New multi-narrator book on Audible

 

I was very happy to participate with narrators Mike Vendetti and Kathy Verduin in this production of Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd C. Douglas. 

"Dive into Lloyd C. Douglas's timeless tale of redemption, love, and the transformative power of selflessness. Magnificent Obsession follows the journey of Bobby Merrick, a wealthy and reckless young man whose life takes a dramatic turn after a tragic accident.

Struggling with guilt and a newfound sense of purpose, Bobby embarks on a path of personal growth, guided by a mysterious philosophy that challenges him to live for others.

Narrated by the talented trio of Mike Vendetti, Kathy Verduin, and Lee Ann Howlett, this audiobook brings the characters to life with vivid emotion and depth.

Experience the poignant moments, gripping drama, and uplifting themes of this classic novel in a way that will resonate long after the final chapter.

Perfect for fans of heartfelt stories and inspirational journeys, Magnificent Obsession is a testament to the enduring impact of compassion and courage."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

New nonfic book with true crime and politics

 

My latest book for WildBlue Press just hit Audible today: The Dumond Affair: How Lies and Politics Freed a Killer by D.R. Bartlette.

 "In The Dumond Affair: How Lies and Politics Freed a Killer, first-time author D.R. Bartlette weaves a story of the political corruption and religious zealotry that gave birth to an anti-Bill Clinton conspiracy theory that led to the deaths of two women and, thirty-six years later, the birth of an insurrection.

The 1984 kidnapping and rape of a small-town cheerleader in southern Arkansas might seem like a tragic crime that was only notable because the local sheriff displayed her attacker’s severed testicles on his desk for months afterward. But when Ashley Stevens came forward to accuse Wayne Dumond, a 35-year-old murderer and serial rapist, she could never have imagined how her case would be thrust into the media spotlight.

An innocent teen, Stevens was attacked first by Dumond, and then by anti-Bill Clinton conspiracy theorists who accused her of lying for political reasons, and themselves lied to push their nefarious cause. Then former conservative Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee used his influence to push for the Dumond’s release.

Once freed, Dumond went on to rape and murder two more women. But there’s more to this story.

As Bartlette points out, the forces that came together to free Dumond eventually metastasized into a the Qanon cult that the National Security Agency labeled one of the biggest national security threats since 9/11. A movement that was at least partly responsible for the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2020."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

Another true crime book from B.R. Bates

 

My latest recording just landed on Audible: The Crack City Strangler: The Homicides of Serial Killer Benjamin Atkins by B.R. Bates. This is the second book in her series, Murders in the Motor City. 

"The Story of America's 'Fastest Serial Killer'

THE CRACK CITY STRANGLER: The Homicides of Serial Killer Benjamin Atkins offers a chilling, in-depth account of the horrifying crimes committed by one of America’s most notorious serial killers. In this gripping narrative, award-winning journalist B.R. Bates delves into the twisted life of Benjamin “Tony” Atkins, whose reign of terror in Detroit spanned less than a year in the early 1990s. Known for targeting vulnerable women in Detroit’s most dangerous neighborhoods, Atkins attacked at least 12 women along a mile-and-a-half stretch of Woodward Avenue, one of the city’s most iconic streets, Atkins' crimes were brutal and relentless, leaving victims abandoned in the dark corners of the Cass Corridor and Highland Park. Only when the lone survivor of his horrific spree came forward did law enforcement begin to connect the dots and ultimately capture the monster behind the killings.

Through meticulous research in this second book in her "Murders In The Motor City" series, Bates uncovers the complex web of motivation, abuse, and desperation that led Atkins to target sex workers, while also exploring the societal pressures and systemic neglect that shaped his dark path. A poignant look at a killer’s psychology, Bates invites readers to understand how a troubled life could give rise to such monstrous behavior." 

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.

New poetry from Voices of Today

 

I was very happy to be a part of this recording as a member of Voices of Today! Poems of Emily Dickinson, Series 2 by Emily Dickinson was a group project by VOT narrators. 

"Few of Emily Dickinson’s poems were published in her lifetime. Her posthumous fame is largely due to the efforts of her editors and supporters Thomas W. Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd.

In the foreword to this second collection, published in 1891, Mabel Loomis Todd wrote: “The eagerness with which the first volume of Emily Dickinson’s poems has been read shows very clearly that all our alleged modern artificiality does not prevent a prompt appreciation of the qualities of directness and simplicity in approaching the greatest themes—life and love and death. That “irresistible needle-touch,” as one of her best critics has called it, piercing at once the very core of a thought, has found a response as wide and sympathetic as it has been unexpected even to those who knew best her compelling power. This second volume, while open to the same criticism as to form with its predecessor, shows also the same shining beauties.”

Narrators:

• Larry Wilson
• Lyndal Curran Doolan
• Martha H. Weller
• Amy Soakes
• Kylie Elliott
• Margaret Wakeley
• Lee Ann Howlett
• Linda Barrans
• Ron Altman
• Nancy Beard
• Gary MacFadden
• Terah Tucker
• Denis Daly
• Gregory Dwyer
• Charlie Albers
• JaeAudio

To  listen to the sample and/or purchase the recording, head to Audible here.

New Non-Fiction Memoir on Audible

 

My newest recording is now on Audible. This one is a memoir titled The Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning by Ellen Ann Fentress.

"Ellen Ann Fentress is a veteran writer for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She’s also a seasoned southern woman, specifically a white Mississippi one. “Women do a lot for free, no matter the era, no matter the location,” she observes in The Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning. As a good southern woman, Fentress felt a calling to help others.

But there were the convenient lies and silences that she and most southern make that American white women have settled on in the name of convention and, to be honest, inertia. Eventually, along with claiming a personal second act at midlife, she realized the most urgent community work she could do was to spur truth-telling about the history she knew well and participated in. She was one of the nearly one million students in the South enrolled in all-white “segregation academies,” a sweeping movement away from public education that continues to warp the Deep South today. To document and engage with this history, she founded the Admissions Project: Racism and the Possible in Southern Schools, which has been featured in the Washington Post, Slate, Forbes and other publications.

The Steps We Take tells how one woman reckons with both a region’s history and her own past. Through a lens ranging from intimate to the widely human, through moments painful and darkly comic, Fentress casts a penetrating light on what it means to be a white southern woman today."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here. 

New nonfiction book on Audible

My newest recording just went on sale on Audible. Under the Skin: Tattoos, Scalps, and the Contested Language of Bodies in Early America was written by Mairin Odle. 

"Under the Skin investigates the role of cross-cultural body modification in seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century North America, revealing that the practices of tattooing and scalping were crucial to interactions between Natives and newcomers. These permanent and painful marks could act as signs of alliance or signs of conflict, producing a complex bodily archive of cross-cultural entanglement.

Indigenous body modification practices were adopted and transformed by colonial powers, making tattooing and scalping key forms of cultural and political contestation in early America. Although these bodily practices were quite distinct one a painful but generally voluntary sign of accomplishment and affiliation, the other a violent assault on life and identity they were linked by growing colonial perceptions that both were crucial elements of “Nativeness.” Tracing the transformation of concepts of bodily integrity, personal and collective identities, and the sources of human difference, Under the Skin investigates both the lived physical experience and the contested metaphorical power of early American bodies.

Struggling for power on battlefields, in diplomatic gatherings, and in intellectual exchanges, Native Americans and Anglo-Americans found their physical appearances dramatically altered by their interactions with one another. Contested ideas about the nature of human and societal difference translated into altered appearances for many early Americans. In turn, scars and symbols on skin prompted an outpouring of stories as people debated the meaning of such marks. By the late eighteenth century, ideas about the body, phenotype, and culture were increasingly articulated in concepts of race."

To listen to the sample and/or purchase the book, head to Audible here.