
Too Soon
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Betty Shamieh
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Jacqueline Antaramian
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Lameece Issaq
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By:
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Betty Shamieh
About this listen
A “wonderfully brash and sparkling” (Oprah Daily) novel that explores exile, love, and freedom across three generations of women—“a Palestinian American Sex and the City” (The Atlantic).
Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she’s thrust into a conflict and history she’s tried to avoid all her life.
Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter and stirring up buried memories.
Naya is keeping a secret from her children that will change all their lives.
Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic—that might garner international attention—in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster...
With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family’s epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut, Too Soon illuminates our shared history and asks, how can we set ourselves free?©2025 Betty Shamieh (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio
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Good book!
- By Amanda Corkum on 03-13-25
By: Sarah Harman
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Good Dirt
- A Novel
- By: Charmaine Wilkerson
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well. The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart, that's exactly what they get.
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Moments of brilliance
- By MyLastRomanceNovel on 03-01-25
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Tartufo
- By: Kira Jane Buxton
- Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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After nearly losing the election to a geriatric donkey, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. Tourists only stop by to ask for directions, Nonna Amara’s cherished ristorante is long shuttered, and the town hall is disgustingly overrun with glis glis poo—even Postman Duccio has been disgraced.
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Fun description of an Italian village
- By HB on 02-10-25
By: Kira Jane Buxton
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Penitence
- A Novel
- By: Kristin Koval
- Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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When a shocking murder occurs in the home of Angie and David Sheehan, their lives are shattered. Desperate to defend their family, they turn to small-town lawyer Martine Dumont for help, but Martine isn’t just legal counsel—she’s also the mother of Angie’s first love, Julian, a now-successful New York City criminal defense attorney. As Julian and Angie confront their shared past and long-buried guilt from a tragic accident years ago, they must navigate their own culpability and the unresolved feelings between them.
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complicated family drama and crime procedural
- By Maryanne T. on 02-03-25
By: Kristin Koval
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Sounds Like Love
- By: Ashley Poston
- Narrated by: Patti Murin, Ashley Poston
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Joni Lark has a secret. She’s one of the most coveted songwriters in LA, and yet she can’t write. There’s an emptiness inside her, and nothing seems to fill it. When she returns to her hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, she hopes that the sand, the surf, and the concerts at The Revelry, her family’s music venue, will spark inspiration. But when Joni gets there, nothing is how she left it. Her best friend is hiding something, her mother’s memories are fading fast, and The Revelry is closing.
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Absolutely amazing
- By L on 07-07-25
By: Ashley Poston
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Mothers and Sons
- A Novel
- By: Adam Haslett
- Narrated by: Andrew Gibson, Janet Metzger
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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At forty, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for twenty years returns to haunt him. Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat center she founded after leaving his father, is wounded by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built.
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Good multiple narrators. Tiresome characters.
- By CoastalReader on 02-20-25
By: Adam Haslett
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The Raven Scholar
- Eternal Path Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Antonia Hodgson
- Narrated by: Daphne Kouma
- Length: 24 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, Bersun the Brusque must end his reign. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders compete to replace him. They are exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists—the best of the best. Then one of them is murdered. We know who did it. We saw it happen. No one else did.
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This book is truly MAGNIFICENT!!!
- By Samaria Huff on 04-24-25
By: Antonia Hodgson
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Victorian Psycho
- By: Virginia Feito
- Narrated by: Anna Burnett
- Length: 4 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze.
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meh
- By Pamela Y. S. on 02-13-25
By: Virginia Feito
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Tilt
- A Novel
- By: Emma Pattee
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there’s nothing to do but walk.
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Over enthusiastic, snarky narrator who can't...
- By NMwritergal on 03-27-25
By: Emma Pattee
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The Emperor of Gladness
- A Novel
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: James Aaron Oh
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak.
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Compelling characters, hopeful and sad
- By MB on 05-20-25
By: Ocean Vuong
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A Family Matter
- A Novel
- By: Claire Lynch
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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1982. Dawn is a young mother, still adjusting to life with her husband, when Hazel lights up her world like a torch in the dark. Theirs is the kind of connection that’s impossible to resist, and suddenly life is more complicated, and more joyful, than Dawn ever expected. But she has responsibilities and commitments. She has a daughter. 2022. Heron has just received news from his doctor that turns everything upside down. He’s an older man, stuck in the habits of a quiet existence. Telling Maggie, his only child—the person around whom his life has revolved—seems impossible.
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Powerful presentation
- By Diane M. Schiff on 07-01-25
By: Claire Lynch
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Homeseeking
- By: Karissa Chen
- Narrated by: Katharine Chin, Kenneth Lee
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back. Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.
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Vivid characters, uniquely delivered histories
- By Cherry D. on 04-23-25
By: Karissa Chen
Amazing
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A beautiful tale of history and fiction
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