North Carolina Authors

When These Mountains Burn

By: David Joy
Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
Length: 7 hours 22 minutes

Winner of the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing 
 
Acclaimed author and "remarkably gifted storyteller" (The Charlotte Observer) David Joy returns with a fierce and tender tale of a father, an addict, a lawman, and the explosive events that come to unite them.

When his addict son gets in deep with his dealer, it... Read more

Those We Thought We Knew

By: David Joy
Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
Length: 9 hours 53 minutes

“Raw, gritty and masterful, David Joy's latest novel, Those We Thought We Knew, is set in his beloved Appalachian mountains among folks who believe their town is peaceful and nurturing. But that façade is lifted when Toya Gardner, a young Black artist, comes to stay with her grandmother at the family homestead to finish her MFA thesis project.... Read more

This Could Be Us

Skyland

By: Kennedy Ryan
Narrated by: Ines del Castillo, Jakobi Diem & Kennedy Ryan
Length: 12 hours 20 minutes

“No one writes characters of depth like Kennedy Ryan. And not just her leads, who tell this story in dual narrator, it's also every one of their teen and tween kids, their sibs and the people they lean on. You come into Soledad's story and you get invested in her, cheering for her through unexpected turns of events, bad or good. You see the work... Read more

Before I Let Go

Skyland: Book #1

By: Kennedy Ryan
Narrated by: Wesleigh Siobhan & Jakobi Diem
Length: 13 hours 45 minutes

“A beautiful, second-chance, romance story that is also contemporary and makes you feel hopeful, sexy, and exposed. Filled with friendships, familial bonds, hard conversations, black love, and soul food, Ryan takes you on a ride you don't want to get off, but might leave you a little teary-eyed! Read more

The Girls in the Stilt House

A Novel

By: Kelly Mustian
Narrated by: Johanna Parker
Length: 9 hours 56 minutes

Murder breaks through the racial divide that separates two teenage girls, forging an unlikely friendship in this Southern debut that’s perfect for fans of Where the Crawdads Sing and If the Creek Don’t Rise.Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her unbearable life on the swamp, and to her harsh father in Mississippi. But... Read more

Hell of a Book

National Book Award Winner and A Read with Jenna Pick (A Novel)

By: Jason Mott
Narrated by: JD Jackson & Ronald Peet
Length: 9 hours 39 minutes

***2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER***

***THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER***

Winner of the 2021 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize Finalist, 2022 Chautauqua Prize Finalist, Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing Shortlist, 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Shortlist, 2022 Maya Angelou Book Award Shortlist, 2022 Carnegie... Read more

Look Homeward, Angel

By: Thomas Wolfe
Narrated by: Scott Sowers
Length: 26 hours 20 minutes

The works of Thomas Wolfe cemented his legacy as one of the very best of the American Southern writers. Wolfe's largely autobiographical novel features Eugene Gant, who pines for a more expansive life after being born to a father whose bouts of maniacal raving are fueled by a prodigious appetite for drink. "... rich and ambitious and intensely... Read more

The Tobacco Wives

A Novel

By: Adele Myers
Narrated by: Shannon McManus & Janet Metzger
Length: 10 hours 17 minutes

Most anticipated by USA Today, W Magazine, New York Post, Parade, Bustle, Buzzfeed, Reader's Digest, and PopSugar and named one of the best historical fiction books of the year by Cosmopolitan!""A beautifully rendered portrait of a young woman finding her courage and her voice.""—Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author North Carolina,... Read more

The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

By: Megan Shepherd
Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham
Length: 4 hours 57 minutes

"Deserves a spot on the shelf next to the most beloved children's classics—yes, even The Secret Garden."  —Shelf Awareness, Starred Review

Described as "reminiscent of the Chronicles of Narnia" in a starred review, The Secret Horses of Briar Hill shows readers everywhere that there is color in our world—they just need to know where to look.

There... Read more

The Violin Conspiracy

A Novel (Good Morning America Book Club)

By: Brendan Slocumb
Narrated by: JD Jackson & Brendan Slocumb
Length: 12 hours 4 minutes

“The TLDR version of this review is "I loved it." All the things I pack into the word love is astounding. I quite honestly don't know where to begin. I had to sit with this book and these feelings for a long time before I felt I could even begin to translate what was happening in my head and in my heart into words. I felt seen by this book. Fish... Read more

Prairie Fever

By: Michael Parker
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
Length: 8 hours 53 minutes

"The most beautiful novel I have read in quite some time. The language is that graceful and original, the events and characters that spellbinding and funny and moving; and always the melancholy beauty and mysterious power of the open prairie shine through." —TOM DRURY, author of Pacific

... Read more

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By: Maya Angelou
Narrated by: Maya Angelou
Length: 10 hours 10 minutes

Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute... Read more

The Notebook

By: Nicholas Sparks
Narrated by: Barry Bostwick
Length: 6 hours 3 minutes

Experience the unforgettable, heartbreaking love story set in post-World War II North Carolina about a young socialite and the boy who once stole her heart -- one of PBS's "Great American Reads".

Every so often a love story so captures our hearts that it becomes more than a story -- it becomes an experience to remember forever. The Notebook is... Read more

Daughter of Mine

A Novel

By: Megan Miranda
Narrated by: Inés del Castillo
Length: 10 hours 26 minutes

“Neither my desire for sustenance nor slumber could match the compelling force of Megan Miranda's latest book, Daughter of Mine. It all but leaped back into my hands when I tried to put it down and refused to let me go until I reached the end. Daughter of Mine had me in its grip and wound so tightly at times that I commanded Hazel to heed my... Read more

If I Had Two Wings

Stories

By: Randall Kenan
Narrated by: JD Jackson
Length: 6 hours 18 minutes

Mingling the earthy with the otherworldly, these ten stories chronicle ineffable events in ordinary lives.



In Kenan's fictional territory of Tims Creek, North Carolina, an old man rages in his nursing home, a parson beats up an adulterer, a rich man is haunted by a hog, and an elderly woman turns unwitting miracle worker. A retired plumber... Read more

Yonder

By: Ali Standish
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
Length: 7 hours 30 minutes

From Ali Standish, award-winning author of The Ethan I Was Before, August Isle, How to Disappear Completely, and The Mending Summer, comes a captivating historical fiction middle grade novel about a boy on the home front in World War II who must solve the mystery of the disappearance of his best friend. Perfect for fans of Alan Gratz and Lauren... Read more

The Saints of Swallow Hill

By: Donna Everhart
Narrated by: Amy Melissa Bentley
Length: 12 hours 13 minutes

During the Great Depression, labor camps crop up in remote areas throughout the American South. Destitute workers live under terrible conditions. Trapped in these isolated locations, workers are entirely dependent on the often greedy, abusive camp owners who provide food and housing at grossly inflated prices. But for the most desperate among... Read more

The Best of Me

By: David Sedaris
Narrated by: David Sedaris
Length: 13 hours 8 minutes

“As if there is anything greater than a new David Sedaris, it's listening to David Sedaris read the new David Sedaris. This self-edited collection of essays from his prolific 25-year career is exactly what we need to boost the morale of 2020 and remind ourselves what a crazy world we've always lived in when viewed through Sedaris's keen... Read more

Me Talk Pretty One Day

By: David Sedaris
Narrated by: David Sedaris
Length: 5 hours 50 minutes

A new collection from David Sedaris is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris has inspired hilarious pieces, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, about his attempts to learn French. His family is another inspiration. You Cant Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one... Read more

This Isn't Going to End Well

The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew

By: Daniel Wallace
Narrated by: Michael Crouch
Length: 6 hours 15 minutes

“How well do we know those closest to us? And what do they owe us, and we them? This Isn't Going to End Well, Daniel Wallace's deeply personal account of his decades of near-worship of his brother-in-law, replaced by a cold bitterness, had me asking these questions. I at times felt as if I was reading an intensely personal journal not meant for... Read more