The Ballad of Laurel Springs
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By:
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Janet Beard
About this listen
From the internationally bestselling author of The Atomic City Girls, a provocative novel set in eastern Tennessee that “explores the legacies—of passion and violence, music and faith—that haunt one family across the generations” (Jillian Medoff, author of This Could Hurt).
Ten-year-old Grace is in search of a subject for her fifth-grade history project when she learns that her four times-great grandfather once stabbed his lover to death. His grisly act was memorialized in a murder ballad, her aunt tells her, so it must be true. But the lessons of that revelation—to be careful of men and desire—are not just Grace’s to learn. Her family’s tangled past is part of a dark legacy in which the lives of generations of women are affected by the violence immortalized in folk songs like “Knoxville Girl” and “Pretty Polly” reminding them always to know their place—or risk the wages of sin.
Janet Beard’s stirring novel, informed by her love of these haunting ballads, vividly imagines these women, defined by the secrets they keep, the surprises they uncover, and the lurking sense of menace that follows them throughout their lives even as they try to make a safe place in the world for themselves. “This inspired story of Appalachian folklore” (Publishers Weekly) will move and rouse you.
©2021 Janet Beard. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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A struggling writer must come to terms with her past, present, and future after she discovers that she's the inspiration for a pseudonymously published best-selling novel.
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Outstanding Story!
- By Jen Seagraves on 07-28-20
By: Renée Carlino
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Just Desserts
- Savannah Reid, Book 1
- By: G. A. McKevett
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Finding herself in over her head with a case involving a politician's infidelities, Memphis-born karate expert Detective Sergeant Savannah Reid is told that she must turn in her badge because she is overweight.
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Confusing title for a great book
- By Austin gal on 11-26-12
By: G. A. McKevett
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A Beach Wish
- A Novel
- By: Shelley Noble
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johannsson
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Zoe Bascombe has never said no to her family. When she blew her Julliard audition, she caved to their wishes and went to business school. But when her mother dies and leaves instructions for Zoe to spread her ashes at a place called Wind Chime Beach, she defies her brothers and starts out for a New England town none of them has ever heard of and discovers a side of her garden club mother that her wildest dreams hadn’t imagined. Zoe has another family.
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Profanity.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-30-22
By: Shelley Noble
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The Summerhouse
- By: Jude Deveraux
- Narrated by: Karen Ziemba
- Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins
- Abridged
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Three best friends, all with the same birthday, are about to turn 40. They plan to share this momentous occasion together at a summerhouse in Maine, taking stock of their lives and loves, their wishes and choices. But none of them expect the gift that awaits them at the summerhouse: the chance for each of them to turn their "what might have beens" into reality.
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Not worth it
- By Blusky on 10-02-07
By: Jude Deveraux
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June Bug
- By: Chris Fabry
- Narrated by: Chris Fabry
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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For as long as she can remember, June Bug and her father have traveled the back roads of the country in their beat-up RV, spending many nights parked at Walmart. One morning, as she walks past the greeter at the front of the store, her eyes are drawn to the pictures of missing children, where she is shocked to see herself. This discovery begins a quest for the truth about her father, the mother he rarely speaks about, and ultimately herself.
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Get Out The Box Of Tissues
- By 20eagle16 on 07-03-21
By: Chris Fabry
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Confessions from the Quilting Circle
- By: Maisey Yates
- Narrated by: Samantha Cook
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When Lark Ashwood's beloved grandmother dies, she and her sisters are bequeathed an unfinished quilt. Finishing it could be the reason Lark's been looking for to stop running from the past. Hannah can't believe she's back in Bear Creek, the tiny town she sacrificed everything to escape from. But the driven musician's plan is to renovate her grandmother's house and leave as fast as humanly possible. Stay-at-home mom Avery has built her perfect life, but at a cost. This summer, the Ashwood women must lean on each other like never before if they are to stitch their family back together.
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Great read!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-17-21
By: Maisey Yates
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What I Carry
- By: Jennifer Longo
- Narrated by: Reba Buhr
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in foster care, Muir has lived in many houses. And if she's learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light. Carry only what fits in a suitcase. Toothbrush? Yes. Socks? Yes. Emotional attachment to friends? Foster families? A boyfriend? Nope! There's no room for any additional baggage. Muir has just one year left before she ages out of the system. One year before she's free. One year to avoid anything - or anyone - that could get in her way. Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean. And everything changes.
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Enlightening
- By Kindle Customer on 06-09-21
By: Jennifer Longo
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One Last Child
- Tallman's Valley Detectives, Book 1
- By: Anni Taylor
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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It was summer in the mountains when five small children vanished from their nursery school picnic. The heat was stifling that day, the tinkle of an ice-cream van in the air.... Three-and-a-half years later, in the dead of winter, the children are returned to their families...one by one. All except for Ivy - the granddaughter of Homicide Detective Kate Wakeland. The other four children say Ivy is dead.
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Amazing book and amazing narration!
- By Jeffrey Yauch on 08-12-20
By: Anni Taylor
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Embassy Wife
- A Novel
- By: Katie Crouch
- Narrated by: Marni Penning
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Persephone Wilder, a displaced genius posing as the wife of an American diplomat in Namibia, takes her job as a representative of her country seriously and comes up with an intricate set of rules to survive a range of problems: how to dress in hundred-degree weather without showing too much skin, how not to look drunk at embassy functions, and how to eat roasted oryx with grace. She also suspects her husband is not actually the ambassador’s general counsel but instead a secret agent in the CIA. She takes the new trailing spouse, Amanda Evans, under her wing....
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Have narrator re-record this book
- By Amazon Customer on 09-30-21
By: Katie Crouch
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Lone Stars
- By: Justin Deabler
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.
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Read for bookclub but fell in Love
- By Ericka Lawson on 09-11-22
By: Justin Deabler
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The Bitter and Sweet of Cherry Season
- By: Molly Fader
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Everything Hope knows about the Orchard House is from the stories of her late mother. So when she arrives at the northern Michigan family estate late one night with a terrible secret and her 10-year-old daughter in tow, she’s not sure if she’ll be welcomed or turned away with a shotgun by the aunt she has never met.
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Really Enjoyed It
- By Kathryn @theBookDate on 03-30-21
By: Molly Fader
What listeners say about The Ballad of Laurel Springs
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amy
- 05-05-22
Fantastic Fun ..
I'm from East Tennessee and go to the Smokies often, I loved this. Great way of weaving through the past and connecting a family. After I finished it I started it immediately over again. LOVED IT!!!!!!
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- Kevin
- 11-12-21
This was a great read!
I really loved the way the story is told from the perspective of multiple generations of women from this remote Tennessee town. I read the book in four days and was engaged for the whole book. I loved it. Themes of feminism, betrayal, and the subjective nature of history. Trigger warning for those sensitive to depictions of domestic violence.
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- monique normand
- 10-30-21
An Appalachian soap opera
From one generation to another love stories with weak women and unlikable men. Not a stimulating read
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- Valerie
- 06-28-22
Beautiful
Loved this book-Easy listening-goes through generations of women. Loved it! Written well, characters easy to follow.
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- Cecily
- 09-02-23
Eh
This story just didn’t hit for me like I hoped. It left me feeling like there were missing pieces. I was hoping the stories would be woven together more, especially back to the beginning.
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