Exceeding Expectations
The Charlie Series, Book 1
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Narrated by:
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Amy Landon
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By:
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Lisa April Smith
About this listen
Palm Beach, 1961. Socialite, irresistible rascal, and devoted father Jack Morgan stages his suicide to shield his beloved daughters from scandal and disgrace. His daughter, Charlotte (Charlie), is an overindulged 23-year-old girl struggling to cope with the loss of her beloved father, her sister's resulting mental breakdown, and the discovery that she's now penniless. Fortunately Raul, an admiring young attorney, offers assistance to the traumatized young woman.
As terrified as she is about paying for her sister's costly treatment and her own daily survival, Charlie soon realizes that she must learn what drove her father to kill himself. With Raul's much-needed ego bolstering, she pursues a career that makes practical use of her lanky, five-foot-eleven frame. Despite roadblocks and emotional upheavals, she embarks on an ocean-spanning journey that leads to a family she doesn't know, distressing truths about her father, crimes great and small, and a diabolical villain.
©2011 Lisa April Smith (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Mercedes Hildebrand Ware is a member beyond reproach...until her life begins to unravel. When her husband betrays her, steals her money, and runs off to places unknown, it's something Frede would prefer to keep under wraps. The last thing she needs is to become fodder for the JLWC gossip mill. And to make matters worse, there's only one person in town who stands a chance at helping her get revenge - Howard Grout, a tasteless, gold-chain-wearing lawyer who has bought his way into Frede's tony neighborhood.
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Fun chick lit
- By Lori on 08-07-09
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One Amazing Thing
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Purva Bedi, Soneela Nankani, Neil Shah
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of a Pushcart Prize for poetry and an American Book Award for her short stories, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores themes of women, immigration, and her vibrant Indian culture to great effect. Divakaruni expands on these ideas in One Amazing Thing, a project long in the making and full of electric prose.
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An ok way to kill some time
- By R.Reader on 11-07-12
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Before We Visit the Goddess
- By: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Priya Ayyar, Vikas Adam
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to get an education, but her family's situation means college is an impossible dream. Then an influential woman from Kolkata takes Sabitri under her wing, but her generosity soon proves dangerous after the girl makes a single unforgivable misstep. Years later, Sabitri's own daughter, Bela, haunted by her mother's choices, flees abroad with her political refugee lover - but the America she finds is vastly different from the country she'd imagined.
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Absolutely Worth a Credit
- By Texastanya on 08-27-16
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The Widow of Wall Street
- A Novel
- By: Randy Susan Meyers
- Narrated by: Susan Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Phoebe has loved Jake Pierce since childhood, and that love continues without hesitation while she watches him create a financial dynasty. But when Phoebe learns that her husband's triumphs are the result of an elaborate Ponzi scheme, her world unravels. Lies underpin her life and marriage. And as Jake's crime is uncovered, the world obsesses over her. Did she know her gilded life was fabricated by fraud?
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Here's a Miracle: Sympathy for Ruth Madoff
- By Godwillen on 05-24-17
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A Happy Marriage
- A Novel
- By: Rafael Yglesias
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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A Happy Marriage is both intimate and expansive: It is the story of Enrique Sabas and his wife, Margaret, a novel that alternates between the romantic misadventures of the first weeks of their courtship and the final months of Margaret’s life as she says good-bye to her family, friends, children, and Enrique.
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A Difficult Review -- A Difficult Read
- By Lulu on 06-04-12
By: Rafael Yglesias
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Daughter of Darkness
- By: V. C. Andrews
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Seventeen-year-old Lorelei Patio is the adopted daughter of 200-year-old vampire Sergio Patio. She never realized why her family has had to move so often or why she is not permitted to get too friendly with other young people. In fact, except for one shocking moment that seemed more like a dream, Lorelei never fully realized who and what her father was nor what her sisters were brought up to do for him. But one day, that all changed.
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not the usual vc andrews book
- By Janae on 09-14-13
By: V. C. Andrews
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Betrayal
- Infidelity, Book 1
- By: Aleatha Romig
- Narrated by: Samantha Prescott, Brian Pallino
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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One week. No future. No past. No more. Alexandria Collins has one week to live carefree - no ghosts of her past or pressures of her future haunting her. Reinventing herself as "Charli", she is knocked off her feet by a sexy, mysterious man who brings her pleasure like she never imagined. With her heart at stake, she forgets that decisions made in the dark of night reappear in the bright light of day.
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AR IS A MAESTRO AT COMPLEX COMPELLING STORYTELLING
- By CAROLYN 🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹 on 04-06-16
By: Aleatha Romig
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A Rather Lovely Inheritance
- By: CA Belmond
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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This is your life Penny Nichols...Penny Nichols is a historical researcher working on a big-budget film in the south of France when she gets an urgent call. Her Aunt Penelope has just died, and Penny's presence is required in London for the reading of the will. With only a slim recollection of her eccentric aunt, Penny is astonished to learn that not only is she the bona fide heiress - but she's also been invited to put her research skills to work.
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Delightful Story with Excellent Narratation
- By AnJoMom16 on 01-13-15
By: CA Belmond
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I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This
- A Memoir
- By: Nadja Spiegelman
- Narrated by: Nadja Spiegelman
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Maus creator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers - French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly - exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand", their relationship grew tense.
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Aweful
- By Haley Abreu on 07-05-17
By: Nadja Spiegelman
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Baltimore Blues
- Tess Monaghan, Book 1
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Deborah Hazlett
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée—make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer. But trying to prove her friend's innocence could prove costly to Tess.
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I'm on #8 - This series is almost unique
- By connie on 02-19-12
By: Laura Lippman
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Magnolia Nights
- By: Ashley Farley
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche, Rachel Jacobs, Rebecca Gibel
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Ellie Pringle has spent endless hours and countless dollars working with a therapist to remember the lost years of her childhood. She's baffled and more than a little intrigued when the grandmother she hasn't seen in 34 years dies and leaves her a fortune. The time has come to face her past in person. Still reeling from a recent breakup of a long-term relationship, and with nothing to keep her in San Francisco, Ellie packs her meager belongings and boards a plane for the South Carolina Lowcountry.
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Magnolia Nights
- By Kindle Customer on 01-18-19
By: Ashley Farley
What listeners say about Exceeding Expectations
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer2
- 11-13-21
Great story
Great story but would have preferred the story continue a little bit more to reunited the family.
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- Robin
- 04-15-22
Robotic narrating
It is almost as if an automated voice were narrating the story. Just terrible. I do not recommend.
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- NightRunner
- 02-04-22
Good Writing but I couldn't stand the family
3 Stars for me!
My rating range of this story... 2 - 4 Stars
If significant, why? The h and her mother and father are not very likeable. The sister seemed to be to only good part of the family.
Main Character Ratings...
H = 8/10
h = 3/10
Narrator Rating(s)
M = n/a
F = 8/10
If below 5/10,why?
Was cheating involved? Yes and No (h) - they were technically broken up because the h is a selfish and unreasonable person.
Any major triggers to be aware of? No
If Comedy... Type? n/a
Genuinely Funny
Cringe Inducing
Just No!
Angst Level? Moderate
Light, Moderate, Heavy or Please Stop
3 Stars for me!
Internal Monolog? Moderate
Light, Moderate, Heavy or Please Stop
Scenes with heat... Yes
What point does it start? 40%
How much of the story? 5%
Anything beyond M/F? No
If yes, explained
Heat Rating... 4/10
Clean or Fade to Black - 1 or 2
Normal to Descriptive 3-5
Detailed Descriptive Sex - 6-7
Um, Wow, Beyond Descriptive Sex - 8 or above
The back story... Read the blurb as it is complicated.
The Romance... None that I could see in either relationship. The mom/dad relationship felt like a business relationship and the H/h was driven by the H and constantly rebuffed by the h.
The drama explosion... There really wasn't one.
Did it feel Real, OK or contrived? n/a
Was it OTT? No
Separation involved? n/a
Was it resolved properly or rushed? Left for book 2.
Final Notes... The h's dad was a piece of work and his daughter absorbed as much as she could. The h's mom was cold and had zero care or interest in her children. The H was a good and caring person who helped the h even as she was treating him horribly. She forced him to drive in a dangerous snow storm instead of staying safely at a home they were visiting.
The ending itself is quite brutal as it details what happened to the mother. Even after all she went through, she was still completely selfish in her thoughts and refused to see her part in the loss of her husband and daughters.
The 3 Stars are due to excellent writing and world building (in this case, two worlds).
HEA or HFN? Who knows
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2 people found this helpful
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- KT
- 01-22-22
Absolutely Awesome! History comes alive!
Whoa! Written like a classic. Superlative writing with wonderfully developed characters and multiple lives woven throughout decades and continents. This story has EVERYTHING! Romance, mystery, intrigue, humor and the most amazingly accurate depiction and retelling of history over multiple generations! A truly magnificent book told by a talented narrator.
HIGHLY Recommend!
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- Alanda Mitchell
- 03-13-23
Really enjoyed it.
It is a great story over all. I am going to start #2 in series now!
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- D. Fields
- 01-30-19
The Series You've Been Looking For!
This is the kind of story telling I enjoy....a multi-generational saga that spans decades and continents. Somehow all my favorite elements are incorporated: romance, mystery, a bit of history, travel, lovely descriptions of houses, adventure, and art. There is some sex, but not too much, and some social commentary, but not enough that it gets annoying. The characters are multi-dimensional and interesting.
The writing is very good and the narration is above par. Small criticisms are that the dialogue does not always sound natural, and the pacing of the narration in the first two books speeds up and slows down (this was not present in the 3rd book). Although both the narration and the writing improve greatly by book three, the first two books are my favorite. Hopefully there will be one more book to finish up the story.
This trilogy is an exceptional find (I would even say it is a "hidden gem"), and an even better deal if you have the romance package. It makes for a nice change from regency romances and is much better than most contemporary romances.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Joyce Allen
- 04-09-23
I loved this book, could not stop listening to it,
I loved this book, could not stop listening to it. Enjoyed the many twists and turns to the story. Can't wait to read book 2.
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- Sharon Mistele
- 12-11-23
Captivating and Smart
I had a hard time putting this down. It was captivating and had smart characters.
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- Rosemary B. Anderson
- 12-23-18
GREAT STORY.
THE EVOLVING STORY OF THE CHARACTER CHARLIE IS WONDERFUL. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHERE BOOK 2 AND 3 TAKES HER AND ALL HER FAMILY. MS SMITH THANK YOU FOR THIS WONDERFUL READ.
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- Angela Moore
- 08-16-22
Far exceeded my expectations!
Very interesting characters and the book immerses the reader into the art world with a plot twist at the end.
The “sex” part people complain of was very tasteful and no big deal imo.
A lovely exciting story !
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