The Cottage, The House and others residences - Danielle Steel Audiobook

Written by Danielle Steel
Read by Joseph Siravo, David Garrison, Erik Singer, Michael Boatman, Arthur Morey
Format: MP3
Bitrate: Mixed
Unabridged

The House on Hope Street

Joseph Siravo
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date: July 5, 2000
Duration: 06:42:15

Life was good for Liz and Jack Sutherland. In eighteen years of marriage, they had built a family, a successful law practice, and a warm, happy home near San Francisco, in a house on Hope Street. Then, in an instant, it all fell apart. It began like any other Christmas morning, with joy and children’s laughter. But for Jack Sutherland, a five-minute errand ends in tragedy.

How can she go on without her husband, her partner, her best friend? How can she grieve when she must console five devastated children, including one with special needs of his own. Powered by her children’s love, Liz finds the strength to return to work, to become both mother and “daddy,” coaching her youngest son for the Special Olympics. And one by one the holidays come and go before her eyes: Valentine’s Day…Easter…July 4…. Then, just weeks before Labor Day, a devastating accident sends her oldest son to the hospital—and brings a doctor named Bill Webster into her life. Bill becomes a friend to Liz as he slowly heals her shattered son.

And as the long days of summer blend into fall, a new relationship offers new hope, and Liz reflects on what she has, on what she’s lost, on the little blessings that give strength when nothing else is left. .. Liz will face one more crisis before she can look back at a year of mourning and change—and ahead to the beginning of a new life.

The Cottage

David Garrison
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date: January 1, 2002
Duration: 09:33:12

On a sunny day in Hollywood, a gleaming Rolls-Royce convertible pulls through the gates of the magnificent estate known as The Cottage. Modeled after the “cottages” of Newport, Rhode Island, the spacious, elegant property, sitting on fourteen acres of lush Bel Air, fits its owner to a T. For the man behind the wheel of the Rolls is Hollywood’s ageless wonder, Cooper Winslow. A star of the silver screen for decades, a man whose allure to women is the stuff of legend, Coop exudes grace, charm, and old-fashioned style. But today Coop Winslow is in for a major surprise. He’s broke. And with no major roles coming his way, Coop is faced with the heartbreaking prospect of selling his beloved home of forty years, or at least renting out the gatehouse and part of the main house.

His new tenants, Mark Friedman and Jimmy O’Connor, are busy coping with problems of their own. Mark’s wife of sixteen years just walked out, and Jimmy recently lost his own wife to a devastating illness. But everything changes when Mark’s teenage son and daughter move in. Suddenly, The Cottage is transformed, with music blasting from every corner, teenagers on skateboards crashing into vintage cars, and a never-ending parade of young starlets streaming in and out to visit Coop.

But amid all the noise and the chaos, something unexpected is happening. Three men who never would have met are becoming friends…and each man finds himself changing in surprising ways…. And in the midst of it all, The Cottage welcomes a new houseguest with a secret of her own, who will change Coop’s life in unexpected ways.

” David Garrison takes the predictable plot in hand, extracting maximum entertainment value from the text. His male characters spring to life, particularly the urbane, but kind Cooper Winslow. Females come through competently, though they’re indistinguishable one from another. Tying the whole together is a narration of lively pace and clear, unstilted enunciation. Garrison treats the story as the escape novel it is. But what a fun way to escape!”…AudioFile 2003

The House

Erik Singer
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date: February 28, 2006
Duration: 09:57:49

Perched on a hill overlooking San Francisco, the house was magnificent, built in 1923 by a wealthy man for the woman he adored. For her and for this house, he would spare no expense and overlook no detail, from the endless marble floors to the glittering chandeliers. Almost a century later, with the once-grand house now in disrepair, a young woman walks through its empty rooms. Sarah Anderson, a perfectly sensible estate lawyer, is about to do something utterly out of character. An elderly client has died and left her two gifts. One is a generous inheritance. The other, a priceless message: to use his money for something wonderful, something daring. And in this old house, surrounded by crumbling grandeur, Sarah knows just what it is.

Taking the biggest risk of her life, Sarah enlists the help of architect Jeff Parker, who shares Sarah’s passion for bringing the exquisite old house back to life. As she and Jeff work to restore the home’s every detail, as one relationship shatters and another begins, Sarah makes a series of powerful discoveries: about the true meaning of a dying man’s last gift…about the extraordinary legacies that are passed from generation to generation…and about a future she’s only just beginning to imagine.

AudioFile..
“Erik Singer reads Daniele Steel’s newest with wit, skill, and an uncommonly pleasant voice that keeps one listening even when the writing is clunky. Generally agreed not to be Steel’s best, this book follows attorney Sarah Anderson as she searches for happiness in her successful but emotionally arid life. …Singer’s clear reading can’t help but highlight the repetitiousness of Steel’s writing. But he glosses over the reiterations as gracefully as possible and provides interesting interpretations of the main characters that reveal his evident narrative skills.”

· Bungalow 2

· Narrated by: Michael Boatman
· Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
· Release date: 06-05-07
· Publisher: Random House Audio

The phone call came on a hot July day—a day like any other for Marin County mom and freelance writer Tanya Harris. But this call—from Tanya’s agent—was anything but ordinary, offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the chance to write a major Hollywood screenplay, a dream she had put aside long ago to devote her energies to her family. This time, Tanya knows she cannot refuse, even though she’s torn about leaving her husband and their daughters. From the moment she steps into her lush bungalow at the fabled Beverly Hills Hotel, Tanya is thrust into an intoxicating new world where she feels reborn—energized by the creativity swirling around her—yet the pull of her family at home is strong.

Suddenly she’s working alongside A-list actors and a Hollywood legend: Oscar-winning producer Douglas Wayne, a man who always gets what he wants–and who seems to have his sights set on her. Flying home between shoots, struggling to reconnect with a family that seems to need her less and less, Tanya watches helplessly as her old life is pulled out from under her in the most crushing of ways.

As her two lives collide, as one award-winning film leads to another, Tanya begins to wonder if she can be a wife, a mother, and a writer at the same time. And just as she confronts the toughest choice she has faced, she is offered another dazzling opportunity—one that could recast her story in an amazing new direction, complete with an ending she never could have written herself.

· 44 Charles Street

· Narrated by: Arthur Morey
· Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
· Release date: 04-05-11
· Publisher: Brilliance Audio

The plumbing was prone to leaks, the furniture rescued from garage sales. And every square inch was being devotedly restored to its original splendor - even as a relationship fell to pieces. Now Francesca Thayer, newly separated from her lawyer boyfriend Todd, is desperate. The owner of a struggling art gallery, and suddenly the sole mortgage payer on her Greenwich Village townhouse, Francesca does the math and then the unimaginable. She puts out an advertisement for boarders. Soon her house becomes a whole new world.

First comes Eileen, a fresh, pretty L.A. transplant, now a New York City schoolteacher. Then there’s Chris, a young father struggling with a troubled ex-wife and the challenge of parenting a seven-year-old son who visits every other weekend. The final tenant is Marya, a celebrated cookbook author hoping to start a new chapter in her life after the death of her husband. As Francesca’s art gallery begins to find its footing and Todd moves on to another woman, she discovers that her accidental tenants have become the most important people in her life. As the roommates bond, and the house fills with the aroma of Marya’s exquisite cuisine, there are shadows as well as light. Naïve Eileen explores the precarious boundaries of online dating with a series of strangers. Chris’s custody fight for his son escalates to devastating levels. Marya faces an unexpected choice that will take her into untested waters. And Francesca herself will contemplate what had seemed impossible: opening her heart once more.

“VERDICT In best-selling author Steel’s novel, the lives of the supporting cast members are far more compelling than her protagonist’s, and reading about their challenges and successes is a sufficiently entertaining way to spend some time. Steel also touches on difficult social issues, such as abusive relationships and drug abuse.-“ …Library Journal

My rip from disk (128k)

· Hotel Vendome

· Narrated by: Fred Stella
· Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
· Release date: 11-01-11
· Publisher: Brilliance Audio

The hotel was old, run-down. But to Swiss-born Hugues Martin, a young, ambitious hotelier trained in the most illustrious European traditions, it is a rough diamond, tucked away on a quiet, perfectly situated Manhattan street. After begging and borrowing every penny he can scrape together, Hugues purchases the building - and transforms it into one of the world’s finest luxury hotels.

Under Hugues’s tireless, exacting supervision, the Hotel Vendôme is soon renowned for its elegance, its efficiency, its unparalleled service and discretion - the ideal New York refuge for the rich and famous, as well as a perfect home for Hugues’s beautiful young wife and their daughter. But when his wife runs off with a notorious rock star, Hugues is suddenly a single parent to four-year-old Heloise - who will grow up happily regardless, amid a fascinating milieu of celebrities, socialites, politicians, world travelers, and the countless hotel employees who all adore her.

As the years pass, Hugues and the hotel are the center of Heloise’s life, a universe of unexpected mysteries and pleasures, crises and celebrations that make every day magical. She longs to follow in her father’s footsteps and one day run the Vendôme with him. New challenges mark her way: an unexpected romance for Hugues and her own journey to hotel school in Switzerland. The lessons she has learned at her father’s side, in their exciting upstairs-downstairs world, will carry her through it all, as they illuminate a story no listener will forget.

My rip from disk…