-
Island Beneath the Sea
- A Novel
- Narrated by: S. Epatha Merkerson
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $44.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Night Watchman
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, DC, this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Melanie on 03-09-20
By: Louise Erdrich
-
Ines of My Soul
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Isabel Allende, Alma Cuervo
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though she was born into poverty, Inés Suárez, a seamstress in 16th-century Spain, embodies the same restless hope and opportunism that fuels her nation’s conquest of the Americas. Learning that her shiftless husband has vanished, Inés uses his disappearance to embark on her own adventure. It is a journey will lead her to Pedro de Valdivia - a conquistador who becomes the first royal governor of Chile - and to a love that not only changes her life but the course of history.
-
-
So boring!
- By Duckie on 09-02-20
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
-
-
She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Story Hour
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An experienced psychologist, Maggie carefully maintains emotional distance from her patients. But when she meets a young Indian woman who tried to kill herself, her professional detachment disintegrates. Cut off from her family in India, Lakshmi is desperately lonely and trapped in a loveless marriage. Moved by her plight, Maggie treats Lakshmi in her home office for free, quickly realizing that the despondent woman doesn't need a shrink; she needs a friend.
-
-
Beautifully woven story of friendship, marriage, & culture
- By Jessica on 08-11-15
By: Thrity Umrigar
-
Daughter of Fortune
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.
-
-
An adventure to the California Gold Fields of 1849
- By Jean on 07-20-20
By: Isabel Allende
-
The House of the Spirits
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Marisol Ramirez
- Length: 18 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban.
-
-
Slogging through uninspired narration
- By DebO on 06-28-18
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Night Watchman
- By: Louise Erdrich
- Narrated by: Louise Erdrich
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, DC, this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Melanie on 03-09-20
By: Louise Erdrich
-
Ines of My Soul
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Isabel Allende, Alma Cuervo
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though she was born into poverty, Inés Suárez, a seamstress in 16th-century Spain, embodies the same restless hope and opportunism that fuels her nation’s conquest of the Americas. Learning that her shiftless husband has vanished, Inés uses his disappearance to embark on her own adventure. It is a journey will lead her to Pedro de Valdivia - a conquistador who becomes the first royal governor of Chile - and to a love that not only changes her life but the course of history.
-
-
So boring!
- By Duckie on 09-02-20
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
-
-
She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Story Hour
- By: Thrity Umrigar
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An experienced psychologist, Maggie carefully maintains emotional distance from her patients. But when she meets a young Indian woman who tried to kill herself, her professional detachment disintegrates. Cut off from her family in India, Lakshmi is desperately lonely and trapped in a loveless marriage. Moved by her plight, Maggie treats Lakshmi in her home office for free, quickly realizing that the despondent woman doesn't need a shrink; she needs a friend.
-
-
Beautifully woven story of friendship, marriage, & culture
- By Jessica on 08-11-15
By: Thrity Umrigar
-
Daughter of Fortune
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.
-
-
An adventure to the California Gold Fields of 1849
- By Jean on 07-20-20
By: Isabel Allende
-
The House of the Spirits
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Marisol Ramirez
- Length: 18 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban.
-
-
Slogging through uninspired narration
- By DebO on 06-28-18
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Japanese Lover
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Joanna Gleason
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco's parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family's Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart.
-
-
My first negative review
- By Karen O'Byrne on 11-11-15
By: Isabel Allende
-
Eva Luna
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell, Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eva Luna is the daughter of a professor’s assistant and a snakebitten gardener - born poor, orphaned at an early age, and working as a servant. Eva is a naturally gifted and imaginative storyteller who meets people from all stations and walks of life. Though she has no wealth, she trades her stories like currency with people who are kind to her.
-
-
Once upon a time...
- By Anonymous User on 12-14-19
By: Isabel Allende
-
In the Midst of Winter
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Alma Cuervo
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the biggest Brooklyn snowstorm in living memory, Richard Bowmaster, a lonely university professor in his 60s, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, and what at first seems an inconvenience takes a more serious turn when Evelyn comes to his house, seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant, Lucia Maraz, a fellow academic from Chile, for her advice.
-
-
Typical Allende, rich, warm, enticing.
- By Carla Espinoza on 11-13-17
By: Isabel Allende
-
Violeta
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende, Frances Riddle
- Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.
-
-
Not my favorite....
- By Pat Brett on 02-14-22
By: Isabel Allende, and others
-
A Long Petal of the Sea
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende, Nick Caistor, Amanda Hopkinson
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.
-
-
An Classic
- By Amazon Customer on 01-28-20
By: Isabel Allende, and others
-
The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
-
-
Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
-
Maya's Notebook
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Maria Cabezas
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Neglected by her parents, 19-year-old Maya Nidal has grown up in Berkeley with her grandparents. Her grandmother Nini is a force of nature, a woman whose formidable strength helped her build a new life after emigrating from Chile in 1973. Popo, Maya's grandfather, is a gentle man whose solid, comforting presence helps calm the turbulence of Maya's adolescence. When Popo dies of cancer, Maya goes completely off the rails, turning to drugs, alcohol, and petty crime in a downward spiral that eventually bottoms out in Las Vegas.
-
-
Narrator ruins this book
- By R.J. Mulder on 05-13-14
By: Isabel Allende
-
Of Love and Shadows
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Irene Beltrán is a force to be reckoned with. As a magazine journalist, an unusual profession for a woman with her privileged upbringing, she is constantly challenging the oppressive regime. Her investigative partner is photographer Francisco Leal, the son of impoverished Spanish Marxist émigrés. Together, they are an inseparable team and - despite Irene’s engagement to an army captain - form a passionate connection.
-
-
Good story, but difficult to follow at times
- By Carmen on 04-21-20
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Soul of a Woman
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Gisela Chipe
- Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating,” begins Isabel Allende. As a child, she watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children without “resources or voice.” Isabel became a fierce and defiant little girl, determined to fight for the life her mother couldn’t have.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Heather Saffell on 03-06-21
By: Isabel Allende
-
Ripper
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Jackson women, Indiana and Amanda, have always had each other. Though their bond is strong, mother and daughter are as different as night and day. Indiana, a beautiful holistic healer, is a free-spirited bohemian. Long divorced from Amanda's father, she's reluctant to settle down with either of the men who want her - Alan, the wealthy scion of one of San Francisco's elite families, and Ryan, an enigmatic, scarred former Navy SEAL. While her mom looks for the good in people, Amanda is fascinated by the dark side of human nature - as is her father, the SFPD's deputy chief of homicide.
-
-
Love Allende did not like this book at all!
- By Cwolf on 04-14-16
By: Isabel Allende
-
The Valley of Amazement
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Joyce Bean, Amy Tan
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.
-
-
Amy Tan Does It Again
- By MLK on 01-28-15
By: Amy Tan
-
The Help
- By: Kathryn Stockett
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.
-
-
What a great surprise!
- By Jan on 12-02-09
By: Kathryn Stockett
Publisher's Summary
Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarit - known as Tt - is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tt finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves.
When 20-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, its with powdered wigs in his baggage and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his fathers plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. It will be eight years before he brings home a bride - but marriage, too, proves more difficult than he imagined. And Valmorain remains dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.
Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of the intertwined lives of Tt and Valmorain, and of one woman's determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.
Critic Reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about Island Beneath the Sea
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Stevon
- 06-27-10
excellent listen
When I decided on this book I wasn't really sure how I would enjoy the subject but it had good reviews and was on the NY Times bestseller list. But with a setting first in Haiti with the French in charge in the late 1700's, slavery, the slave rebellion, a move to New Orleans of both French and slaves along with excellent writing by the author I found I really did enjoy it. Both from an historical and human perspective, it was easy to keep listening and the book just rolled along.
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Madelaine
- 06-17-10
good story, ok narration
I couldn't stop listening. Ideal audiobook for me: good story, well written and not too heavy. Good to listen to while you're doing something else. The narration wasn't wonderful, any French names/words were butchered, but it didn't bother me too much.
15 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Michele
- 07-13-10
Don't Overlook This Book
My favorite listen of the summer. It makes you start to understand why Haiti is the doormat of the world and hard to embrace...why they are what they are now in total impoverishment.
I love historical novels as it is a great way to get the history down. And this book does not disappoint.
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Diane
- 08-17-12
Loved the reader
Any additional comments?
Story is soapy but captivating. Unlike the other reviewers, I loved the reader -- found her delivery subtle and understated -- a really good balance since the events were so packed with brutality and emotion. I will look for other books she's narrated.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Emily Flury
- 09-12-10
Good story but the narration was a bit off
Being a Spanish major who has studied abroad to Chile, I was introduced to Isabel Allende's work while in college. Of the books that I have read by her, The House of the Spirits and Mi Pais Inventado (My Invented Country), I have enjoyed how Allende ties in history with an intriguing story. I have to say that I did not quite enjoy this novel as much as the others. This could be because I am not as involved emotionally with the history of Hispanola and the slave revolt as I am with Chilean history. I did, however, gain an appreciation for what it would have been like for a slave or non-white during this time and how many attitudes in Haiti, Santo Domingo, and the United States have come to be. Also, I had difficulty getting through this book because the narrator that I listened to, while she was expertly able to pronounce all of the unusual names of people and places, was at times very dry and her inflection was a bit off. She spoke and enunciated each word slowly almost to the point where much of the emotion of the novel was lost. I would recommend this book to someone who has a love for history mixed with a good story but I would probably have enjoyed it more if I had read it as opposed to listen to it.
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- New Orleans reader
- 06-18-10
Very Disappointing
I am a big fan of Allende's work and was looking forward to reading this for my book club, but I really didn't like this book. It was a chore to slog through to the end. The writing was boring and characters one dimensional, For awhile I thought the narrator was to blame. Although Ms. Merkerson is a fine actress capable of subtlety and emotional depth, her reading was unpolished and uninteresting. But In the end, I believe that the writing itself fell short. The historical events in Haiti and New Orleans details were redeeming aspects, but not enough to overcome the other faults with this book.
21 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Laura
- 06-09-10
Thoroughly enjoyed it
This was an amazing story with fascinating history woven throughout. The storyline evokes anger and repulsion at the human condition, yet also joy and hope. I strongly recommend this for the historical fiction fan, and would also recommend first reading up on the era of the French Revolution and particularly France's interests in the Caribbean and New Orleans. It will make the historical storyline easier to follow. As for the narrator---perfect choice for this story.
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kay
- 06-20-15
Could not put it down
This is a must read for Isabel Allende fans. Strong female protagonists as we have grown to love an expect from Isabel Allende.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Dr.
- 06-02-11
Beautifully written - poorly narrated
This is the first - but not the last - book by Allende that I have read. What a writer! This is one of those books that come alive and I felt swept up in the drama. Along the way you learn a lot about Haiti - slavery - and the role the French played in the New World. At many points it is a very painful and sad story - but the main character - Zarit (Tt) captures your heart and gives you the hope and courage to continue listening. I highly recommend this book in spite of the narrator who does not seem to be a professional reader.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Gilbert
- 09-03-10
Listening to poetry
As is typical for Ms. Allende's work, the book is excellently well written. Just listening to her construction of each and every sentence is quite worth the purchase of the book. I continue to be amazed at how well each and every sentence is written. Still, this particular story line seemed to be a chain of descriptions (albeit well done) which did not seem to go anywhere. I wished the ending would have had a bit more. Still, I would highly recommend this book, especially to anyone interested in the "art" of writing. Often, I felt like I was listening to poetry.
3 people found this helpful