A Paranormal Women’s Fiction (PWF) that’ll have you walking on air!

Luella Campbell is having the weirdest day ever. Getting fired from her job at the sunscreen factory for no good reason is bad enough, but when a mysterious dog brings a tempest into her former workplace, Luella’s life is completely upended by the sudden gift of wild and windy magical powers.

With the help of her ride-or-die best friends, her motorcycle-riding mother, and a romantic blast from the past, Luella must find a way to make ends meet while unlocking the mysteries of her newfound magic... and the secrets hidden in the picturesque town of Sparkle Beach.

Sometimes, an empty nest means it’s your turn to fly.

(This sample includes the first five minutes.)

Silver Spells: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel - Narrated by Xe Sands - Audiobook Sample

Read by Laura Lippman, Sophie Amoss, Eileen Stevens, Susan Bennett, Xe Sands, Jason Culp, George Newbern, Janina Edwards, Jane Oppenheimer, Jesse Vilinsky, Carlotta Brentan, Eva Kaminsky, Sarah Naughton

In a suspenseful collection of stories featuring fierce women—including one never-before-published novella—New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman showcases why she is one of today’s top crime writers.

The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories.

In the never-before-published “Just One More,” a married couple—longing for that old romantic spark—creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences.

Lippman’s beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father in “Seasonal Work,” while her mother, Judith, realizes that the life of “The Everyday Housewife” is an excellent cover for all kinds of secrets.

In “Slow Burner,” a husband’s secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife.

A father’s hidden past piques the curiosity of a young snoop in “The Last of Sheila-Locke Holmes.”

Plus seven other brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games, and love gone wrong—irrefutable evidence that Laura Lippman’s riveting fiction will more than satisfy any crime reader.

SEASONAL WORK by Laura Lippman

Read by Xe Sands

From New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling memoir about unlocking and embracing her creativity—and how it saved her life.

In this brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation, Jami Attenberg—described as a “master of modern fiction” (Entertainment Weekly) and the “poet laureate of difficult families” (Kirkus Reviews)—reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one’s ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?

As the daughter of a traveling salesman in the Midwest, Attenberg was drawn to a life on the road. Frustrated by quotidian jobs and hungry for inspiration and fresh experiences, her wanderlust led her across the country and eventually on travels around the globe. Through it all she grapples with questions of mortality, otherworldliness, and what we leave behind.

It is during these adventures that she begins to reflect on the experiences of her youth—the trauma, the challenges, the risks she has taken. Driving across America on self-funded book tours, sometimes crashing on couches when she was broke, she keeps writing: in researching articles for magazines, jotting down ideas for novels, and refining her craft, she grows as an artist and increasingly learns to trust her gut and, ultimately, herself.

Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class, and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring story of finding one’s way home—emotionally, artistically, and physically—and an examination of art and individuality that will resonate with anyone determined to listen to their own creative calling.

I CAME ALL THIS WAY TO MEET YOU by Jami Attenberg

On this episode, Becky Spratford, Readers' Advisory expert, running the blog RA for All, interviews Paul Tremblay, author of THE PALLBEARERS CLUB, available on July 5, 2022.

Find show notes here: https://bit.ly/3JVbw9L

Visit our website: librarylovefest.com.
You can find us on Facebook (@librarylovefest), Twitter (@librarylovefest), and Instagram (@harperlibrary). We also have a voicemail! Give us a call at 212-207-7773.

Show Notes

Librarian Becky Spratford interviews Paul Tremblay, author of THE PALLBEARERS CLUB

Read by Graham Halstead, Xe Sands, Elizabeth Wiley

"Books can have teeth. A whole mouthful of them. The Pallbearers Club has a whole lifetime of them." —Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of My Heart Is a Chainsaw

A cleverly voiced psychological thriller about an unforgettable—and unsettling—friendship, with blood-chilling twists, crackling wit, and a thrumming pulse in its veins—from the nationally bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song.

What if the coolest girl you’ve ever met decided to be your friend?

Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a seventeen-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses.

Okay, that part was a little weird.

So was her obsessive knowledge of a notorious bit of New England folklore that involved digging up the dead. And there were other strange things – terrifying things – that happened when she was around, usually at night. But she was his friend, so it was okay, right?

Decades later, Art tries to make sense of it all by writing The Pallbearers Club: A Memoir. But somehow this friend got her hands on the manuscript and, well, she has some issues with it. And now she’s making cuts.

Seamlessly blurring the lines between fiction and memory, the supernatural and the mundane, The Pallbearers Club is an immersive, suspenseful portrait of an unusual and disconcerting relationship.

THE PALLBEARERS CLUB by Paul Tremblay

A survivor of the Troubled Teen Industry exposes the truth about the dark side of a billion-dollar industry's institutionalized abuse—and shares the story of her own fight for justice.

Liz Ianelli, known around the world as Survivor993, spent years at the Family Foundation—labeled an “institution for troubled teens.” The children who went through The Family School like her were good people. They had potential and dreams, but they came out with lifelong trauma: anxious, angry, paranoid, self-hating and in pain. Most of them have suffered lives of hardship, unable to integrate back into society. Hundreds have died, mostly by overdose and suicide.

I See You, Survivor is about what really happened at The Family and what continues to happen at thousands of facilities like it. Beyond the trauma, this book is about triumph, resilience, and an effort to help others, and it conveys Liz’s critical message for every survivor she sees:

“You are not broken. You are not unlovable. And you are not alone. There are millions of us. And I come with a message, for you, for them, for everyone: They act strong, but we are stronger. We are worthy. We are not alone. Speak, and we will be there for you. Speak, because there is power in your testimony. Speak, and we will win.”

This is a book first and foremost for survivors who can find support and community in these stories. It is also for parents, counselors, law makers and others to expose this industry for what it is: child abuse. And how that abuse has consequences for all of us.

Liz Ianelli is known online as Survivor993, for the number of days she was confined at The Family School in upstate New York from 1995 to 1998. She has been an EMT on the overnight shift, a therapist, a traumatologist, a social worker, a wife, a mother, a VA critical response team member, an amateur sleuth, a vigilante, an outcast, a three am call, a FOIA requester, a suicide hotline operator (both official and unofficial), a friend, a mentor, a bunker buddy, a serial social media poster, and the worst nightmare for the people who for three years tortured her and her friends. Her hashtag #ISeeYouSurvivor has been posted more than 237 million times. She has been featured in two investigative articles in the New York Times and a documentary film. She lives in an undisclosed location.
 
Bret Witter has co-authored eight New York Times bestsellers. His books have sold more than 3 million copies, been translated into more than thirty languages, and been made into two movies: one starring George Clooney and the other Jake Gyllenhall. He lives in Georgia.

Available 8/29/2023 from Hachette Audio as a digital download, and in Print and Ebook from Hachette Books.

I See You, Survivor by Liz Ianelli with Bret Witter Read by Xe Sands and Liz Ianelli

What We Lost When We Lost Barbara Jean, by Rebecca K. O'Connor

In October 2011, I came across an amazing piece of writing by Rebecca K. O'Connor (via The Rumpus - see below), a work-in-progress, a beautiful journey of memoir and fiction. This excerpt is the Prologue of that work. It is my sincere hope that Rebecca continues her journey and finishes what is sure to be an exceptional book. 

With Rebecca's permission, it is my honor to have recorded and present this clip. Need a taste before you listen?


"This is the truth.

Around noon I gulped a shot of tequila and then placed a chair in my closet, sat down, shut the door and put my .22 rifle in my mouth. It didn’t fit well. The scope got in the way of positioning the barrel for a shot through my brain. It was unwieldy and the cold metal after the warm liquor made me gag. My whole body vibrated with my heartbeat and I hurriedly decided that the best way, perhaps the only way to do this well and correctly was to balance my forehead against the barrel and pull the trigger. Not entirely satisfied, but too terrified to continue on with the deliberation, I resolved that this must have been the way my grandmother died. I kicked open the door and tumbled out of my closet."

For the full text, visit The Rumpus: http://therumpus.net/2011/10/what-we-lost-when-we-lost-barbara-jean/


What We Lost When We Lost Barbara Jean (Prologue), by Rebecca K. O'Connor (read by Xe Sands)

A validating new approach to the long-term grieving process that explains why we feel &ldquo;stuck,&rdquo; why that&rsquo;s normal, and how shifting our&#160;perception of grief can help us grow&mdash;from the&#160;New York Times&#160;bestselling author of Motherless Daughters &ldquo;This is perhaps one of&#160;the&#160;most important books about grief ever written. It finally dispels&#160;the&#160;myth that we are all supposed to get over&#160;the&#160;death of a loved one.&rdquo;&mdash;Claire Bidwell Smith, author of&#160;Anxiety:&#160;The&#160;Missing Stage of Grief Aren&rsquo;t you over it&#160;yet?&#160;Anyone who has&#160;experienced a&#160;major loss in their&#160;past knows this question. We&rsquo;ve spent years fielding versions of it,&#160;both&#160;explicit and implied, from family, colleagues, acquaintances,&#160;and friends. We recognize the subtle cues&mdash;the slight eyebrow lift, the soft, startled &ldquo;Oh! That long ago?&rdquo;&mdash;from those who wonder how an event so far in the past can still occupy so much precious mental and emotional real estate. Because of the common but false assumption that grief should be time-limited, too many of us believe we&rsquo;re grieving&#160;&ldquo;wrong&rdquo; when sadness&#160;suddenly&#160;resurges sometimes&#160;months or even years after a loss. The AfterGrief explains that the&#160;death of a loved one isn&rsquo;t something most of us get over, get past, put down, or move beyond. Grief is not an emotion to pass through on the way to &ldquo;feeling better.&rdquo; Instead, grief is in constant motion; it is tidal, easily and often reactivated by memories and sensory events, and&#160;is&#160;re-triggered as we experience life transitions, anniversaries, and other losses. Whether we want it to or not, grief gets folded into our developing identities, where it informs our thoughts, hopes, expectations, behaviors, and fears, and we inevitably carry it forward into everything that follows. Drawing on her own encounters with the ripple effects of early loss, as well as on&#160;interviews with dozens of researchers, therapists, and regular people who&rsquo;ve been bereaved,&#160;New York Times bestselling author Hope Edelman offers profound advice for reassessing loss and adjusting the stories we tell ourselves about its impact on our identities. With guidance for reframing a story of loss, finding equilibrium within it, and even experiencing renewed growth and purpose in its wake, she demonstrates that though grief is a lifelong process, it doesn&rsquo;t have to be a lifelong struggle.

The AfterGrief by Hope Edelman, read by Xe Sands

Three generations. Two chicken shacks. One recipe for disaster. In tiny Merinac, Kansas, Chicken Mimi's and Chicken Frannie's have spent a century vying to serve up the best fried chicken in the state--and the legendary feud between their respective owners, the Moores and the Pogociellos, has lasted just as long. No one feels the impact more than thirty-five-year-old widow Amanda Moore, who grew up working for her mom at Mimi's before scandalously marrying Frank Pogociello and changing sides to work at Frannie's. Tired of being caught in the middle, Amanda sends an SOS to Food Wars, the reality TV restaurant competition that promises $100,000 to the winner. But in doing so, she launches both families out of the frying pan and directly into the fire. . . The last thing Brooklyn-based organizational guru Mae Moore, Amanda's sister, wants is to go home to Kansas. But when her career implodes, helping the fading Mimi's look good on Food Wars becomes Mae's best chance to reclaim the limelight--even if doing so pits her against Amanda and Frannie's. Yet when family secrets become public knowledge, the sisters must choose: Will they fight with each other, or for their heritage? Available for purchase at: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YRTC82Z?tag=randohouseinc7911-20">Amazon</a><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/?ean=9780593085158">Barnes & Noble</a><a href="http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-8373827-10747236?SID=PRHD39095A662--9780593085158&url=http://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780593085158">Books A Million</a><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2186/9780593085141?prhc=PRHD39095A662">Bookshop.org</a><a href="http://www.hudsonbooksellers.com/book/9780593085141?utm_source=prh&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_term=301&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593085141&utm_campaign=9780593085141">Hudson Booksellers</a><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593085141?aff=penguinrandom">IndieBound</a><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/-9780593085141?utm_source=randomhouse&utm_campaign=randomhouse&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593085141">Powell's</a><a href="http://goto.target.com/c/128773/81938/2092?subId1=PRHD39095A662--9780593085141&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fs%3FsearchTerm%3D9780593085141">Target</a><a href="https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=9780593085141">Walmart</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1482555293?at=11l3IH&ct=PRHD39095A662--9780593085158">Apple Books</a><a href="https://google.prf.hn/click/camref:1011ld4r/pubref:PRHD39095A662--9780593085158/destination:https://play.google.com/store/search?q=9780593085158&c=books">Google Play Store</a><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=VD9*lkiWNd8&offerid=258185.12829781935712206&type=2&u1=PRHD39095A662--9780593085158}&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kobo.com%2Fsearch%3FQuery%3D9780593085158">Kobo</a>

The Chicken Sisters by KJ Dell'Antonia, read by Xe Sands, Cassandra Campbell

A dark and suspenseful novel of lies, betrayal, and identity - perfect for fans of Big Little Lies and Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror. 

It was meant to be an evening to honour and celebrate Evelyn Caldwell's award-winning, career-making scientific research - but Evelyn has things on her mind.

Things like Nathan, her husband, who has left her for a younger, better, newer woman. A woman who is now pregnant - but shouldn't be - and is strikingly familiar. Too familiar to be a coincidence.

A woman who shouldn't exist.

The Echo Wife is a propulsive new novel from an international rising star about identity, murder, and the choices society forces women to make.

THE ECHO WIFE by Sarah Gailey, read by Xe Sands - Audiobook extract

An unforgettable story of resilience and resistance set during WWII and present-day France on a secluded island off the coast of Brittany Natalie Morgen made a name for herself with a memoir about overcoming her harsh childhood after finding a new life in Paris. After falling in love with a classically trained chef, they moved together to his ancestral home, a tiny fishing village off the coast of Brittany. But then Francois-Xavier breaks things off with her without warning, leaving her flat broke and in the middle of renovating the guesthouse they planned to open for business. Natalie's already struggling when her sister, Alex, shows up unannounced. The sisters form an unlikely partnership to save the guesthouse, reluctantly admitting their secrets to each other as they begin to heal the scars of their shared past. But the property harbors hidden stories of its own. During World War II, every man of fighting age on the island fled to England to join the Free French forces. The women and children were left on their own...until three hundred German troops took up residence, living side-by-side with the French women on the tiny island for the next several years. When Natalie and Alex unearth an old cookbook in a hidden cupboard, they find handwritten recipes that reveal old secrets. With the help of locals, the Morgen sisters begin to unravel the relationship between Violette, a young islander whose family ran the guesthouse during WWII, and Rainier, a German military customs official with a devastating secret of his own. Available for purchase at: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B5CWVZJ?tag=randohouseinc7911-20">Amazon</a><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/?ean=9780593097861">Barnes & Noble</a><a href="http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-8373827-10747236?SID=PRHD39095A662--9780593097861&url=http://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780593097861">Books A Million</a><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2186/9780593097854?prhc=PRHD39095A662">Bookshop.org</a><a href="http://www.hudsonbooksellers.com/book/9780593097854?utm_source=prh&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_term=301&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593097854&utm_campaign=9780593097854">Hudson Booksellers</a><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593097854?aff=penguinrandom">IndieBound</a><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/-9780593097854?utm_source=randomhouse&utm_campaign=randomhouse&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593097854">Powell's</a><a href="http://goto.target.com/c/128773/81938/2092?subId1=PRHD39095A662--9780593097854&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fs%3FsearchTerm%3D9780593097854">Target</a><a href="https://goto.walmart.com/c/128773/565706/9383?subId1=PRHD39095A662&veh=aff&sourceid=imp_000011112222333344&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.walmart.com%2Fsearch%2F%3Fquery%3D9780593097854">Walmart</a><a href="https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1518473390?at=11l3IH&ct=PRHD39095A662--9780593097861">Apple Books</a><a href="https://google.prf.hn/click/camref:1011ld4r/pubref:PRHD39095A662--9780593097861/destination:https://play.google.com/store/search?q=9780593097861&c=books">Google Play Store</a><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=VD9*lkiWNd8&offerid=258185.12829781935712206&type=2&u1=PRHD39095A662--9780593097861}&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kobo.com%2Fsearch%3FQuery%3D9780593097861">Kobo</a>

Off the Wild Coast of Brittany by Juliet Blackwell, read by Hope Newhouse, Xe Sands

Audiobook narrator and voice artist with a passion for poignant narrative and a desperate weakness for pastry. 

*NOTE* If you wish to use any of my work in a remix or other project, please contact me prior to doing so. Each track carries a specific license, so be sure to check those first. Much appreciated!


What We Lost When We Lost Barbara Jean (Prologue), by Rebecca K. O'Connor (read by Xe Sands)

Xe Sands

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