Listen free for 30 days
-
The Cemetery of Untold Stories
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $22.26
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's Summary
Literary icon Julia Alvarez returns with an inventive and emotional novel about storytelling itself that will be an instant classic.
Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.
Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener as Alma’s characters unspool their secret tales. Among them: Bienvenida, the abandoned second wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, consigned to oblivion by history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.
The characters defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories.
Listeners of Isabel Allende’s Violeta and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead will devour Alvarez’s extraordinary new novel about beauty and authenticity that reminds us the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.
You may also enjoy...
-
Under the Paper Moon
- Written by: Shaina Steinberg
- Narrated by: Carrie Coello
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1942, and as far as her father knows, Evelyn Bishop, heiress to an aeronautics fortune, is working as a translator in London. In truth, Evelyn—daring, beautiful, and as adept with a rifle as she is in five languages—has joined the Office of Strategic Services as a spy. Her goal is personal: to find her brother, who is being held as a POW in a Nazi labor camp. Through one high-risk mission after another, she is paired with the reckless and rebellious Nick Gallagher, growing ever close to him until the war's end brings with it an act of deep betrayal.
-
-
anachronistic almost to the point of ridulous
- By Tiffany on 2024-11-15
Written by: Shaina Steinberg
-
The Memory of Lavender and Sage
- Written by: Aimie K. Runyan
- Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Food critic Tempèsta Luddington has always felt like the odd person out in her family, ever since she lost her beloved mother at the tender age of thirteen. When her workaholic father passes fifteen years later, Tempèsta is not surprised that the majority of the considerable family money will pass to her dutiful younger brother, Wal. Still, she is left a modest remembrance from her mother, and for the first time Tempèsta has a world of choices before her.
-
-
Lovely, warm, comforting, hopeful
- By Georgina on 2024-08-20
Written by: Aimie K. Runyan
-
The Lost Letters of Aisling
- A Novel
- Written by: Cynthia Ellingsen
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon, Stephanie Cannon
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rainey’s grandmother makes a startling request: Take me home. To Ireland, the country she fled post-World War II. Though they’re inseparably close, Rainey knows few of her grandmother’s secrets. Until they arrive at Aisling—the majestic estate on the southern coast of Ireland where her grandmother was raised—and Rainey discovers a collection of seventy-year-old letters in a trunk.
-
-
Lovely story!!
- By Nouhade N. on 2024-11-13
Written by: Cynthia Ellingsen
-
Meet Me at the Starlight
- Written by: Rachel Hauck
- Narrated by: Andrea Gallo, Nick Walther, Morgan Hallett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1987. Supermodel Harlow Hayes seeks solace in a quaint Florida beach town to heal from a heartbreak that shattered her entire world. To her surprise, she encounters Matt Knight—a Hollywood A-lister with a bad-boy reputation—who has returned to his hometown to help his plucky grandmother, Tuesday, save her century-old skating rink, the Starlight.
Written by: Rachel Hauck
-
Sipsworth
- Written by: Simon Van Booy
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the deaths of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the English village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. Helen retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit. Then, one cold autumn night, a chance encounter with an abandoned pet mouse on the street outside her house sets Helen on a surprising journey of friendship.
-
-
Delightful!
- By Budb on 2024-10-22
Written by: Simon Van Booy
-
The Book of Doors
- A Novel
- Written by: Gareth Brown
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cassie Andrews works in a New York City bookshop, shelving books, making coffee for customers, and living an unassuming, ordinary life. Until the day one of her favorite customers—a lonely yet charming old man—dies right in front of her. Cassie is devastated. She always loved his stories, and now she has nothing to remember him by. Nothing but the last book he was reading. But this is no ordinary book… It is the Book of Doors. Inscribed with enigmatic words and mysterious drawings, it promises Cassie that any door is every door. You just need to know how to open them.
-
-
Absolutely LOVED it
- By TiMiMo on 2024-04-23
Written by: Gareth Brown
-
Under the Paper Moon
- Written by: Shaina Steinberg
- Narrated by: Carrie Coello
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1942, and as far as her father knows, Evelyn Bishop, heiress to an aeronautics fortune, is working as a translator in London. In truth, Evelyn—daring, beautiful, and as adept with a rifle as she is in five languages—has joined the Office of Strategic Services as a spy. Her goal is personal: to find her brother, who is being held as a POW in a Nazi labor camp. Through one high-risk mission after another, she is paired with the reckless and rebellious Nick Gallagher, growing ever close to him until the war's end brings with it an act of deep betrayal.
-
-
anachronistic almost to the point of ridulous
- By Tiffany on 2024-11-15
Written by: Shaina Steinberg
-
The Memory of Lavender and Sage
- Written by: Aimie K. Runyan
- Narrated by: Caroline Hewitt
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Food critic Tempèsta Luddington has always felt like the odd person out in her family, ever since she lost her beloved mother at the tender age of thirteen. When her workaholic father passes fifteen years later, Tempèsta is not surprised that the majority of the considerable family money will pass to her dutiful younger brother, Wal. Still, she is left a modest remembrance from her mother, and for the first time Tempèsta has a world of choices before her.
-
-
Lovely, warm, comforting, hopeful
- By Georgina on 2024-08-20
Written by: Aimie K. Runyan
-
The Lost Letters of Aisling
- A Novel
- Written by: Cynthia Ellingsen
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon, Stephanie Cannon
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rainey’s grandmother makes a startling request: Take me home. To Ireland, the country she fled post-World War II. Though they’re inseparably close, Rainey knows few of her grandmother’s secrets. Until they arrive at Aisling—the majestic estate on the southern coast of Ireland where her grandmother was raised—and Rainey discovers a collection of seventy-year-old letters in a trunk.
-
-
Lovely story!!
- By Nouhade N. on 2024-11-13
Written by: Cynthia Ellingsen
-
Meet Me at the Starlight
- Written by: Rachel Hauck
- Narrated by: Andrea Gallo, Nick Walther, Morgan Hallett
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1987. Supermodel Harlow Hayes seeks solace in a quaint Florida beach town to heal from a heartbreak that shattered her entire world. To her surprise, she encounters Matt Knight—a Hollywood A-lister with a bad-boy reputation—who has returned to his hometown to help his plucky grandmother, Tuesday, save her century-old skating rink, the Starlight.
Written by: Rachel Hauck
-
Sipsworth
- Written by: Simon Van Booy
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the deaths of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the English village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. Helen retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit. Then, one cold autumn night, a chance encounter with an abandoned pet mouse on the street outside her house sets Helen on a surprising journey of friendship.
-
-
Delightful!
- By Budb on 2024-10-22
Written by: Simon Van Booy
-
The Book of Doors
- A Novel
- Written by: Gareth Brown
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cassie Andrews works in a New York City bookshop, shelving books, making coffee for customers, and living an unassuming, ordinary life. Until the day one of her favorite customers—a lonely yet charming old man—dies right in front of her. Cassie is devastated. She always loved his stories, and now she has nothing to remember him by. Nothing but the last book he was reading. But this is no ordinary book… It is the Book of Doors. Inscribed with enigmatic words and mysterious drawings, it promises Cassie that any door is every door. You just need to know how to open them.
-
-
Absolutely LOVED it
- By TiMiMo on 2024-04-23
Written by: Gareth Brown
-
Ordinary Human Failings
- A Novel
- Written by: Megan Nolan
- Narrated by: Jessica Regan
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the "peasants"—ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star seems set to rise when he stumbles across a sensational scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents beloved across the neighborhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and “bad apples”: the Greens. At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, otherworldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances.
-
-
The characters came to life as their stories unfolded.
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-09-17
Written by: Megan Nolan
-
Olivetti
- Written by: Allie Millington
- Narrated by: Christopher Gebauer, Simon Vance
- Length: 4 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Being a typewriter is not as easy as it looks. Surrounded by books (notorious attention hogs) and recently replaced by a computer, Olivetti has been forgotten by the Brindles—the family he’s lived with for years. The Brindles are busy humans, apart from twelve-year-old Ernest, who would rather be left alone with his collection of Oxford English Dictionaries. Once a collector of words, now Olivetti only collects dust. He gets a rare glimpse of action from Ernest’s mom, Beatrice—his used-to-be frequent visitor—only for her to drop him off at Heartland Pawn Shop and leave him behind.
-
-
Lovely book!
- By Dreaaa on 2024-07-28
Written by: Allie Millington
-
The Light Eaters
- How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth
- Written by: Zoë Schlanger
- Narrated by: Zoë Schlanger
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system.
-
-
so fascinating
- By Brittany on 2024-07-31
Written by: Zoë Schlanger
-
Divine Might
- Goddesses in Greek Myth
- Written by: Natalie Haynes
- Narrated by: Natalie Haynes
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few writers today have reshaped our view of the ancient Greek myths more than revered bestselling author Natalie Haynes. Divine Might is a female-centered look at Olympus and the Furies, focusing on the goddesses whose prowess, passions, jealousies, and desires rival those of their male kin.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Kirsty Phillips on 2024-01-18
Written by: Natalie Haynes
-
A Lady's Guide to Marvels and Misadventure
- Written by: Angela Bell
- Narrated by: Beverley A. Crick
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miss Clara Marie Stanton's family may be eccentric, but they certainly aren't insane. London, England, 1860: When Clara's ex-fiancé begins to spread rumors that her family suffers from hereditary insanity, it's all she can do to protect them from his desperate schemes, society's prejudice, and a lifetime in an asylum. Then Clara's grandfather Drosselmeyer brings on an apprentice with a mechanical leg, and all pretense of normalcy takes wing.
-
-
TW: excessive religiosity
- By Devonius on 2024-10-22
Written by: Angela Bell
-
I Cheerfully Refuse
- Written by: Leif Enger
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. Rainy, an endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society.
-
-
Fantastic!
- By Budb on 2024-09-17
Written by: Leif Enger
-
Someone You Know
- An Unforgettable Collection of Canadian True Crime Stories
- Written by: Catherine Fogarty
- Narrated by: Jennifer Blom
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Someone You Know is an anthology of twelve unforgettable Canadian true-crime stories by Story Hunter podcast producer, host and writer Catherine Fogarty. Each story reveals the haunting truth and statistical reality that a person is more likely to be murdered by someone they know than by a stranger. And while “stranger danger” is often the stuff of our nightmares and Hollywood horror films, sometimes those who are closest to us are even more dangerous than strangers.
Written by: Catherine Fogarty
-
Dream
- The Art and Science of Slumber
- Written by: Scott Carney
- Narrated by: Scott Carney
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why do so many of us have trouble falling asleep? Why do our thoughts spin in wild directions after dark? More important: why do we dream? In this groundbreaking new book, investigative journalist and anthropologist Scott Carney sets out to discover how the sleeping world reverberates in the waking one. Unlock the power of the immune system at the same time you dig deeply into the source of creativity. Discover the evolutionary process that forges both memory and emotions.
-
-
What an eye opener!
- By Chariotmaker on 2024-08-08
Written by: Scott Carney
-
The Wife You Know
- Written by: Chad Zunker
- Narrated by: Thor Knai, Helen Laser
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Widower Luke Driskell didn’t expect to fall in love and marry again so quickly. But Ashley and her daughter, Joy, are special—a quality borne out when Ashley rushes into a burning day-care center to save the children. Immediately she’s a social media sensation and hero. Then, just as suddenly, Ashley and Joy disappear into the bitterly cold night. With no trace of their whereabouts, Luke begins a panicked investigation. Alarmingly, he can find no proof that the woman he loves even exists. Left behind: just a hidden stash of fake IDs. Different names. Different cities. Same haunted face.
-
-
Would not recommend
- By Private on 2024-09-11
Written by: Chad Zunker
-
Dreadful
- Written by: Caitlin Rozakis
- Narrated by: Keval Shah
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gav isn't really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed. But as he realizes that nothing—from the incredibly tasteless cloak adorned with flames to the aforementioned princess—is quite what it seems, Gav must face up to all the things the Dread Lord Gavrax has done. And he'll have to answer the hardest question of all—who does he want to be?
-
-
Forgetful Evil Wizard, What’s not to like!
- By DarthGerardius on 2024-09-29
Written by: Caitlin Rozakis
-
Fi
- A Memoir
- Written by: Alexandra Fuller
- Narrated by: Alexandra Fuller
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s the middle of the summer before her fiftieth birthday and Alexandra is just barely hanging on. Grieving her father and pining for her home country of Zimbabwe, chafing and straining against the stresses and strictures of midlife as a mother and ex-wife, and piecing her way through a disastrous relationship with a younger woman that lurches and buckles, but never quite breaks. And then—suddenly and incomprehensibly—her son Fi, at 21 years old, dies in his sleep. What happens next is what Alexandra details in this book.
Written by: Alexandra Fuller
-
Night Side of the River
- Ghost Stories
- Written by: Jeanette Winterson
- Narrated by: Jeanette Winterson, Vicky Licorish
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this delightfully chilling collection, the iconic Jeanette Winterson turns her fearless gaze to the realm of ghosts, interspersing her own encounters with the supernatural alongside hair-raising fictions. Lifting the veil between the living and the dead, Winterson spirits us away to a haunted estate that ensnares a nomadic young couple in its own dark past, a staged immersive ghost tour gone awry, a West Village seance that threatens the bounds between AI and reality, and a vacation home in the metaverse where a widow visits an improved version of her deceased husband.
Written by: Jeanette Winterson
What the critics say
“Thought-provoking and powerful, The Cemetery of Untold Stories is a balancing act of the everyday and the magical, a blend of history and cuento. Through imperfect characters longing for love and fighting against el olvido, we are reminded that stories have the power to bring us together.”—Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girl
Editorial Review
What listeners say about The Cemetery of Untold Stories
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joan M
- 2024-08-16
Creative and fresh
I was tiredof tge same old same old tgat comes up once your devise thinks it knows you. Took a path away from the usual an cound this wonderful narative unlike any thing I havevread before. I loved the unfolding of family tales over generations with a novel "suppose" that tiesthem together. will look for more by this author
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!