
Bitter Texas Honey
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.80
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Helen Laser
-
By:
-
Ashley Whitaker
About this listen
The Royal Tenenbaums meets Fleabag in this hilarious and dizzyingly smart debut about an over-the-top evangelical Texan family—and the daughter at its center racing to finish her very important novel before her ex-boyfriend finishes his.
It’s 2011, and twenty-three-year-old Joan West is not like the rest of her liberal peers in Austin, nor is she quite like her Tea Party Republican, God-loving family. Sure, she listens to conservative talk radio on her way to and from her internship at the Capitol. But she was once an America-hating leftist who kissed girls at parties, refused to shave, and had plenty of emotionless sex with jazz school friends—that is until a drug-induced mania forced her to return to her senses.
But above all Joan is a writer, an artist, or at least she desperately wants to be. Always in search of inspiration for her novel, she catalogs every detail of her relationships with men—including with her former muse slash current arch nemesis Roberto—and mines her very dysfunctional family for material. But when her beloved, credit card debt–racked cousin Wyatt finds himself in crisis, Joan’s worldview is cracked open and everything comes crashing down.
Funny, whip-smart, and often tender, Bitter Texas Honey introduces us to the unforgettable and indefatigable Joan West: ambitious, full of contradictions, utterly herself. As she wades through it all—addiction, politics, loss, and, notably, her father’s string of increasingly bizarre girlfriends—we witness her confront what it means to be a person, and an artist, in the world.
©2025 Ashley Whitaker (P)2025 Penguin AudioCritic reviews
“Like any good Southern girl, Bitter Texas Honey presents itself modestly: this is a funny, extremely charming novel about an aspiring writer. But beneath this relatively breezy exterior is an absolutely merciless, clear-eyed, and passionate assessment of the political, moral, and cultural roots of our country’s current divide. Bitter Texas Honey is not just wildly entertaining—it is a bullet aimed at the dead center of American hypocrisy, cruelty, and heartbreak; as brilliant, uncompromising, and timely a book as you will read this year.”—Kristen Roupenian, author of Cat Person and Other Stories
“Bitter Texas Honey is wildly offbeat and endlessly entertaining—a novel that manages to be incisive, heartrending, and hilarious all at once. With nimble prose and a deadpan delivery, Whitaker brings each of these deeply relatable, deeply endearing characters to vibrant life. This is a dazzling debut from an outrageously gifted writer.”—Kimberly King Parsons, National Book Award-nominated author of We Were the Universe
"Bitter Texas Honey is a remarkable debut. What sets up as a wryly comic künstlerroman—'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Republican' (in the comparatively "innocent" days of Mitt Romney’s nomination)—deepens into an affecting story of loss and addiction. Joan is by turns feckless and funny, knowing and naïve, but always utterly human in all her messy contradictions. Best of all, Whitaker not only pivots from hilarity to heartbreak, but manages to build to a close that is—magically—both at once (fittingly reflective of her bitter-sweet title)."—Peter Ho Davies, author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Women’s Meeting
- By: J. E. London
- Narrated by: Lindsey Walker
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Dr. Angela Morrison agrees to facilitate the women’s meeting at her church, she discovers the women’s shocking traumas are more than she bargained for. As she analyzes the intricate life-style situations of four women, she is lured into the horrors of her own past. Anita, the pastor’s wife, lives a fantasy created by her parents, her husband, and the congregation. She is a character in a play, and her husband is the director. Unlike the theater, the action is real, the beatings are real, and her fear is real. Ernestine Johnson is a woman driven by her quest for love.
By: J. E. London
-
The Influencers
- A Novel
- By: Anna-Marie McLemore
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Mother May I” Iverson has spent the past twenty-five years building a massively successful influencer empire with endearing videos featuring her five mixed-race daughters. But the girls are all grown up now, and the ramifications of having their entire childhoods commodified start to spill over into public view, especially in light of the pivotal question: Who killed May’s newlywed husband and then torched her mansion to cover it up?
-
The Guilt Pill
- A Novel
- By: Saumya Dave
- Narrated by: Sharmila Devar
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maya Patel has it all—her own start-up, a sexy, doting husband, influencer status, and now, a new baby. But behind closed doors, Maya's drowning. Her newborn is taking a toll on her marriage, her best friend won't return her calls, and her company's hanging on by a thread. The worst part? It's all her fault. If she could just be a better boss, mother, wife, daughter, friend… Maybe she wouldn't feel so guilty all the time. Enter: #Girlboss Liz Anderson, who introduces her to the "guilt pill," an experimental supplement that erases female guilt.
-
-
Raw and real
- By indianbelle on 04-20-25
By: Saumya Dave
-
Francine's Spectacular Crash and Burn
- A Novel
- By: Renee Swindle
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Francine's Spectacular Crash and Burn is a bighearted novel that will wiggle its way into the heart of every listener. It follows Francine Stevenson. whose life revolved around her anxious agoraphobic mother—her abrupt passing rocks Francine to her core and sends her into a tailspin of depression. She copes by rummaging through her mother’s assortment of pills, dancing manically at night to the disco she and her mother enjoyed while keeping up appearances at work during daylight hours.
By: Renee Swindle
-
One Death at a Time
- By: Abbi Waxman
- Narrated by: Patti Murin
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A cranky former actress teams up with her Gen Z sobriety sponsor to solve the murder that threatens to send her back to prison in this dazzling new mystery novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.
-
-
Abbi Waxman Does it Again
- By Lianne Bremer on 04-22-25
By: Abbi Waxman
-
I Am Clarence
- A Novel
- By: Elaine Kraf, Sarah Manguso - foreword
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Clarence’s mother, life revolves around her young son; she takes him to see specialists to find the cause of his blindness and developmental delays, protects him from the cruelty of other children, and loves him tenderly. But she has her own struggles too. Her sanity is precarious and fractured, making caregiving increasingly difficult for her.
By: Elaine Kraf, and others
-
The Women’s Meeting
- By: J. E. London
- Narrated by: Lindsey Walker
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Dr. Angela Morrison agrees to facilitate the women’s meeting at her church, she discovers the women’s shocking traumas are more than she bargained for. As she analyzes the intricate life-style situations of four women, she is lured into the horrors of her own past. Anita, the pastor’s wife, lives a fantasy created by her parents, her husband, and the congregation. She is a character in a play, and her husband is the director. Unlike the theater, the action is real, the beatings are real, and her fear is real. Ernestine Johnson is a woman driven by her quest for love.
By: J. E. London
-
The Influencers
- A Novel
- By: Anna-Marie McLemore
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Mother May I” Iverson has spent the past twenty-five years building a massively successful influencer empire with endearing videos featuring her five mixed-race daughters. But the girls are all grown up now, and the ramifications of having their entire childhoods commodified start to spill over into public view, especially in light of the pivotal question: Who killed May’s newlywed husband and then torched her mansion to cover it up?
-
The Guilt Pill
- A Novel
- By: Saumya Dave
- Narrated by: Sharmila Devar
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maya Patel has it all—her own start-up, a sexy, doting husband, influencer status, and now, a new baby. But behind closed doors, Maya's drowning. Her newborn is taking a toll on her marriage, her best friend won't return her calls, and her company's hanging on by a thread. The worst part? It's all her fault. If she could just be a better boss, mother, wife, daughter, friend… Maybe she wouldn't feel so guilty all the time. Enter: #Girlboss Liz Anderson, who introduces her to the "guilt pill," an experimental supplement that erases female guilt.
-
-
Raw and real
- By indianbelle on 04-20-25
By: Saumya Dave
-
Francine's Spectacular Crash and Burn
- A Novel
- By: Renee Swindle
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Francine's Spectacular Crash and Burn is a bighearted novel that will wiggle its way into the heart of every listener. It follows Francine Stevenson. whose life revolved around her anxious agoraphobic mother—her abrupt passing rocks Francine to her core and sends her into a tailspin of depression. She copes by rummaging through her mother’s assortment of pills, dancing manically at night to the disco she and her mother enjoyed while keeping up appearances at work during daylight hours.
By: Renee Swindle
-
One Death at a Time
- By: Abbi Waxman
- Narrated by: Patti Murin
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A cranky former actress teams up with her Gen Z sobriety sponsor to solve the murder that threatens to send her back to prison in this dazzling new mystery novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.
-
-
Abbi Waxman Does it Again
- By Lianne Bremer on 04-22-25
By: Abbi Waxman
-
I Am Clarence
- A Novel
- By: Elaine Kraf, Sarah Manguso - foreword
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Clarence’s mother, life revolves around her young son; she takes him to see specialists to find the cause of his blindness and developmental delays, protects him from the cruelty of other children, and loves him tenderly. But she has her own struggles too. Her sanity is precarious and fractured, making caregiving increasingly difficult for her.
By: Elaine Kraf, and others
-
The Imagined Life
- A Novel
- By: Andrew Porter
- Narrated by: Lee Osorio
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Steven Mills has reached a crossroads. His wife and son have left, and they may not return. Which leaves him determined to find out what happened to his own father, a brilliant, charismatic professor who disappeared in 1984 when Steve was twelve, on a wave of ignominy. As Steve drives up the coast of California, seeking out his father’s friends, family members, and former colleagues, the novel offers us tantalizing glimpses into Steve’s childhood—his parents’ legendary pool parties, the black-and-white films on the backyard projector, secrets shared with his closest friend.
By: Andrew Porter
-
Didn't You Use to Be Queenie B?
- A Novel
- By: Terri-Lynne DeFino
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Regina Benuzzi is Queenie B—a culinary goddess with Michelin Star restaurants, a bestselling cookbook empire, and multimillion-dollar TV deals. It doesn’t hurt that she’s gorgeous and curvaceous, with cascading black hair and signature red lips. She had it all. Until she didn’t. After an epic fall from grace, Queenie B vanishes from the public eye, giving up everything: her husband, her son, and the fame that she’d fought to achieve. Her shows are in rerun, her restaurants still popular, but her disappearance remains a mystery to her legions of fans.
-
Ruth Run
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Kaufman
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner, Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-six-year-old Ruth excels at microchip design but decides to get rich the old-fashioned way: robbing banks. She becomes a cybercriminal and devotes five years to siphoning more than $250 million out of the banking system using a hacked firewall chip that she created and only she knows how to access. Then one night an alarm goes off and she realizes she’s been discovered.
-
-
What a ride
- By MJ on 04-17-25
-
The French Honeymoon
- Novel
- By: Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau
- Narrated by: Amanda Troop, A.W. Miller
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is not how she imagined it, any of it. Taylor Quinn arrives at her honeymoon suite in the City of Love alone, sans suitcase, but with wads of stolen cash. When she catches a glimpse of newlyweds Cassie and Olivier enjoying their happily ever, she can't tear her eyes away. And Cassie makes their antics easy to follow as she reveals every detail of their picture-perfect trip on social media. Taylor's obsession builds as she tracks their every move. This was the kind of life she was supposed to be living, this was the marriage she should have had, this was the honeymoon she dreamed of.
-
Coram House
- A Novel
- By: Bailey Seybolt
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Chris Henry Coffey, Jason Culp, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a blistering summer day in 1968, nine-year-old Tommy vanishes without a trace from Coram House, an orphanage on the shores of Lake Champlain. Some say a nun drowned him, others say he ran away. Or maybe he never existed. Fifty years later, his disappearance is still unsolved. Struggling true crime writer Alex Kelley needs a fresh start. When she’s asked to ghostwrite a book about the orphanage—and the abuses that occurred there—she packs up her belongings and moves to wintry Burlington, Vermont.
By: Bailey Seybolt
-
The Seven O'Clock Club
- By: Amelia Ireland
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett, Emma Gregory, Luke Francis, and others
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Freya, Callum, Mischa, and Victoria have nothing in common—well, except for one thing: they’ve each experienced a deep personal loss that has led them to an unconventional group meeting, every Tuesday night at seven. A meeting they’ve been particularly selected for that will help them finally move on. At least, that's the claim. As they warily eye one another and their unnervingly observant group leader, one question hangs over them: why were they chosen?
-
-
The plot twist towards the end
- By Sarah Di Stefano on 04-20-25
By: Amelia Ireland
-
That's What She Said
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Pilcher
- Narrated by: Robyn Holdaway, Ell Potter
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Serena and Beth are best friends who couldn’t be more different—Beth is an avowed demisexual, who lacks confidence in her career and in her chances at a happy relationship due to her sexual orientation. Serena is a free spirit who oozes with confidence, both in her job and her sexual proclivities. And yet, since the moment they met, they knew they were platonic soulmates. So, when Beth decides that she officially wants to take charge of her sex life and explore the things that scare her the most, Serena is more than happy to help.
By: Eleanor Pilcher
-
Pride or Die
- A Novel
- By: CL Montblanc
- Narrated by: Ina Marie Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seventeen-year-old Eleanora Finkel just wants to finish her senior year and get the hell out of Texas. But when her LGBTQ+ club meeting inconveniently coincides with an attack on the school’s head cheerleader, she and her friends find themselves in the hot seat. In order to clear their names and ensure the survival of their club for future queer teens, they’ll have to track down the real culprit themselves. Unfortunately, Eleanora is far from a professional detective.
By: CL Montblanc
-
The Wildelings
- By: Lisa Harding
- Narrated by: Jessica Regan
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jessica and Linda have been best friends since the first day of school. Both girls are from very different broken homes—and beautiful, wilful Jessica has always ensured their survival. Now eighteen, the two have come to Wilde—an elite university in the heart of Dublin, far away from their troubled childhoods. Jessica thrives immediately, and, with the faithful Linda at her side, finds herself at the heart of a new circle of friends. But then Mark enters the picture.
By: Lisa Harding
-
Hellions
- stories
- By: Julia Elliott
- Narrated by: Suzy Jackson, Matt Godfrey
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a plague-stricken medieval convent, a nun works on a forbidden mystic manuscript. In rural South Carolina, an alligator named Dragon becomes a beloved pet for a precocious, tough-talking twelve-year-old. During a long, muggy July, an adolescent girl finds unexpected power as her family obsesses over the horror film The Exorcist. On the outskirts of a Southern college town, a young woman resists the tyranny of a shape-shifting older professor as she develops her own sorceress skills.
-
-
Each story is better than the last
- By Anonymous User on 04-20-25
By: Julia Elliott
-
Taken to the Cleaners
- Mandy Dyer Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Dolores Johnson
- Narrated by: Emily Ellet
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Mandy Dyer inherits her uncle’s dry cleaners, she knows she’ll be dealing in some pretty grimy business. But when a homeless woman brings in a bloody suit, suddenly Mandy has a foul mess on her hands. Did the suit belong to a murderer—or his victim? Now Mandy is sharing clues with a hunky homicide detective—and trying to discover a little dirt on the killer herself. With one man dead and a potential witness missing, returning this suit to its rightful owner isn’t going to be easy—until Mandy figures out how to make the killer come clean.
By: Dolores Johnson
-
Vanishing World
- A Novel
- By: Sayaka Murata
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents “copulated” in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange “system” by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable.
By: Sayaka Murata