Release Week: 7 June 2022
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Release Week: 7 June 2022
Posted on 2022-06-07 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
The City Inside By: Samit Basu, read by Reena Dutt for Random House -- "A near-future epic by the internationally celebrated Samit Basu, pulls no punches as it comes for your anxieties about society, government, the environment, and our world at large—yet never loses sight of the hopeful potential of the future."
Ordinary Monsters: A Novel By: J. M. Miro, read by Ben Onwukwe for Macmillan -- "In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness—a man made of smoke. Sixteen-year-old Charlie Ovid, despite a brutal childhood in Mississippi, doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When a jaded female detective is recruited to escort them to safety, all three begin a journey into the nature of difference, and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous. What follows is a story of wonder and betrayal, from the gaslit streets of London, and the wooden theatres of Meiji-era Tokyo, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh where other children with gifts—the Talents—have been gathered. There, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, Marlowe, Charlie and the rest of the Talents will discover the truth about their abilities, and the nature of what is stalking them: that the worst monsters sometimes come bearing the sweetest gifts."
It All Comes Down to This: A Novel By: Therese Anne Fowler, read by Barrie Kreinik for Macmillan -- "A warm, keenly perceptive novel of sisterhood, heartbreak, home, and what it takes to remake a life at its halfway point, for fans of Ann Patchett and Emma Straub."
I, Antigone By: Carlo Gébler, read by Stephanie Racine for SAGA Egmot -- "The mythical Greek king, Oedipus, is no stranger to tragedy. As a baby, he is left to die on the mountainside of Thebes by his royal parents after the Oracle of Delphi prophesies that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Pitied by the shepherd tasked with leaving him, Oedipus is given to another royal family and grows up ignorant of his past as a foreign prince. Returning to Thebes by chance many years later, he defeats the Sphinx terrorising the city by answering her riddle and becomes king. From here on a series of tragic events begin to unfurl..."
A History of the Defeated By: Zachary Jernigan, read by Diontae Black for Lethe Press -- "Amur grew up among the Nosi, a matriarchal society where decisions are enforced through violence, until he was chosen by Dorone and taken to live among the elderim, beings of immense power. Stripped of family, increasingly at odds with his own drug-altered body and mind, Amur now lives by the sea, where he hones his fighting skills and contemplates revenge against his former lover."
The Peacekeeper: A Novel By: B.L. Blanchard, read by Darrell Dennis for Brilliance -- "Against the backdrop of a never-colonized North America, a broken Ojibwe detective embarks on an emotional and twisting journey toward solving two murders, rediscovering family, and finding himself."
Woman of Light: A Novel By: Kali Fajardo-Anstine, read by Melinna Bobadilla for Random House -- "A dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West."
Nightcrawling: A Novel By: Leila Mottley, read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt for Random House -- "A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system."
The Kingdom of Sand: A Novel By: Andrew Holleran, read by David Pittu for Macmillan -- "Features a nameless narrator who has survived the death of his friends to AIDS and the loss of his parents to old age and tragedy. Now he must witness the slow demise of a friend just a shade older than he is. Semi-anonymous sexual encounters, gallows humor, and classic films are his tools for staving off the dying of the light. In prose that’s in turn mordantly funny and hauntingly elegiac, Andrew Holleran takes the listener from a video porn shop off Route 301 to the memory of parties in Washington, DC, filled with handsome young men, to the lonely facades of rural Florida."
Cult Classic: A Novel By: Sloane Crosley, read by the author for Macmillan -- "A masterfully crafted tale of love, memory, morality, and mind control, as well as a fresh foray into the philosophy of romance."
The Midcoast: A Novel By: Adam White, read by George Newbern for Random House -- "It’s spring in the tiny town of Damariscotta, a tourist haven on the coast of Maine known for its oysters and antiques. Andrew, a high school English teacher recently returned to the area, has brought his family to Ed and Steph Thatch’s sprawling riverside estate to attend a reception for the Amherst women’s lacrosse team. Back when they were all teenagers, Andrew never could have predicted that Ed, descended from a long line of lobstermen, or Steph, a decent student until she dropped out to start a family, would ever send a daughter to a place like Amherst. But so the tides have turned, and Andrew’s trying hard to admire, more than envy, the view from Ed’s rolling backyard meadow. As Andrew wanders through the Thatches’ house, he stumbles upon a file he’s not supposed to see: photos of a torched body in a burned-out sedan. And when a line of state police cruisers crashes the Thatches’ reception an hour later, Andrew and his neighbors finally begin to see the truth behind Ed and Steph’s remarkable rise. Soon the newspapers are running headlines about the Thatches, and Andrew’s poring over his memories, trying to piece together the story of a family he thought he knew."
Wrath Goddess Sing: A Novel By: Maya Deane, read by Katherine Pucciariello for Harper -- "Drawing on ancient texts and modern archeology to reveal the trans woman's story hidden underneath the well-known myths of The Iliad, Maya Deane's Wrath Goddess Sing weaves a compelling, pitilessly beautiful vision of Achilles' vanished world, perfect for fans of Song of Achilles and the Inheritance trilogy."
After the Lights Go Out By: John Vercher, read by Sean Crisden for HighBridge -- "Xavier "Scarecrow" Wallace, a mixed-race MMA fighter on the wrong side of thirty, is facing the fight of his life. Xavier can no longer deny he is losing his battle with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), or pugilistic dementia. Through the fog of memory loss, migraines, and paranoia, Xavier does his best to stay in shape by training at the Philadelphia gym owned by his cousin-cum-manager, Shot, a retired champion boxer to whom Xavier owes an unpayable debt."
Fruiting Bodies: Stories By: Kathryn Harlan, read by Heather Masters for OrangeSky -- "This genre-bending debut collection of stories constructs eight eerie worlds full of desire, wisdom, and magic blooming amidst decay."
The Maker of Swans By: Paraic O'Donnell, read by Mike Grady and Imogen Wilde for HighBridge -- "In the dead of night, shots ring out over the grounds of a sprawling English estate. The world-weary butler Eustace recognizes the gunman—his longtime employer, Mr. Crowe—and knows he must think and act quickly. Who is the man lying dead on the lawn? Who is the woman in his company? Can he clean up his master's mess like he always has before? Or will this bring a new kind of reckoning?"
Hell Followed with Us By: Andrew Joseph White, read by Shaan Dasani, Graham Halstead, and Avi Roque for Listening Library -- "Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon with which they infected him. But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all."
BACKLIST WATCH:
The Warren By: Brian Evenson (2016), read by Neil Shah for Audible -- "X doesn’t have a name. He thought he had one—or many—but that might be the result of the failing memories of the personalities imprinted within him. Or maybe he really is called X. He’s also not as human as he believes himself to be. But when he discovers the existence of another—above ground, outside the protection of the Warren—X must learn what it means to be human, or face the destruction of their two species."
A Time of Exile: Westlands, Book 1 By: Katharine Kerr (1961), read by Ruth Urquhart for Tantor -- "The world of Deverry: an intricate tapestry of fate, past lives, and unfathomable magic."
Stormbringer: The Elric Saga, Volume 2 By: Michael Moorcock, foreword by Michael Chabon, read by Samuel Roukin
The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book 3 By: Mercedes Lackey (1995), read by Christa Lewis
Nevada: A Novel By: Imogen Binnie (2013), read by the author for Macmillan -- "A beloved and blistering cult classic and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction finally back in print, Nevada follows a disaffected trans woman as she embarks on a cross-country road trip."
House of Blades: The Traveler's Gate Trilogy, Volume 1 By: Will Wight (2013), read by Travis Baldree for Audible -- "Simon can only watch, helpless, as his family is killed and his friends captured by enemy Travelers—men and women who can summon mystical powers from otherworldly Territories. To top it off, another young man from Simon's village discovers that he's a savior prophesied to destroy evil and save the realm."
The Land of Mist By: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Leslie Nicole Ivery for InAudio -- "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Land of Mist continues the story of the fictional character Professor George Edward Challenger. It follows the first two books of the Professor Challenger series, originally published in Strand Magazine in the early 20th century: The Lost World and The Poison Belt."
MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:
The Splendid City By: Karen Heuler, read by Lauryn Allman for Angry Robot -- "A genre-blending story of modern witchcraft, a police state, and WTF characters, for fans of Alice Hoffman and Madeline Miller."
Aurora: A Novel By: David Koepp, read by Rupert Friend for Harper -- "From the author of Cold Storage comes a riveting, eerily plausible thriller, told with the menace and flair of Under the Dome or Project Hail Mary, in which a worldwide cataclysm plays out in the lives of one complicated midwestern family."
The Knave of Secrets By: Alex Livingston, read by Philip Arditti, Montserrat Lombard for Penguin -- "When gambler and failed magician Valen Quinol is given the opportunity to play in the Forbearance Game—the invitation-only game where players gamble with secrets—he can't resist. Or refuse, as it turns out...."
Aeon Rising By: Matthew Mather, read by Ray Porter for Recorded Books -- "An apocalyptic supernova flashes over the South Pole. A mysterious mission sent deep into the Amazon. The story of one family’s struggle to reunite…"
SERIES WATCH:
Farilane: The Rise and Fall, Book 2 By: Michael J. Sullivan, read by Tim Gerard Reynolds,
For the Throne: The Wilderwood, Book 2 By: Hannah Whitten, read by Inés del Castillo
Stephen Leeds: Death & Faxes: Legion By: Brandon Sanderson, read by Oliver Wyman for Recorded Books -- "Chronologically takes place between the novellas Legion and Legion: Lies of the Beholder."
Focal Point: O.C.L.T. Supernatural Thrillers, Book 7 By: Aaron Rosenberg, read by Daniel Bledsoe
Tom Clancy Zero Hour: A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel, Book 9 By: Don Bentley, read by Scott Brick
Infinity: First Colony, Book 13 By: Ken Lozito, read by Scott Aiello
Match Game: Expeditionary Force, Book 14 By: Craig Alanson, read by R.C. Bray
The Touch: Necroscope, Book 15 By: Brian Lumley (2006), read by Joshua Saxon for Crossroad Press
MOST MISSING:
- The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel (Subterranean Press) -- "Collects Kessel's best short fiction, beginning with 1981's "Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!" and ending with 2021's "The Dark Ride." The stories range from flash pieces to novellas, from comedy to existential horror, from far future SF to Kafkaesque fantasy, including 40,000 words of never-before-collected fiction and extensive author's notes."
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