With no food at home, Pia must venture out in search of supplies, leaving her infant twin brothers alone....
-
-
Author is an AMAZING storyteller!
- By Nicole Newman on 08-06-20
-
Coal River
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: C. S. E. Cooney
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Best book I've listened to all year.
- By Nathan Vidrine on 03-25-16
-
The Lost Girls of Willowbrook
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sage Winters always knew her sister was a little different even though they were identical twins. They loved the same things and shared a deep understanding, but Rosemary—awake to every emotion, easily moved to joy or tears—seemed to need more protection from the world. Six years after Rosemary's death from pneumonia, Sage, now sixteen, still misses her deeply. Their mother perished in a car crash, and Sage's stepfather, Alan, resents being burdened by a responsibility he never wanted.
-
-
Repetitive
- By Damaris Ward on 09-03-23
-
The Second Life of Mirielle West
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Nicole Poole
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Unique historical fiction not often told
- By TCS on 04-21-22
-
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
-
The Book Woman's Daughter
- A Novel
- By: Kim Michele Richardson
- Narrated by: Katie Schorr
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.
-
-
Good read!
- By Oh Sugar on 09-12-22
-
The Undertaker’s Assistant
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"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.
-
-
A riveting story that will keep your interest.
- By Patricia on 08-02-19
-
The Moonshiner’s Daughter
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser's daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she's concerned, moonshine caused her mother's death a dozen years ago. Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth - one that compels her to seek comfort in food.
-
-
Story with potential, fell short.
- By Steven Kibe on 01-15-21
By: Donna Everhart
-
Before We Were Yours
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Wingate
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Catherine Taber
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge - until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents - but they quickly realize the dark truth.
-
-
I was rivetted, finished in three days.
- By Lin Cloward on 06-26-17
By: Lisa Wingate
-
The Saints of Swallow Hill
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
great story
- By Chrysta Hiser on 02-27-22
By: Donna Everhart
-
The Nature of Fragile Things
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins, Jason Culp
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.
-
-
The Nature of Fragile Things is a 5 star listen!
- By Kathy… send to help my husband to sleep!! on 02-04-21
By: Susan Meissner
-
The Throwaway Children
- By: Diney Costeloe
- Narrated by: Anne Dover
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage, not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle them to do what they like with the children. And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them - without their family's consent or knowledge - are Rita and Rosie.
-
-
Depressing book
- By Michelle on 01-28-20
By: Diney Costeloe
-
The Nurse’s Secret
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Predictable
- By Lorraine E. Collins on 07-05-22
-
If the Creek Don't Rise
- By: Leah Weiss
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte, Kate Forbes
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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.
-
-
The story never fully evolved
- By Samantha Russell on 08-14-19
By: Leah Weiss
-
The Nightingale
- By: Kristin Hannah
- Narrated by: Polly Stone
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With courage, grace, and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
-
-
HEARTBREAKINGLY POIGNANT AND INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL
- By PatrioticMimi on 02-17-15
By: Kristin Hannah
-
The Echo of Old Books
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Davis
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson, Steve West, Sarah Zimmerman
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.
-
-
Couldn’t finish it
- By Lady Chaps on 03-31-23
By: Barbara Davis
-
The Last List of Mabel Beaumont
- By: Laura Pearson
- Narrated by: Penelope Freeman
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mabel Beaumont’s husband Arthur loved lists. He’d leave them for her everywhere. ‘Remember: eggs, butter, sugar’. ‘I love you: today, tomorrow, always’. But now Arthur is gone. He died: softly, gently, not making a fuss. But he’s still left her a list. This one has just one item on it though: ‘Find D’. Mabel feels sure she knows what it means. She must track down her best friend Dot, who she hasn’t seen since the fateful day she left more than sixty years ago.
-
-
cozy till the lesbian girl showed up
- By Gary on 01-11-24
By: Laura Pearson
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Orphan Collector
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Rachel Botchan
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1918, 13-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia's overcrowded streets and slums, and from the anti-German sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the US Army, hoping to prove his loyalty. But an even more urgent threat has arrived. Spanish influenza is spreading through the city. Soon, dead and dying are everywhere. With no food at home, Pia must venture out in search of supplies, leaving her infant twin brothers alone....
-
-
Author is an AMAZING storyteller!
- By Nicole Newman on 08-06-20
-
What She Left Behind
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten years ago, Izzy Stone's mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother's apparent insanity, Izzy, now 17, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy's help in cataloguing items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.
-
-
Ug.
- By Marina on 12-30-14
-
The Lost Girls of Willowbrook
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sage Winters always knew her sister was a little different even though they were identical twins. They loved the same things and shared a deep understanding, but Rosemary—awake to every emotion, easily moved to joy or tears—seemed to need more protection from the world. Six years after Rosemary's death from pneumonia, Sage, now sixteen, still misses her deeply. Their mother perished in a car crash, and Sage's stepfather, Alan, resents being burdened by a responsibility he never wanted.
-
-
Repetitive
- By Damaris Ward on 09-03-23
-
The Moonshiner’s Daughter
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser's daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she's concerned, moonshine caused her mother's death a dozen years ago. Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth - one that compels her to seek comfort in food.
-
-
Story with potential, fell short.
- By Steven Kibe on 01-15-21
By: Donna Everhart
-
The Road to Bittersweet
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 14-year-old Wallis Ann Stamper and her family, life in the Appalachian Mountains is simple and satisfying, though not for the tenderhearted. While her older sister, Laci - a mute, musically gifted savant - is constantly watched over and protected, Wallis Ann is as practical and sturdy as her name. When the Tuckasegee River bursts its banks, forcing them to flee in the middle of the night, those qualities save her life. But though her family is eventually reunited, the tragedy opens Wallis Ann's eyes to a world beyond the creek that's borne their name for generations.
-
-
Heartwrenching
- By Kimberly Wasilewski on 12-04-18
By: Donna Everhart
-
If the Creek Don't Rise
- By: Leah Weiss
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte, Kate Forbes
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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.
-
-
The story never fully evolved
- By Samantha Russell on 08-14-19
By: Leah Weiss
-
The Orphan Collector
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Rachel Botchan
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the fall of 1918, 13-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia's overcrowded streets and slums, and from the anti-German sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the US Army, hoping to prove his loyalty. But an even more urgent threat has arrived. Spanish influenza is spreading through the city. Soon, dead and dying are everywhere. With no food at home, Pia must venture out in search of supplies, leaving her infant twin brothers alone....
-
-
Author is an AMAZING storyteller!
- By Nicole Newman on 08-06-20
-
What She Left Behind
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten years ago, Izzy Stone's mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother's apparent insanity, Izzy, now 17, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents, employees at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy's help in cataloguing items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.
-
-
Ug.
- By Marina on 12-30-14
-
The Lost Girls of Willowbrook
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sage Winters always knew her sister was a little different even though they were identical twins. They loved the same things and shared a deep understanding, but Rosemary—awake to every emotion, easily moved to joy or tears—seemed to need more protection from the world. Six years after Rosemary's death from pneumonia, Sage, now sixteen, still misses her deeply. Their mother perished in a car crash, and Sage's stepfather, Alan, resents being burdened by a responsibility he never wanted.
-
-
Repetitive
- By Damaris Ward on 09-03-23
-
The Moonshiner’s Daughter
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser's daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she's concerned, moonshine caused her mother's death a dozen years ago. Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth - one that compels her to seek comfort in food.
-
-
Story with potential, fell short.
- By Steven Kibe on 01-15-21
By: Donna Everhart
-
The Road to Bittersweet
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For 14-year-old Wallis Ann Stamper and her family, life in the Appalachian Mountains is simple and satisfying, though not for the tenderhearted. While her older sister, Laci - a mute, musically gifted savant - is constantly watched over and protected, Wallis Ann is as practical and sturdy as her name. When the Tuckasegee River bursts its banks, forcing them to flee in the middle of the night, those qualities save her life. But though her family is eventually reunited, the tragedy opens Wallis Ann's eyes to a world beyond the creek that's borne their name for generations.
-
-
Heartwrenching
- By Kimberly Wasilewski on 12-04-18
By: Donna Everhart
-
If the Creek Don't Rise
- By: Leah Weiss
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte, Kate Forbes
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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.
-
-
The story never fully evolved
- By Samantha Russell on 08-14-19
By: Leah Weiss
-
This I Know
- By: Eldonna Edwards
- Narrated by: Bailey Carr
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Beautiful Story
- By Shirl on 05-23-18
By: Eldonna Edwards
-
The Undertaker’s Assistant
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"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.
-
-
A riveting story that will keep your interest.
- By Patricia on 08-02-19
-
The Plum Tree
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: Madeleine Lambert
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Bloom where you're planted," is the advice Christine Bolz receives from her beloved Oma. But 17-year-old domestic Christine knows there is a whole world waiting beyond her small German village. It's a world she's begun to glimpse through music, books - and through Isaac Bauerman, the cultured son of the wealthy Jewish family she works for.
Yet the future she and Isaac dream of sharing faces greater challenges than their difference in stations. In the fall of 1938, Germany is changing rapidly under Hitler's regime....
-
-
A good story, terrible narration!
- By Tyler on 01-30-14
-
Coal River
- By: Ellen Marie Wiseman
- Narrated by: C. S. E. Cooney
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Best book I've listened to all year.
- By Nathan Vidrine on 03-25-16
-
All the Little Hopes
- By: Leah Weiss
- Narrated by: Kate Forbes
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Leah Weiss is a gifted author
- By MelissaFBrown on 08-03-21
By: Leah Weiss
-
The Nurse’s Secret
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Predictable
- By Lorraine E. Collins on 07-05-22
-
The Saints of Swallow Hill
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
great story
- By Chrysta Hiser on 02-27-22
By: Donna Everhart
-
The Education of Dixie Dupree
- By: Donna Everhart
- Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Not Quite Believable!!!
- By Gwendolyn Washington on 11-20-16
By: Donna Everhart
-
All the Forgivenesses
- By: Elizabeth Hardinger
- Narrated by: Stephanie Einstein
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Wonderful life story
- By gayle boyce on 10-01-19
-
Appalachian Daughter
- By: Mary Jane Salyers
- Narrated by: Bailey Carr
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the last day of eighth grade, Maggie begins to dream of finding a way to escape the drudgery and confinement of life in the hollow and establish her independence. Her plan begins to fall in place when she enters high school and discovers she has a natural talent for excelling in shorthand, typing, and other business classes. Meanwhile she spares no effort in helping her family continue to survive despite their poverty, a less than fertile few acres, and a family history of instability.
-
-
Heartwarming story
- By G'amazing on 12-22-19
-
Sold on a Monday
- A Novel
- By: Kristina McMorris
- Narrated by: Brian Hutchison
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2 CHILDREN FOR SALE. In 1931, near Philadelphia, ambitious reporter Ellis Reed photographs the gut-wrenching sign posted beside a pair of siblings on a farmhouse porch. With the help of newspaper secretary Lily Palmer, Ellis writes an article to accompany the photo. Capturing the hardships of American families during the Great Depression, the feature story generates national attention and Ellis's career skyrockets. But the piece also leads to consequences more devastating than he and Lily ever imagined - and it will risk everything they value to unravel the mystery and set things right.
-
-
Not what I anticipated...
- By Lashawn on 10-13-18
-
The Second Life of Mirielle West
- By: Amanda Skenandore
- Narrated by: Nicole Poole
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Unique historical fiction not often told
- By TCS on 04-21-22
Great book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Overall, this is a book worth reading.
Worth the listen
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fantastic Read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
What did you love best about The Life She Was Given?
The historical placement of this story and the world behind the scenes of the lives that made the circus.What did you like best about this story?
The way it was woven between the two generations first perspective.What does Lori Gardner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The diversity of the the characters.If you could take any character from The Life She Was Given out to dinner, who would it be and why?
Lilly because she had a deep understanding of her strength and what was worth fighting for.A Delightful Visit to the back side of the Circus
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Well written
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
heartbreakingly sad and beautiful
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Engaging
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Said
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Enjoyable story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
She always has that surprising ending. You never expect it.
The best.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.