Release Week: 6 September 2022
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Release Week: 6 September 2022
Posted on 2022-09-06 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
Fairy Tale By: Stephen King, read by Seth Numrich for Simon and Schuster -- "The legendary storyteller goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours."
Ithaca: The Songs of Penelope, Book 1 By: Claire North, read by Catrin Walker-Booth for Redhook -- "A daring reimagining that breathes life into ancient myth and gives voice to the women who stand defiant in a world ruled by ruthless men. It’s time for the women of Ithaca to tell their tale."
Solito: A Memoir By: Javier Zamora, read by the author for Random House -- "A young poet tells the unforgettable story of his harrowing migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine in this moving memoir hailed as “the mythic journey of our era”."
Luda: A Novel By: Grant Morrison, read by Vikas Adam for Random House -- "A drag queen initiates her protégée into the magical arts in this phantasmagoric epic, the first novel from the legendary comics writer and New York Times bestselling author."
Book of Extraordinary Tragedies By: Joe Meno, read by Jonathan Todd Ross for Recorded Books -- "Aleksandar and Isobel are siblings and former classical music prodigies, once destined for greatness. As the only Eastern European family growing up on their block on the far southside of Chicago, the pair were inseparable until each was forced to confront the absurdity of tragedy at an early age and abandon their musical ambitions. Now in their twenties, they find themselves encountering ridiculous jobs, unfulfilling romantic relationships, and the outrageousness of ordinary life. Doomed by fate, a family history of failure, an odd mother, an absent father, and a younger brother with a peculiar fondness for catastrophes, the two siblings have all but given up. But when an illness forces Isobel and her three-year-old daughter to move back into the family home, Aleks becomes deeply involved in the endless challenges that surround his relatives. Once Isobel begins playing cello again, Aleks comes to see a world of possibility and wonder in the lives of his extraordinarily complicated family."
If I Survive You By: Jonathan Escoffery, read by Torian Brackett for Macmillan -- "A major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family striving for more in Miami, and introduces a generational storyteller."
Boys, Beasts & Men By: Sam J. Miller, read by Graham Halstead, Krystal Hammond, Alex Boyles, Julia Farhat, Thom Rivera, Andrew Gibson, Traber Burns, Mark Sanderlin, Lisa Flanagan, Vikas Adam, Kelsey Navarro, and Kevin Kenerly for Blackstone -- "In Nebula Award-winning author Sam J. Miller’s devastating debut short-fiction collection—featuring an introduction by Amal El-Mohtar—queer infatuation, inevitable heartbreak, and brutal revenge seamlessly intertwine. Whether innocent, guilty, or not even human, the boys, beasts, and men roaming through Miller’s gorgeously crafted worlds can destroy listeners, yet leave them wanting more."
The Bad Angel Brothers: A Novel By: Paul Theroux, read by Joe Knezevich for Harper -- "From the legendary American master comes a brilliant new novel of chilling psychological depth, the tale of a younger brother whose lifelong rivalry with his older brother—a powerful lawyer with a pattern of gleefully vicious betrayals—culminates in the ultimate plan: murder."
The Weight of Blood By: Tiffany D. Jackson, read by JD Jackson, Sarah Mollo-Christensen, Joy Nash, Christopher Salazar, and Karen Malina White for Harper -- "When Springville residents—at least the ones still alive—are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation . . . Maddy did it. An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she's dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington. After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High's racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school's first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it's possible to have a normal life. But some of her classmates aren't done with her just yet. And what they don't know is that Maddy still has another secret . . . one that will cost them all their lives."
Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires By: Douglas Rushkoff, read by the author for Recorded Books -- "Traces the origins of The Mindset in science and technology through its current expression in missions to Mars, island bunkers, AI futurism, and the metaverse. In a dozen urgent, electrifying chapters, he confronts tech utopianism, the datafication of all human interaction, and the exploitation of that data by corporations. Through fascinating characters—master programmers who want to remake the world from scratch as if redesigning a video game and bankers who return from Burning Man convinced that incentivized capitalism is the solution to environmental disasters—Rushkoff explains why those with the most power to change our current trajectory have no interest in doing so. And he shows how recent forms of anti-mainstream rebellion—QAnon, for example, or meme stocks—reinforce the same destructive order."
SERIES WATCH:
The Martyr: The Covenant of Steel, Book 2 By: Anthony Ryan, read by Steven Brand for Orbit -- "Deadly feuds and ancient secrets spell war."
Travel by Bullet: The Dispatcher, Book 3 By: John Scalzi, read by Zachary Quinto for Audible Originals -- "When Tony is called to a Chicago emergency room by an old friend and fellow dispatcher, he is suddenly and unwillingly thrown into a whirlpool of schemes and plots involving billions of dollars, with vast caches of wealth ranging from real estate to cryptocurrency up for grabs."
Days of Blood and Fire: The Westlands, Book 3 By: Katharine Kerr (1993), read by Ruth Urquhart for Tantor -- "In the peaceful land of the Rhiddaer, Jahdo, the rat-catcher's son stumbles upon a secret meeting between a city council man and a dangerous, mysterious woman. Suddenly the boy is tangled in a web of intrigue and black magic that drags him far from home."
Hell and Back: Longmire Mysteries, Book 18 By: Craig Johnson, read by George Guidall for Recorded Books -- "Picking up where Daughter of the Morning Star left off, the next Longmire novel finds the sheriff digging further into the mysteries of the wandering without—a mythical all-knowing spiritual being that devours souls."
BACKLIST WATCH:
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (1920), read by Peter Noble for Dreamscape -- "Best known for its influence on literary greats such as C. S. Lewis and later J. R. R. Tolkein, A Voyage to Arcturus explores the nature of good and evil by combining fantasy, philosophy, and science fiction."
The Eyes Have It and Other Stories By: Philip K. Dick, read by JS Arquin for AmazonClassics on Brilliance -- "First published in sci-fi magazines of the 1950s, these early stories from Philip K. Dick showcase the budding author’s uncanny ability to forge strange new paths into alternate realities. Already in command of the themes and techniques he would later employ in his novels, Dick here envisions alien infiltrations, far-off worlds at war, nightmarish totalitarian societies, and uncanny depths lying just beneath seemingly commonplace realities. Fantastical, sinister, paranoid, and darkly amusing, these are seminal works in Dick’s justly celebrated career."
Old Indian Legends By: Zitkála-Šá (1901), read by Katie Anvil Rich for AmazonClassics on Brilliance -- "In this exquisite collection of children’s folktales, Zitkála-Šá shares the Sioux legends that were handed down to her through generations of Yankton storytellers. These tales display the wide range of insights and observations that accrue to such stories through repeated iteration, but they also benefit from the sharp ear and finely tuned sensibility of Zitkála-Šá as a writer. Her characters seem to speak to us—often crying out to us—in the same tones that Zitkála-Šá must once have heard. Whether or not readers have any previous familiarity with the trickster Iktomi or the many animals who seek to outwit him, Zitkála-Šá’s work has the power to charm, enchant, and enlighten."
Sand By: Hugh Howey (2014), read by Jeremy Arthur for Harper -- A new omnibus edition ahead of the October-set release of a new novel in the setting: "The old world is buried. A new one has been forged atop the shifting dunes. Here in this land of howling wind and infernal sand, four siblings find themselves scattered and lost. Their father was a sand diver, one of the elite few who could travel deep beneath the desert floor and bring up the relics and scraps that keep their people alive. But their father is gone. And the world he left behind might be next."
MORE FICTION:
The Attic Child: A Novel by Lola Jaye, read by the author with Lucian Msamati and Nneka Okoye for Harper -- "Early 1900s London: Taken from his homeland, twelve-year-old Celestine spends most of the time locked away in the attic of a large house by the sea. The only time Celestine isn’t bound by confines of the small space is when he is acting as an unpaid servant to English explorer Sir Richard Babbington. As the years pass, he desperately clings on to memories of his family in Africa, even as he struggles to remember his mother’s face, and sometimes his real name. 1974: Lowra, a young orphan girl born into wealth and privilege whose fortunes have now changed, finds herself trapped in the same attic. Searching for a ray of light in the darkness of the attic, Lowra finds under the floorboards an old-fashioned pen, a porcelain doll, a beaded necklace, and a message carved on the wall, written in an unidentifiable language. Providing comfort for her when all hope is lost, these clues will lead her to uncover the secrets of the attic."
Killers of a Certain Age By: Deanna Raybourn, read by Jane Oppenheimer and Christina Delaine for Penguin -- "They’ve spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're 60 years old, four women friends can’t just retire—it’s kill or be killed."
The Marriage Portrait: A Novel By: Maggie O'Farrell, read by Genevieve Gaunt and the author for Random House -- "From the author of the breakout New York Times best seller Hamnet—winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award—an electrifying new novel set in Renaissance Italy, and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de Medici."
The Enigma Affair: A Novel By: Charlie Lovett, read by Nicol Zanzarella for Blackstone -- "In this propulsive historical thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Escaping Dreamland, a librarian and a professional assassin team up to solve a seventy-five-year-old Nazi mystery and stop a nefarious opponent from wreaking havoc on the world."
MORE SCI-FI, FANTASY, and HORROR:
Lost in Time By: A.G. Riddle, read by John Skelley for Recorded Books -- "From the worldwide bestselling author of The Extinction Trials, Departure, and The Atlantis Gene comes a new kind of sci-fi thriller: a time-travel murder mystery with a twist you'll never see coming. Control the Past. Save the Future."
Kraken Calling: A Novel By: Aric McBay, read by Eleanor Caudill for Tantor -- "In 2028, environmental activists hesitate to take the fight to the extreme of violent revolution. Twenty years later, with the natural environment now seriously degraded, the revolution is brought to the activists, rather than the other way around, by an authoritarian government willing to resort to violence and willing to let the majority suffer from hunger and poverty in order to control its citizens when the government can no longer provide them with a decent quality of life."
Exiles: Exiles, Book 1 By: Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders, read by Aida Reluzco for Brilliance -- "An experiment in survival awaits estranged twin sisters in a thrilling science fiction adventure by the authors of The Rule of One series."
Norylska Groans By: Michael R. Fletcher and Clayton W. Snyder, read by Curt Bonnem for Tantor -- "In a city where winter reigns amid the fires of industry and war, soot and snow conspire to conceal centuries of death and deception. Katyusha Leonova, desperate to restore her family name, takes a job with Norylska's brutal police force. To support his family, Genndy Antonov finds bloody work with a local crime syndicate. As bodies fall, the two discover a foul truth hidden beneath layers of deception and violence: Come the thaw, what was buried will be revealed."
Lemuria By: Greig Beck, read by Sean Mangan for Bolinda -- "On a desolate beach in far northern Scotland, the winter storms have been washing up all manner of things since time began. But buried in the centre of one smaller iceberg is a shard of ancient Viking pottery telling a partial tale of a hidden mysterious island beyond the ice and mist, that was home to a great treasure and even greater horrors. Thawing in the same block of ice was a rotting flap of skin that refused to be identified but had similar skin patterns to a creature not seen for 100 million years. Now, Troy Strom and the enigmatic Elle Burgan race to find the mysterious island of legend, while staying ahead of a group of brutal killers who claim to be the rightful owners of the greatest prize of all—Odin’s heart."
Vamps: Fresh Blood By: Nicole Arend, read by Gerard Logan for Simon and Schuster -- "Welcome to VAMPS, an elite academy in the Swiss Alps for the children of the wealthiest and most powerful vampire families."
Our Shadows Have Claws: 15 Latin American Monster Stories eidted by Yamile Saied Méndez and Amparo Ortiz, read by Frankie Corzo and Marisa Blake for Algonquin -- "From zombies to cannibals to death incarnate, this cross-genre anthology offers something for every monster lover. In Our Shadows Have Claws, bloodthirsty vampires are hunted by a quick-witted slayer; children are stolen from their beds by “el viejo de la bolsa” while a military dictatorship steals their parents; and anyone you love, absolutely anyone, might be a shapeshifter waiting to hunt."
INDIE WATCH:
A River Divided By: George Paxinos, read by Emma Grant Williams for Heads and Tales -- "Evelyn, a geneticist and amateur archeologist, makes a formidable discovery in Israel, the consequence of which is the birth of Christopher and José, identical twins raised apart, one in affluent Sydney, the other in the slums of Buenos Aires. The twins, unaware of each other’s existence or their origin, will meet for a moment only, in the Amazon, adversaries in the battle for the forest. Standing by both twins is Lorena, a medical student who under the claws of a dictatorship organizes the student environmental resistance."
Intergalactic Exterminators, Inc. By: Ash Bishop, read by Scott Brick, Suzanne Freeman for CamCat -- "When Russ Wesley finds an unusual artifact in his grandfather’s collection of rare antiquities, the last thing he expects is for it to draw the attention of a ferocious alien from a distant planet. Equally surprising is the adventurous team of intergalactic exterminators dispatched to deal with the alien threat. They’re a little wild, and a little reckless. Worse yet, they’re so impressed with Russ’s marksmanship that they insist he join their squad . . . whether he wants to or not."
Queen of Eventide By: Matthew Ward, read by Kristin Atherton for The Tower of Stars -- "For Maddie Lincoln, returning to her childhood home was an opportunity to retake control. Instead, she becomes trapped in an ancient struggle between mythic forces. A struggle in which her life—or death—might be the deciding factor. Pursued through Nottingham's mist-shrouded streets, Maddie is drawn into Eventide: a realm where legends walk and perception shapes reality. As the hidden dangers of Eventide bleed into the material realm, Nottingham falls under the sway of a vengeful, malevolent queen. It falls to Maddie to stop the chaos from spreading—no easy task when nothing and no one are precisely what they seem."
1414º by Paul Bradley Carr, read by Emily Lawrence for Snafublishing LLC -- "Journalist Lou McCarthy has spent her career exposing powerful predators in Silicon Valley. Her crusade has cost her everything: her apartment, friends, relationships, and any hope of promotion. And for what? Readers don't care, her boss and workmates pity her, and the billionaire bro-ciopaths she writes about continue to fail upwards. But when two of her highest-profile subjects are killed on the same night, their deaths staged as gruesome public suicides, Lou's work is suddenly and violently thrust into the spotlight."
The Other Place: The Glass, Book 1 by Nathan Hystad, read by R.C. Bray for Podium -- "When a mysterious invisible barrier appears on a Montana ranch, no one knows what to think of it."
Blood Wisp By: Sarina Langer, read by Adriene Arce -- "A young woman struggling with her Shadow. A bloodthirsty demon fighting for control. Neither prepared to lose against the other."
The Dragon Thief Box Set: Books 1-3 by D.K. Holmberg, read by John Pirhalla for ASH -- "Zarinth is a dangerous city at the edge of the kingdom, illuminated by the constant fire of the nearby volcano Ishantil. For thief Ty, it’s more than a city filled with valuable ancient dragon relics. It’s the home he could never leave. Ty wants one last score before finally leaving the city—and his past behind. All while the notorious Dragon Thief chases the same prize. The Dragon Thief has a reputation for a reason, but Ty begins to think there’s more to the job than he ever expected. If he succeeds, he might stop a war—and learn a truth long hidden from him about his connection to dragons."
MOST MISSING:
No Game for Knights: The Dark Side of SF and Fantasy Heroes edited by Larry Correia and Kacey Ezell (Baen) -- "In a world of criminals, thugs, con artists, cheats, and swindlers, there must be a man to stand against the powers of darkness and corruption. A man not afraid to walk the mean streets—whether they be those of 1930s Los Angeles, an ancient fantasy realm, or some far-flung planet of a future star empire. He is a man who knows that a “good man” is not always a “nice guy.” But when the chips are down, he understands that a hero does the right thing, even if it means losing everything."
The Advantaged by Mark Allan Gunnells (Crossroad Press) -- "Is there any such thing as a harmless white lie? Silas thinks so when he lets the kids he meets on the Furman University campus think he is a fellow student. He figures he'll never see them again, and it feels good to be thought of as an "equal" to such intelligent and passionate young people. What could be the harm? Only Silas learns that even the smallest fib has a way of snowballing until it is an avalanche roaring down the mountain at you. He becomes entangled with the group, and things become even more complicated as he starts to fall in love with Kris, a relationship at once true but built on the kernel of a lie."