Release Week: 5 April 2022
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Release Week: 5 April 2022
Posted on 2022-04-05 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
Sea of Tranquility: A Novel By: Emily St. John Mandel, read by John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, and Kirsten Potter for Random House -- "The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the listener from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon 500 years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space."
The Candy House: A Novel By: Jennifer Egan, read by Michael Boatman, Nicole Lewis, Thomas Sadoski, Colin Donnell, Griffin Newman, Rebecca Lowman, Jackie Sanders, Lucy Liu, Christian Barillas, Tara Lynne Barr, Alex Allwine, Emily Tremaine, Kyle Beltran, Dan Bittner, and Chris Henry Coffey for Simon and Schuster -- "From one of the most celebrated writers of our time, a literary figure with cult status, a “sibling novel” to her Pulitzer Prize- and NBCC Award-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad—an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity and meaning in a world where memories and identities are no longer private."
Aspects By: John M. Ford, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman, read by Steven Crossley for Recorded Books -- "The first publication of a lost fantasy novel. Aspects has sorcery and politics and romance in an alternate 18th century setting. At last, the final work of one of the greatest SF and fantasy authors of his time."
The Unwritten Book: An Investigation By: Samantha Hunt, read by the author with Richard Ferrone for Blackstone -- "A genre-bending work of nonfiction that explores the broadest sense of ghosts, ghost stories, and haunting. What is it to be haunted, to be a ghost, to die, to live, to read? Books are ghosts; reading is communion with the dead. Alcohol is a way of communing, too, as well as a way of dying. Each chapter gathers subjects that haunt: dead people, the forest, the towering library of all those books we’ll never have time to read or write. Hunt, like a mad crossword puzzler, looks for patterns and clues."
Portrait of a Thief: A Novel By: Grace D. Li, read by Eunice Wong and Austin Ku for Penguin -- "Ocean’s Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums, about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity."
My Evil Mother: A Short Story By: Margaret Atwood, read by Hillary Huber for Amazon Original Stories -- "A bittersweet short story about mothers, daughters, and the witches’ brew of love - and control - that binds them, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments."
In a Garden Burning Gold: A Novel By: Rory Power, read by Jesse Vilinsky for Random House -- "Twins imbued with incredible magic and near-immortality will do anything to keep their family in power—even if it tears the family apart—in the first book of a mythic epic fantasy duology."
Four Treasures of the Sky: A Novel By: Jenny Tinghui Zhang, read by Katharine Chin for Macmillan -- "A propulsive and dazzling debut novel set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, about a Chinese girl fighting to claim her place in the 1880s American West."
The Return of Faraz Ali: A Novel By: Aamina Ahmad, read by Homer Todiwala and Nina Wadia for Penguin -- "Sent back to his birthplace—Lahore’s notorious red-light district—to hush up the murder of a child prostitute, a man finds himself in an unexpected reckoning with his past."
Braking Day By: Adam Oyebanji, read by Ariyan Kassam for Recorded Books -- "On a generation ship bound for a distant star, one engineer-in-training must discover the secrets at the heart of the voyage."
The Bladed Faith By: David Dalglish, read by Devante Johnson and Imani Parks for Orbit -- "A usurped prince prepares to take up the mantel of a deadly assassin and reclaim his kingdom, his people, and his slain gods."
Atomic Anna By: Rachel Barenbaum, read by Traci Odom, Natalie Naudus, Emily Lawrence, and Zachary Johnson for Grand Central -- "Three generations of women work together and travel through time to prevent the Chernobyl disaster and right the wrongs of their past."
Stringers By: Chris Panatier, read by Greg Lockett for Angry Robot -- "Ben is not a genius, but he can spout facts about animals and wristwatches with the best of experts. He just can't explain how he knows any of it. He also knows about the Chime. What it is or why it's important he couldn't say. But this knowledge is about to get him in a whole heap of trouble."
BACKLIST WATCH:
- The Ninth Circle By: Brendan Deneen (2013), read by Curt Bonnem for Blackstone -- "The story of a teenager who runs away with a traveling circus in hopes of finding a better life after becoming enraptured by the bewitching blue eyes of a bearded lady, only to discover that nothing is ever quite what it seems."
SERIES WATCH:
Dreams Bigger than Heartbreak: Unstoppable, Book 2 By: Charlie Jane Anders, read by Hynden Walch, Imani Jade Powers, and Sena Bryer for Macmillan Young Listeners -- "From the international best-selling author of All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders, comes Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, the sequel to Victories Greater Than Death in the thrilling adventure Unstoppable series, set against an intergalactic war."
Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments: Edinburgh Nights, Book 2 By: T. L. Huchu, read by Kimberly Mandindo for Macmillan
Sisters of the Forsaken Stars: Sisters of the Vast Black, Book 2 By: Lina Rather, read by Adenrele Ojo for Recorded Books
The Date from Hell: Not Your Average Hot Guy, Book 2 By: Gwenda Bond, read by Karissa Vacker and Graham Halstead for Random House
A Matter of Death and Life: Gideon Sable, Book 2 By: Simon R. Green, read by Gideon Emery for Recorded Books
Dark Moon: E-Day, Book 3 By: Nicholas Sansbury Smith, read by R.C. Bray for Recorded Books
Robert Ludlum's The Treadstone Transgression: A Treadstone Novel, Book 3 By: Joshua Hood, read by Ron Butler for Penguin
Youngbloods: Impostors, Book 4 By: Scott Westerfeld, read by Thérèse Plummer for Scholastic
TIE-IN WATCH:
Sword of the White Horse: Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Book 1 By: Elsa Sjunneson, read by Moira Quirk for Recorded Books -- "Mercia, 878. Witch-warrior Niamh discovers a new order called the Hidden Ones is seeking to establish a foothold in Lunden. Her land is already scarred by Viking raiders, bloody wars, and clashing cultures. Determined to protect what remains of her homeland, she infiltrates this new group to discover whether they stand with her...or against her."
Star Wars: Queen's Hope By: E. K. Johnston, read by Catherine Taber for Disney Lucasfilm -- "A peace-loving senator faces a time of war in another thrilling Padmé Amidala adventure."
Star Wars Legends: Wedge's Gamble: Rogue Squadron, Book 2 By: Michael A. Stackpole (1996), read by Marc Thompson for Random House -- "The second book in the legendary series featuring the pilots of Rogue Squadron."
MOST MISSING:
Y'all Means All: The Emerging Voices Queering Appalachia edited by Z. Zane McNeill (PM Press) -- "A celebration of the weird and wonderful aspects of a troubled region in all of their manifest glory! This collection is a thought-provoking hoot and a holler of “we’re queer and we’re here to stay, cause we’re every bit a piece of the landscape as the rocks and the trees” echoing through the hills of Appalachia and into the boardrooms of every media outlet and opportunistic author seeking to define Appalachia from the outside for their own political agendas."
CassaDark by Alex J. Cavanaugh (Dancing Lemur Press) -- "Cavanaugh returns to the world of his Cassa Series...for a fourth inventive space opera." (PW)