7 Absorbing Audiobooks We’re Listening to on Our Summer Strolls

July 24 2020
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There’s something so serene and calming about taking a long walk on the beach or a nice evening stroll through your neighborhood as the sun begins to set. Summer walks are one of my greatest joys—a time of peace and meditation. And with the right audiobook to keep me absorbed, my feet will go for miles. If you too find joy and comfort in a summer stroll, here are seven audiobooks to accompany you on your journey. 

Southern Side of Paradise
by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Even if your summer strolls are not met by the view of the ocean, this audiobook will give you all the beachy feels. With Kristy Woodson Harvey’s signature charm, wit, and heart, THE SOURTHERN SIDE OF PARADISE is another masterful Peachtree Bluff novel. With the man of her dreams back in her life and all three of her daughters happy, Ansley Murphy should be happy, right? But a little voice inside her keeps saying that this must be too good to be true. Then, when two new women arrive in Peachtree Bluff, secrets that were never meant to be told come to light and the powerful bond between the Murphy sisters and their mother comes crashing down. 

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Southern Side of Paradise
Kristy Woodson Harvey

Southern Living’s Beach Reads Perfect for Summer
Parade’s Big Fiction Reads Every Book Club Will Love
Entertainment Weekly’s Spring Reading Picks
BookBub’s Most Anticipated Book Club Books of Spring
NetGalley’s Must-Read Women’s Fiction
Frolic’s Most Anticipated Reads of Spring
Us Weekly’s Sweet Reads for Right Now
Woman’s World Best Books

From internationally bestselling author and “rising star of Southern fiction” (Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author) Kristy Woodson Harvey comes the third novel in her Peachtree Bluff series, in which a secret threatens the tight-knit bond between a trio of sisters and their mother.

With the man of her dreams back in her life and all three of her daughters happy, Ansley Murphy should be content. But she can’t help but feel like it’s all a little too good to be true.

Meanwhile, youngest daughter and actress Emerson, who is recently engaged and has just landed the role of a lifetime, seemingly has the world by the tail. Only, something she can’t quite put her finger on is worrying her—and it has nothing to do with her recent health scare.

When two new women arrive in Peachtree Bluff—one who has the potential to wreck Ansley’s happiness and one who could tear Emerson’s world apart—everything is put in perspective. And after secrets that were never meant to be told come to light, the powerful bond between the Murphy sisters and their mother comes crumbling down, testing their devotion to each other and forcing them to evaluate the meaning of family.

With Kristy Woodson Harvey’s signature charm, wit, and heart, The Southern Side of Paradise is another masterful Peachtree Bluff novel that proves she is a “Southern writer with staying power” (Booklist).

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7 Absorbing Audiobooks We’re Listening to on Our Summer Strolls

By Holly Claytor | July 24, 2020

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Family Upstairs
by Lisa Jewell

There’s nothing quite like listening to a good thriller on audiobook to really immerse yourself in the suspense of the story. Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby is told that she is the sole inheritor of an abandoned mansion. But with this house, she finds out much more about her past that she was anticipating. Twenty-five years ago, police were called to this mansion with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old sitting happily in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live there were gone. As Libby slowly uncovers who her family was, her entire life begins to change. 

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Family Upstairs
Lisa Jewell

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA COVER TO COVER BOOK CLUB PICK

“Rich, dark, and intricately twisted, this enthralling whodunit mixes family saga with domestic noir to brilliantly chilling effect.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author

“A haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read.” —Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author

From the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes another page-turning look inside one family’s past as buried secrets threaten to come to light.

Be careful who you let in.

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

In The Family Upstairs, the master of “bone-chilling suspense” (People) brings us the can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.

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These Ghosts are Family
by Maisy Card

Stanford Solomon has done something no one could ever imagine. He faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley. THESE GHOSTS ARE FAMILY revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem. 

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These Ghosts are Family
Maisy Card

A “rich, ambitious debut novel” (The New York Times Book Review) that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

*An Entertainment Weekly, Millions, and LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2020 Pick and Buzz Magazine’s Top New Book of the New Decade*

Stanford Solomon’s shocking, thirty-year-old secret is about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford has done something no one could ever imagine. He is a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley.

And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.

These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of a single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the houseboy who loved Vera, whpose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions.

This “rich and layered story” (Kirkus Reviews) explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is a “beguiling…vividly drawn, and compelling” (BookPage, starred review) portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret.

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Becoming
by Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama’s powerful and inspiring memoir is the perfect companion to your summertime strolls. In this work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped herfrom her childhood in Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent in the White House. Packed with honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived itin her own words and on her own terms. 

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Becoming
Michelle Obama

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7 Absorbing Audiobooks We’re Listening to on Our Summer Strolls

By Holly Claytor | July 24, 2020

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The Giver of Stars
by Jojo Moyes

Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice is all for it. Though these women face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives. 

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The Giver of Stars
Jojo Moyes

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7 Absorbing Audiobooks We’re Listening to on Our Summer Strolls

By Holly Claytor | July 24, 2020

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My Kind of People
by Lisa Duffy

This riveting and passionate beachy listen exhibits the resilience of a community and how they respond in the face of tragedy. Ten-year-old Sky is orphaned for the second time when an accident claims the lives of her adoptive parents. Leo, struggling with the grief of his best friend’s death and his marriage to his husband, now finds himself as the guardian to Sky. While Leo is supported by the community, many are harboring secrets. When Sky’s estranged grandmother is invited for an uncomfortable visit, straining already precarious relationships, their neighbors begin to notice something fishy going on. Was all not well in the house leading up to Sky’s parent’s accident? And among them all is a mysterious woman, drawn to their beachy island to fulfill a dying wish. 

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My Kind of People
Lisa Duffy

From the author of The Salt House and This Is Home comes a profound novel about the power of community and a small town’s long-buried secrets as a group of New England islanders come together for a recently orphaned girl.

On Ichabod Island, a jagged strip of land thirteen miles off the coast of Massachusetts, ten-year-old Sky becomes an orphan for the second time after a tragic accident claims the lives of her adoptive parents.

Grieving the death of his best friends, Leo’s life is turned upside down when he finds himself the guardian of young Sky. Back on the island and struggling to balance his new responsibilities and his marriage to his husband, Leo is supported by a powerful community of neighbors, many of them harboring secrets of their own.

Maggie, who helps with Sky’s childcare, has hit a breaking point with her police chief husband, who becomes embroiled in a local scandal. Her best friend Agnes, the island busybody, invites Sky’s estranged grandmother to stay for the summer, straining already precarious relationships. Their neighbor Joe struggles with whether to tell all was not well in Sky’s house in the months leading up to the accident. And among them all is a mysterious woman, drawn to Ichabod to fulfill a dying wish.

Perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Ann Leary, My Kind of People is a riveting, impassioned novel about the resilience of community and what connects us all in the face of tragedy.

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7 Absorbing Audiobooks We’re Listening to on Our Summer Strolls

By Holly Claytor | July 24, 2020

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I've Got My Eyes on You
by Mary Higgins Clark

After hosting a party while her parents were away, eighteen-year-old Kerry Dowling is found fully dressed at the bottom of the family pool. First to blame is her boyfriend, who had a bitter argument with her at the party. But there is also a twenty-year-old angry neighbor who was upset about not getting a invitationCould there be another suspect they have overlooked? Kerry’s older sister Aline is determined to assist the prosecutor’s office in learning the truth. But what she doesn’t know is that doing so will put her own life in danger. 

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I've Got My Eyes on You
Mary Higgins Clark

The newest thriller and instant #1 New York Times bestseller from Queen of Suspense Mary Higgins Clark shows us just how far a family and a town will go to protect their own in the wake of tragedy.

After a party when her parents are away, eighteen-year-old Kerry Dowling is found fully dressed at the bottom of the family pool. The immediate suspect is her boyfriend, who had a bitter argument with her at the party. Then there is a twenty-year-old neighbor who was angry because she didn’t invite him to the party. Or is there another suspect who has not yet been seen on the radar?

Kerry’s older sister Aline, a twenty-eight-year-old guidance counselor, is determined to assist the prosecutor’s office in learning the truth. She does not realize that now she is putting her own life in danger…

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and the “Queen of Suspense” comes a thrilling investigation asking what we truly know about those we trust, and the secrets lying in even the most idyllic of neighborhoods.

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MENTIONED IN:

7 Absorbing Audiobooks We’re Listening to on Our Summer Strolls

By Holly Claytor | July 24, 2020

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Photo Credit: FTiare/iStock

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