Showing results by narrator "Hope Newhouse" in All Categories

Welcome to the Fiction on the Web audiobook series, featuring a collection of short stories with a different theme for each volume. Lovingly curated by the owner of Fiction on the Web, Charlie Fish. Come and share in the joy and power of short stories.

Paris, 1922: Zoe Barlow knows the pain of loss. By the age of eighteen, she'd already lost her father to suicide and her reputation to an ill-fated love affair—not to mention other losses, too devastating for words. Exiled from her home and her beloved younger sister by their stepmother, she was unceremoniously dumped in Paris without a friend to help her find her way.

In Victorian-era Louisville, the Home for Friendless Women is run by benevolent benefactors with one mission: to reform the fallen women who live there into pious mothers and wives through religious lessons and hard work. For Ruth, a college student who’s expelled after a campus sexual assault, the Home is a purgatory to endure before she can get her life back. For Belle, a queer sex worker who exchanged her bed at a brothel for one in the Home, it’s a safe place to rest her feet until she can track down her missing lover.

Ever since her dad died, 11-year-old Jerry Blum and her mom have bounced around dead-end towns, staying in a series of rundown motels where her mother picks up housekeeping work and Jerry can get around in her wheelchair. But the Slumbering Giant motel is different. Lights blink on and off in the surrounding trees, a mysterious radio station plays only at midnight, and people disappear into the woods, never to been seen again. Not to mention that Jerry’s mom keeps vanishing to do “special work” that she refuses to discuss. When her mother doesn’t come home one morning, Jerry acts.

Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit is a beautifully written novel in verse loosely based on author Colby Cedar Smith’s maternal grandmother. The story follows Mary as she and her family emigrate from Greece to Detroit in the 1930s, creating a historically accurate portrayal of life as an immigrant during the Great Depression, hunger strikes, and violent riots. Mary lives in a tiny apartment with her immigrant parents, her brothers, and her twin sister, and she questions why her parents ever came to America.

From two-time Newbery medalist Lois Lowry comes this warm and resonant story of an unlikely friendship, which unfolds as a revelation on how we hold on to—and pass on—what matters most.

Thirteen-year-old Eli likes baggy clothes, baseball caps, and one girl in particular. Her 17-year-old sister, Anna, is more traditionally feminine; she loves boys and staying out late. They are sisters, and they are also the only family each can count on. Their dad has long been out of the picture, and their mom lives at the mercy of her next drink. When their mom lands herself in enforced rehab, Anna and Eli are left to fend for themselves.

Welcome to the Fiction on the Web audiobook series, featuring a collection of short stories with a different theme for each volume. Lovingly curated by the owner of Fiction On The Web, Charlie Fish. Come and share in the joy and power of short stories. The theme of this volume is Ironic Wish Fulfilment. What happens when your dreams actually do come true? Does eternal happiness await? Or will you be visited by nightmares?

Expat Zoe Barlow has settled well into her artist's life among the Lost Generation in 1920s Paris. When a too-tipsy guest at her weekly poker game breaks Zoe's favorite clock, she's off to a Montparnasse flea market to bargain with the vendor Laurette for a replacement. What Zoe didn't bargain for was the lost Chagall painting that's been used like a rag to wrap her purchases! Eager to learn whether Laurette has more Chagalls lying about like trash, Zoe sets off to track her down at her storage shed. With no Laurette in sight, Zoe snoops around and indeed finds several additional Chagalls.