Showing results by narrator "Robin Miles" in All Categories

The Treason of Mary Louvestre is based on the true story of a seamstress slave from the Confederate town of Norfolk, Virginia. When her owner gets involved with modifications to the ironclad CSS Virginia, Mary copies the plans and sets out to commit treason against the South. Facing certain death as a spy if caught, she treks 200 miles during the bitter winter of 1862 to reach the office of Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, where she hands over the plans.

In Lighting the Fires of Freedom Janet Dewart Bell shines a light on women’s all-too-often overlooked achievements in the Movement. Through wide-ranging conversations with nine women, several now in their nineties with decades of untold stories, we hear what ignited and fueled their activism, as Bell vividly captures their inspiring voices. Lighting the Fires of Freedom offers these deeply personal and intimate accounts of extraordinary struggles for justice that resulted in profound social change, stories that remain important and relevant today.  

It's a humid summer day when the phones begin to ring: Disaster has struck. Air France Flight 007, which had been chartered to ferry home more than 100 of Atlanta's cultural leaders following a luxurious arts-oriented tour of Europe, crashed shortly after takeoff in Paris. In one fell swoop, most of the city's wealthiest residents perished.

Pinduli's mama has always told her that she's the most beautiful hyena ever. But Dog, Lion, and Zebra don't think so. Why else would they make her feel so rotten about her big ears, her fuzzy mane, and her wiggly stripes? Poor Pinduli just wants to disappear. But then a case of mistaken identity lets her show the creatures of the African savanna how a few tiny words can create something enormous.

Learn about the bomb blast that rocked the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, killing four young girls.

The Reverend Sarah Obadias is broken, bitter, and stripped of the reassurance of faith when she walks into a West Village restaurant in Manhattan. Here she encounters Abraham Darby, a rumpled but well-regarded painter who seduces the minister into his life of excess and emotional intensity. "I’ve run away from my life," Sarah tells him. "I know," Darby replies. "Take mine." But for Sarah,each day with the artist will bring a new reality - or lack of it.

When the Dragon Ships began to tear through the trade lanes and ravage coastal towns, the hopes of the arichipelago turned to the Windspeakers on Tash. The solemn weather-shapers, with their eyes of stone, can steal the breeze from raiders' sails and save the islands from their wrath. But the Windspeakers' magic has been stolen, and only their young apprentice, Shina, can bring their power back and save her people.

A song, a pressed flower, and the sound of two girls' voices recovered from a burned wooden beam by using a brand-new laser technique to read a charred surface like the grooves of an old 78 rpm record. These are the clues that archaeologist Digger Morgan discovers while working on a routine dig at a Maryland plantation. Who were the girls? When was the fire? The answers all lead to 1920s jazz pioneer Kit Jeffers, whose voice mysteriously appears on Digger's computer and whose existence remains haunted by a singular tragic event.

Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. This singular collection takes the listener inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa. Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent.

A touching tale of parent-child separation and immigration, from a National Book Award finalist. After Saya's mother is sent to an immigration detention center, Saya finds comfort in listening to her mother's warm greeting on their answering machine. To ease the distance between them while she's in jail, Mama begins sending Saya bedtime stories inspired by Haitian folklore on cassette tape.

Always on the verge of something better, Brown’s characters are often hard drinking and fast driving—tending to be both violent and religious. And as they grasp for hope, they sometimes make a leap into a new life.

Like Gabriel García Márquez, Edwidge Danticat, and Maryse Condé before her, Tiphanie Yanique has crafted a debut collection that is heartbreaking, hilarious, and mesmerizing. Set mostly in the U.S. Virgin Islands, these lyrical and haunting stories are part oral history, part postcolonial narrative - but ultimately a loving portrait of a wholly unique place.

Light Atonement takes listeners on a spiritual journey, one that is as enlightening as it is unusual. Ariyana, the narrator of this journey, describes her transition from life as a wife, mother, and successful entrepreneur to a spiritual traveler who develops the capacity to move through alternative universes, to communicate with angels, and to heal the sick. More than anything else, she emerges from this journey with knowledge that can provide comfort and guidance for all listeners.

Inspired by a true story, here is the riveting novel of a young slave girl's harrowing escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad. The moment Ann Maria Weems was born, her freedom was stolen from her. Like her family and the other slaves on the farm, Ann works from sunup to sundown and obeys the orders of her master. Then one day, Ann's family - the only joy she knows - is gone.

Tough, spirited, and fiercely independent Abigail is brought as a teenager to London from Nigeria by relatives who attempt to force her into prostitution. She flees, struggling to find herself in the shadow of a strong but dead mother. In spare yet haunting and lyrical prose reminiscent of Marguerite Duras, Abani brings to life a young woman who lives with a strength and inner light that will enlighten and uplift the listener.

"The Woman Who Shattered the Moon" originally appeared in The Villain Comes Home, published by DAW Books.

The late Jay Lake was the author of 10 novels and more than 300 published stories. In 2004 he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Over his long career he was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and many other awards.

As a teenage girl, Ginny marries Linus Lancaster, her mother's second cousin, and moves to his Kentucky pig farm "ninety miles from nowhere." In the shadows of the lush Kentucky landscape, Ginny discovers the empty promises of Linus' "paradise" - a place where the charms of her husband fall away to reveal a troubled man and cruel slave owner. Ginny befriends the young slaves Cleome and Zinnia who work at the farm - until Linus' attentions turn to them, and she finds herself torn between her husband and only companions.

Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few listeners will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately. This singular collection takes the listener inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa.

When Ben Underwood became blind at the age of two, anyone would have thought he faced a life full of hardship and uphill challenges - a world full of things he’d never be able to see and activities he’d never be able to enjoy. But as far as his mom, Aquanetta Gordon, was concerned, nothing was impossible for Ben . . . and so he accomplished the incredible. Known as “the boy who could see with sound,” Ben mastered human echolocation - the ability to detect the size, shape and location of objects through the reflection of sound waves.

In this encouraging and empowering audiobook, Deidra Riggs calls listeners to accept God's invitation to join him in making a difference right where they are, regardless of their current life stage. She shows listeners that they were created with a purpose and with the capacities to fulfill that purpose. And she reminds them that it's not up to us to fix the world, but it is up to us to join God - and the rest of his people - in his redemptive work.