Kristin Hannah: The Women

Kristin Hannah: The Women. 2024
Ljudbok (BookBeat 15 h)

‘Women can be heroes, too’. When twenty-year-old nursing student, Frances “Frankie” McGrath, hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on California’s idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different path for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurses Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the young men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed America. Frankie will also discover the true value of female friendship and the heartbreak that love can cause.

Freida McFadden: The Boyfriend

Freida McFadden: The Boyfriend. 2024
Ljudbok (BooBeat 9 h 20 min)

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it all: men who lie in their dating profile etc. But finally, she hits the jackpot. Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He’s charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet. Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them. Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim…

Sarah Vaughan: Little Disasters

Sarah Vaughan: Little Disasters. 2020
Ljudbok (BookBeat, 10 h 52 min)

You think you know her…She is a stay-at-home mother of three with boundless reserves of patience, energy and love. After being friends for a decade, this is how Liz sees Jess. Liza är barnläkare och misstänker Jess för att ha skadat sitt barn.

Sarah Vaughan: Anatomy of a Scandal

Saaah Vaughan: Anatomy of a Scandal. 2018
Ljudbok (BookBeat 11 h)

Sophie’s husband James is a loving father, a handsome man, a charismatic and successful public figure. And yet he stands accused of a terrible crime. Sophie is convinced he is innocent and desperate to protect her precious family from the lies that threaten to rip them apart. Kate is the lawyer hired to prosecute the case: an experienced professional who knows that the law is all about winning the argument. And yet Kate seeks the truth at all times. She is certain James is guilty and is determined he will pay for his crimes. Who is right about James? Sophie or Kate? And is either of them informed by anything more than instinct and personal experience? Despite her privileged upbringing, Sophie is well aware that her beautiful life is not inviolable. She has known it since she and James were first lovers, at Oxford, and she witnessed how easily pleasure could tip into tragedy. Most people would prefer not to try to understand what passes between a man and a woman when they are alone: alone in bed, alone in an embrace, alone in an elevator… Or alone in the moonlit courtyard of an Oxford college, where a girl once stood before a boy, heart pounding with excitement, then fear. Sophie never understood why her tutorial partner Holly left Oxford so abruptly. What would she think, if she knew the truth?

Taylor Jenkins Reid: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Taylor Jenkins Reid: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. 2017
Ljudbok (BookBeat 12 h 10 min)

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career. Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ’80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

 

Ursula Parrott: Ex-Wife

Ursula Parrott: Ex-Wife. 1929
Ljudbok (BookBeat 7 h)

An instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929—the story of a divorce and its aftermath, which scandalized the Jazz Age.
It’s 1924, and Peter and Patricia have what looks to be a very modern marriage. Both drink. Both smoke. Both work, Patricia as a head copywriter at a major department store. When it comes to sex with other people, both believe in ”the honesty policy.” Until they don’t. Or, at least, until Peter doesn’t—and a shell-shocked, lovesick Patricia finds herself starting out all over again, but this time around as a different kind of single woman: the ex-wife.

Tessa Hadley: Late in th Day

Tessa Hadley: Late in th Day. 2019
Ljudbok (BookBeat 7 h 48 min)

Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been close friends since they first met in their twenties. Thirty years later Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach was the sanest and kindest of them all, the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of loss bringing them closer, the three of them find over the following months that it warps their relationships, as old entanglements and grievances rise from the past, and love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness.

Paul Auster: Oracle Night

Paul Auster: Oracle Night. 2005
Ljudbok (BookBeat 7 h 23 min)
Uppläsare: Författaren

The novel is about a writer named Sidney Orr. After making a miraculous recovery from a near fatal illness, Orr buys a new notebook and starts writing a story about a man who completely changed his life when he realized how much his existence was ruled by randomness.

The basic premise of the novel is that Sidney Orr is trying to come back to his life and begin writing again. The narrative proceeds by relating the things that happen both in Sidney’s work and personal life, and also to the life of Nick Bowen, the central character of Orr’s work-in-progress novel. Before the end of this period in Sidney’s life, events will take place that are truly life-altering, and Sidney will, much like the fictional character he writes of, have to deal with issues and questions he has previously (perhaps unconsciously) been avoiding for several years.

Pamela Hicks: The Daughter of Empire

Pamela Hicks: The Daughter of Empire. My Life as a Mountbatten. 2012
Ljudbok (stadsbibban Libby 7 h 53)

Few families can boast of not one but two saints among their ancestors, a great-aunt who was the last tsarina of Russia, a father who was Grace Kelly’s pinup, and a grandmother who was not only a princess but could also argue the finer points of naval law. Pamela Mountbatten entered a remarkable family when she was born at the very end of the Roaring Twenties.
As the younger daughter of the glamorous heiress Edwina Ashley and Lord Louis Mountbatten, Pamela spent much of her early life with her sister, nannies, and servants-and a menagerie that included, at different times, a bear, two wallabies, a mongoose, and a lion. Her parents each had lovers who lived openly with the family. The house was always full of guests like Sir Winston Churchill, Noël Coward, Douglas Fairbanks, and the Duchess of Windsor.
When World War II broke out, Lord Mountbatten was in command of HMS Kelly before being appointed chief of Combined Operations, and Pamela and her sister were sent to live on Fifth Avenue in New York City with Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt. In 1947, her parents were appointed to be the last viceroy and vicereine of India and oversee the transfer of power to an independent Indian government.
Amid the turmoil of political change, Pamela worked with student leaders, developed warm friendships with Gandhi and Nehru, and witnessed both the joy of Independence Day and its terrible aftermath. Soon afterwards, she was a bridesmaid in Princess Elizabeth’s wedding to Prince Philip, and was a lady-in-waiting at the young princess’s side when she learned her father had died and she was queen.