Release Week: 26 July 2022
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Release Week: 26 July 2022
Posted on 2022-07-26 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
A Half-Built Garden By: Ruthanna Emrys, read by Kate Handford for Macmillan -- "A literary descendent of Ursula K. Le Guin, Ruthanna Emrys crafts a novel of extraterrestrial diplomacy and urgent climate repair bursting with quiet, tenuous hope and an underlying warmth. A Half-Built Garden depicts a world worth building towards, a humanity worth saving from itself, and an alien community worth entering with open arms. It's not the easiest future to build, but it's one that just might be in reach."
Life Ceremony: Stories By: Sayaka Murata (2019), translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, read by Emily Woo Zeller, Jeena Yi, Nancy Wu, Natalie Naudus, Eunice Wong, and Pun Bandhu for Blackstone -- "The long-awaited first short story-collection by the author of the cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, tales of weird love, heartfelt friendships, and the unsettling nature of human existence."
The Book of Gothel By: Mary McMyne, read by Vanessa Johansson for Redhook -- "This dark, lush, and beautiful reimagining of the story of Rapunzel presents the witch’s perspective in this tale of motherhood, magic, and the stories we pass down to our children."
A Strange and Stubborn Endurance By: Foz Meadows, read by James Fouhey and Vikas Adam for Macmillan -- "Velasin vin Aaro never planned to marry at all, let alone a girl from neighboring Tithena. When an ugly confrontation reveals his preference for men, Vel fears he’s ruined the diplomatic union before it can even begin. But while his family is ready to disown him, the Tithenai envoy has a different solution: for Vel to marry his former intended’s brother instead. Caethari Aeduria always knew he might end up in a political marriage, but his sudden betrothal to a man from Ralia, where such relationships are forbidden, comes as a shock. With an unknown faction willing to kill to end their new alliance, Vel and Cae have no choice but to trust each other. Survival is one thing, but love—as both will learn—is quite another."
Old Country By: Matt Query and Harrison Query, read by Juliette Goglia and Kiff VandenHeuvel for Grand Central -- "Based on the Reddit sensation, a horror thriller of a young couple who buys the perfect, secluded house—only to discover the terror within."
Denial By: Jon Raymond, read by George Newbern for Simon and Schuster -- "The year is 2052. Climate change has had a predictably devastating effect: Venice submerged, cyclones in Oklahoma, megafires in South America. Yet it could be much worse. Two decades earlier, the global protest movement known as the Upheavals helped break the planet’s fossil fuel dependency, and the subsequent Nuremberg-like Toronto Trials convicted the most powerful oil executives and lobbyists for crimes against the environment. Not all of them. A few executives escaped arrest and went into hiding, including pipeline mastermind Robert Cave. Now, a Pacific Northwest journalist named Jack Henry who works for a struggling media company has received a tip that Cave is living in Mexico. Hoping the story will save his job, he travels south and, using a fake identity, makes contact with the fugitive."
BACKLIST WATCH:
- The Last Unicorn By: Peter S. Beagle (1968), with a new introduction by Patrick Rothfuss, read by Orlagh Cassidy and Joshua Kane for Penguin -- "The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone... ...so she ventured out from the safety of the enchanted forest on a quest for others of her kind. Joined along the way by the bumbling magician Schmendrick and the indomitable Molly Grue, the unicorn learns all about the joys and sorrows of life and love before meeting her destiny in the castle of a despondent monarch—and confronting the creature that would drive her kind to extinction...."
MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:
Hot Moon: Apollo Rising, Book 1 By: Alan Smale, read by Vivienne Leheny for Recorded Books -- "From the Sidewise Award-winning author of the acclaimed Clash of Eagles trilogy comes an alternate 1979 where the United States and the Soviets have permanent Moon bases, orbiting space stations, and crewed spy satellites supported by frequent rocket launches."
Three Miles Down By: Harry Turtledove, read by George Guidall for Recorded Books -- "From New York Times bestselling author Harry Turtledove, the modern master of alternate history, a novel of alien contact set in the tumultuous year of the Watergate scandal."