The Bright List

Meet the Erotic Romance Actors of Ellora's Cave!

When I first brought Ellora's Cave novels to Audible— and their own singular brand of explicit romance, the first task at hand was particularly daunting. Who would bring these books to life?

We needed to cast actors with moxie, passion, and the chops to narrate erotic romance without any inhibitions.

After multiple auditions and heart-to-heart interviews: we found them.  I've asked my favorite romance VO's (as we call stars in the audiobook biz) to tell us something about themselves.

 

Suzy Lexington

Narrator: Virtual Reality by Joey W. Hill

The daughter of an American diplomat father and a model mother, Suzy Lexington has been traveling the globe since she was born. 

Currently, Suzy is working as a journalist and living in NYC.

 

Stella Bloom

Narrator:

Breeds series by Lora Leigh

Reaper’s Property by Joanna Wilde

Originally hailing from North Carolina, Stella Bloom is a classical actress based in New York City. 

She is also a world traveler and garden enthusiast. Having journeyed from the rock gardens of Japan to the Rose gardens of England, she is currently writing a book about horticulture and romance called, “Meet Me In The Garden: Stories of Forbidden Love Amongst the Blossoms.”

Her work, as always, is dedicated to D.J.

 

Maxine Mitchell

Narrator: Wolf Breeds series by Lora Leigh

 Nature of Desire series by Joey W. Hill

Maxine Mitchell grew up in a small town outside Philadelphia, Pa. 

She went to George Washington University where she double majored in Broadcast Journalism and Psychology.

After a few unfulfilling years working in local radio, Maxine began narrating audiobooks and hasn’t looked back.

She now lives in Brooklyn, NY with her partner and their two dogs. 

Liz Chastain

Narrator: Riding the Raines series by Laurann Dohner

Liz Chastain is an army brat turned Renaissance woman who spent her early years touring the world with her cabaret performances.

She now makes her home in New Orleans where she still is on stage as a singer and story teller. She hopes to soon open her business, Voodoo Mama Mystics and BodyWork, near the French Quarter.

Love and Thanks to her partner James Arnold!

 

Simone Lewis

Narrator:  Zorn Warriors series by Laurann Dohner

Coyote Breeds series by Lora Leigh

Simone Lewis is a librarian from Charlotte, NC.

Being a librarian is fun, but for a little more fun, in her free time Simone loves to garden (herbs and wildflowers), dance (mostly salsa) and record audiobooks. She also loves to travel (often in search of the yummiest chocolates and wines).

Simone is thrilled to be working with Audible and Ellora’s Cave on these titillating titles!

 

India Plum

Narrator: Foreign Affairs series by Mari Carr and Lexxie Couper

India Plum was born in Bangalow, in the hills around Byron Bay in northern New South Wales. Her earliest memories are of kangaroos jumping through the bamboo trees in her parent's garden.

She is a writer and actor living in Rose Bay, Sydney.

 

Summer Roberts

Narrator: Men of August series by Lora Leigh

Summer Roberts was born in Massachusetts on a wintery December night.  (Thanks to her parents’ sense of humor, Summer got her name.)

She went to college in California (goodbye winters!) where she studied acting and psychology.

When not narrating audiobooks, she can be found doing yoga, watching the Red Sox, or drinking good wine with friends.  Some of her favorite authors are Jasinda Wilder, H.M Ward, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Nora Roberts (no relation!). 

 

Tillie Hooper

Narrator: Trek Mi Q'An, by Jaid Black

Named for the Asbury Park Tillies, or American writer and feminist Tillie Olson, depending on who you ask, Ms. Hooper hails from a long line of brassy dames. (Women's rights activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a family member.)

A storyteller from an early age, she began narrating audiobooks at the suggestion of a longtime actor friend and has been supremely grateful for the excellent fit.

After a glorious twenty years in NYC, Ms. Hooper currently lives in on a small ranch in Wyoming with her longtime cowboy beau and sweeping family of animal pals, including her favorite chicken, Kat.

She loves travel adventures with her beau, the Jazz Age, championing the environment, and finding a great deal.

Mindy Kennedy

Narrator: Cyborg Seduction series by Laurann Dohner

Mindy Kennedy is a thrill-seeker. She loves outdoor sports, spontaneous travel, and never says no to a dare.

She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her dogs, Jake and Honey.

 

Kasha Kensington

Narrator: Men With Tools series by Lynn Lafleur

Kasha Kensington had childhood aspirations of becoming a trapeze performer, but in the end she decided to pursue a degree in Communications at SUNY Binghamton, where she discovered a gift for voiceover work. She works extensively in both radio and the audiobook industry.  

When not in the recording booth, Kasha loves knitting, reading, and her guilty pleasure, Nascar.

 

Isabelle Gordon

Narrator: Unveiled series by Cari Quinn

Isabelle Gordon is an audiobook narrator, actress and writer.  She is based in New York but can often be found wandering the country, working in theaters, writing her stories, and searching for adventure, art, and romance. 

She is an avid reader, a lover of Romance and poetry, and has begun baking all sorts of treats in her spare time.

  

Bonnie D. Jones

Narrator: Surrender series by Riley Murphy

Bonnie D. Jones is always up for a good read and a good time. She is thrilled to join Ellora's Cave as a narrator (and die-hard fan herself).

The Surrender series by Riley Murphy marks Bonnie's first BDSM Erotica trilogy and now that she’s started she can't stop.

Love to Craig for making her feel smart and sexy. 

 

Thanks to all of our fine narrators for making our hearts sing—and our cheeks flush.

 

Flasher—Tsaurah Litzky's Poetic and Raw Memoir

Flasher: A Memoir, by Tsaurah Litzky

I have published Tsaurah Litzky more often than any other author I've ever worked with--- and after 600 authors and 20 anthologies and countless magazines... that's saying something. 

Now Tsaurah is ready to dish the real dirt on her real New York bohemian life in her poetic memoir, Flasher. 

Tsaurah is a poet, a revolutionary, and a hippie chick; an intellectual and an educator; and a sex-positive proponent of free love long before the phrase was coined.

Tsaurah doesn’t hold back in Flasher. It’s raw and confessional. You are fully inside her head as she jumps from incident to incident. Her life as an amorous poet, dutiful daughter and eager lover is harrowing and moving.  

Here is the full video from her Flasher launch party.

 

To say Litzky is influenced by the beat poets would be off base. She IS an original.

Narrated by Dina Pearlman who does this sassy New Yorker justice.

Greg Boyd—The Best Writer You Don't Know.

 

"Forgive me, but Greg Boyd is like Kafka and Grimm wrapped up in one, with a better sense of humor."

Stephen Haske, Amazon

Horny: Stories Selected and New, by Greg Boyd

When people ask me, "Who's your favorite writer few others have ever heard of?"-- I say Greg Boyd.  

I discovered his work through Harold Jaffe's Fiction International in San Diego in 1992. When I was asked to do the first Best American Erotica series, it was Greg's epic crucifix satire,  "Horny" was at the top of my list. —Before Nicholson Baker, Patrick Califia, Samuel Delany, or Anne Rice.  

When Simon and Schuster asked me to curate their first series of novellas, I called Mr. Boyd, who created the most original work of the group, two parallel suspended narratives, titled "The Widow".

In my best living room performance art, I held a seance with Greg's "Mark Twain" sequel set in the barrens of the L.A. River: "The Further Adventures of Huck, Tom, and Jim."

Finally, when Audible asked me to make a list of the authors I most wanted to see in audio, again, in my little list, I wrote: Greg Boyd.

With the meticulous collaboration of publisher Jordan Jones at Leaping Dog Press, I'm proud to announce Audible has published Horny: Stories Selected and New.

Greg has a habit of doing things before anyone else even thinks of them, and it prompted me to interview Jordan, one of his early colleagues and publishers. I always wondered how they met.

 

In 1986, Greg was starting to make a name for himself as an writer of stories and prose poems, a translator, and a guy with an avant garde magazine called "Asylum."

 

He was teaching at a school I was attending and I was co-editing the school's literary magazine. We invited him to participate in a literary questionnaire we did, which included responses from the likes of May Swenson, Denise Levertov, and Maxine Kumin.

 

Later, Greg went off to work on printmaking and doing his prose poem/block print books. That eventually led him to his publishing at "Asylum Annuals," beautiful, glossy, surrealist masterpieces.

 

I had started a press called Leaping Dog Press, and wanted him to be one of my first authors. His book The Double: Döppelangelgänger came out in our second season. It's a novel with a series of interlocking short stories, where the fiction builds on the fiction. It also includes some of his photocollages. 

 

Greg and I were two of the four people (including another writer, Richard Martin, and a film maker, Tony Liano) who worked on The 365 Project, a pre-YouTube invitation for artists to respond to brief non-fictional video snippets on the web. 

 

Years passed, and eventually, I acquired Asylum Arts to add to the Leaping Dog family.

 

Somewhere in there, Greg wrote the books and board game, and Tony Liano directed the film that were part of the wildly innovative boxed set The Nambuli Papers, a fictional biography, book of poems by the subject (in three languages, including one fictional language), and DVD of the lost reel of a non-existent documentary about the fictional Nambul. ...A consummate disappearing artist.

 

Greg, like his man Nambuli, has disappeared to a far continent to pursue his art, and sends missives from Ecuador time to time.

 

I'm very honored to present Greg's first Audible collection— whether you're horny, hungry, or habituated to the cutting edge, this is the man for you.

 

Horny is narrated by Christopher Kipiniak, whom many of you will recognize from "The Good Wife" and "Aftershock."

Kindle E-book Version, available too!

Don't Surrender!—Before You Read Ariel Gore's Atlas of the Human Heart

Atlas of the Human Heart, by Ariel Gore

With gorgeous, honest prose and calls ‘em-like-she-sees-‘em narration, Ariel Gore will have you thinking differently about the nature of  "home" and what it means to be a mama. 

Gore's memoir takes you from the meticulously mapped grounds of Palo Alto High School to a teenage vagabond life across Asia and Europe, "Traveling around the world, meeting random people that became family in a matter of days" and finally back in the Bay Area, new daughter in tow.

This book is an essential feminist memoir, one that changed so many minds (mine included) about what it means to be a mother and a feminist and still one's true self.

Gore ushers you on a journey following a terrestrial map, mapping her own heart. 

Superbly narrated by Liisa Ivary with a great sense Ariel's irony and humor.

--Willow Pennell