Release Week: 10 January 2023
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Release Week: 10 January 2023
Posted on 2023-01-10 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
Lost in the Moment and Found: Wayward Children, Book 8 By: Seanan McGuire, read by Jesse Vilinsky for Macmillan -- "Welcome to the Shop Where the Lost Things Go. If you ever lost a sock, you’ll find it here. If you ever wondered about favorite toy from childhood... it’s probably sitting on a shelf in the back. And the headphones that you swore this time you’d keep safe? You guessed it.... Antoinette has lost her father. Metaphorically. He’s not in the shop, and she’ll never see him again. But when Antsy finds herself lost (literally, this time), she discovers that however many doors open for her, leaving the Shop for good might not be as simple as it sounds. And stepping through those doors exacts a price."
Bad Cree: A Novel By: Jessica Johns, read by Tanis Parenteau for Random House -- "In this gripping, horror-laced debut, a young Cree woman’s dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home."
Everybody Knows: A Novel By: Jordan Harper, read by Megan Tusing and William DeMeritt for Mulholland -- "Welcome to Mae Pruett’s Los Angeles, where “Nobody talks. But everybody whispers.” As a “black-bag” publicist tasked not with letting the good news out but keeping the bad news in, Mae works for one of LA’s most powerful and sought-after crisis PR firms, at the center of a sprawling web of lawyers, PR flaks, and private security firms she calls “The Beast.” They protect the rich and powerful and depraved by any means necessary. After her boss is gunned down in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel in a random attack, Mae takes it upon herself to investigate and runs headfirst into The Beast’s lawless machinations and the twisted systems it exists to perpetuate. It takes her on a roving neon joyride through a Los Angeles full of influencers pumped full of pills and fillers; sprawling mansions footsteps away from sprawling homeless encampments; crooked cops and mysterious wrecking crews in the middle of the night."
The Deluge By: Stephen Markley, read by Corey Brill, Danny Campbell, Gibson Frazier, Stephen Graybill, Soneela Nankani, Joy Osmanski, Melissa Redmond, Aida Reluzco, André Santana, Neil Shah, Aven Shore, Shakira Shute, Pete Simonelli, and Shaun Taylor-Corbett for Simon and Schuster -- "From the bestselling author of Ohio, a masterful American epic charting a near future approaching collapse and a nascent but strengthening solidarity."
Moonrise over New Jessup By: Jamila Minnicks, read by Karen Chilton for Algonquin -- "It’s 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion—or worse—from the home they both hold dear."
The Dreamtime By: Mstyslav Chernov, translated by Peter Leonard and Felix Helbing, read by Daniel Gamburg for Tantor -- "A unique point of view on the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine 2014, through four intertwining narratives: a guilt-ridden doctor trying to exorcise his demons by exposing himself to war; a young woman tending to her ailing father as the bombs fall around them in Russian-occupied Slovyansk; a mysterious sociopath playing a cat-and-mouse game; and a forensic expert solving a murder case while trying to save her marriage with a discharged soldier. As these threads unfurl, through harrowing scenes of personal and collective trauma, an enigmatic pattern emerges."
The Survivalists: A Novel By: Kashana Cauley, read by Bahni Turpin for Brilliance -- "A single Black lawyer puts her career and personal moral code at risk when she moves in with her coffee entrepreneur boyfriend and his doomsday-prepping roommates in a novel that's packed with tension, curiosity, humor, and wit."
Phaedra By: Laura Shepperson, read by Jade Wheeler, Mary Helen Gallucci, Julia Atwood, Mark Owen, Erin DeWard, Leon Nixon, Nicky Endres for Dreamscape -- "Phaedra has been cast to the side all her life: daughter of an adulteress, sister of a monster, and now unwilling bride to the much-older, power-hungry Theseus. Young, naïve, and idealistic, she has accepted her lot in life, resigned to existing under the sinister weight of Theseus’s control and the constant watchful eye of her handsome stepson Hippolytus."
The Daughters of Izdihar: The Alamaxa Duology, Book 1 By: Hadeer Elsbai, read by Priya Ayyar and Nikki Massoud for Harper -- "The first book in an incredibly powerful new duology, set wholly in a new world, but inspired by modern Egyptian history, about two young women—Nehal, a spoiled aristocrat used to getting what she wants and Giorgina, a poor bookshop worker used to having nothing—who find they have far more in common, particularly in their struggle for the rights of women and their ability to fight for it with forbidden elemental magic."
Dark One: Forgotten By: Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells, read by Rachel Jacobs, Sophie Oda, Keith Szarabajka, Kaleo Griffith, Avery Waddell, Kelli Tager, John H Mayer, Mia Barron, Luis Bermudez, William Elsman, Nan McNamara, Jim Meskimen, and Roxanne Hernandez for Recorded Books -- "Every year in the United States there are fifteen thousand murders, give or take a few hundred. Of those, nearly forty percent go unsolved. In this six-part audio series, Christina Walsh is determined to change that. After struggling with the loss of her father, she sets out on a journey to bring the justice that has eluded her to the families of other victims. And she starts with a particularly strange case. The murder of world-renowned violinist Leona McPherson who mysteriously disappeared years ago after a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles."
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries: Book One of the Emily Wilde Series By: Heather Fawcett, read by Ell Potter and Michael Dodds for Random House -- "A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love in the start of a heartwarming and enchanting new fantasy series."
Observer By: Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress, read by Stacey Glemboski for Story Plant -- "Caro Soames-Watkins, a talented neurosurgeon whose career has been upended by controversy, is jobless, broke, and the sole supporter of her sister, a single mother with a severely disabled child. When she receives a strange job offer from Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sam Watkins, a great uncle she barely knows, desperation forces her to take it in spite of serious suspicions."
Liar, Dreamer, Thief By: Maria Dong, read by Hannah Choi for Grand Central -- "A young woman’s carefully constructed fantasy world implodes in this brilliantly conceived novel that blurs distinctions between right and wrong, comedy and tragedy, imagination and reality."
The Night Travelers: A Novel By: Armando Lucas Correa, read by Edoardo Ballerini for Simon and Schuster -- "Four generations of women experience love, loss, war, and hope from the rise of Nazism to the Cuban Revolution and finally, the fall of the Berlin Wall."
The House of Wolves By: James Patterson and Mike Lupica, read by Ellen Archer for Little, Brown and Company -- "Jenny Wolf’s murdered father leaves her in charge of a billion-dollar empire—and a family more ruthless than Succession's Roys and Yellowstone’s Duttons."
Weird Tales Magazine No. 366: Sword & Sorcery Issue (2022), read by Scott Aiello, John Pirhalla, Simon Vance, Paul Woodson, Hillary Huber, Roger Clark, Tim Campbell, Chelsea Stephens, Dion Graham, Joe Hempel, Steve West, James Langton, Neil Hellegers, Natalie Naudus, and Peter Berkrot for Blackstone
NON-FICTION WATCH:
Spare By: Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex, read by the author for Random House -- "It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on."
Never Forget Our People Were Always Free: A Parable of American Healing By: Benjamin Todd Jealous, read by the author for Harper -- "The son of parents who had to leave Maryland because their cross-racial marriage was illegal, Ben Jealous’ lively, courageous, and empathetic storytelling calls on every American to look past deeply-cut divisions and recognize we are all in the same boat now."
YA WATCH:
- Cool. Awkward. Black. edited by Karen Strong, stories by Tashi Thomas, Langston Darby, Karen Strong, Roseanne A. Brown, Elise Bryant, Julian Winters, Ibi Zoboi, Desiree S. Evans, Isaac Fitzsimons, Lamar Giles, Jordan Ifueko, Leah Johnson, Amanda Joy, Kwame Mbalia, and Tracy Deonn, read by Tashi Thomas, Langston Darby, and Karen Strong for Listening Library -- "Real or imaginary, geekdom is where it's at in this multi-genre YA anthology that celebrates "the geek," with stories by some of today's top bestselling, critically acclaimed Black authors."
BACKLIST WATCH:
The Hopkins Manuscript: A Novel By: R.C. Sherriff (1939), read by Nicholas Boulton and Lameece Issaq for Simon and Schuster -- "A stunning speculative novel about a small English village preparing of the end of the world."
The Great Santini By: Pat Conroy (1976), read by Michael Crouch for Harper -- I suppose this supplants the Dick Hill narration: "This is the story of Bull Meecham, the epitome of the Marine officer. Demanding, authoritarian, as tough a disciplinarian at home as at the base, Bull is a difficult man to please, and even harder to love. This is also the story of Ben Meecham, Bull’s oldest son. A gifted athlete whose best never satisfies his father, Ben must balance his own ambition with his father’s expectations–and decide what course he will chart for himself and what kind of man he will become. Piercing, bittersweet, and unforgettable, The Great Santini is Pat Conroy’s semi-autobiographical lens into fathers and sons, and the powerful legacy one man can leave behind." Also out this week are new editions of Water Is Wide (1972, read by Jeremy Arthur) and The Lords of Discipline (1980, read by Roger Wayne).
Beacon 23 By: Hugh Howey, read by Peter Ganim for Blackstone -- "For centuries, men and women have manned lighthouses to ensure the safe passage of ships. It is a lonely job and a thankless one for the most part. Until something goes wrong. Until a ship is in distress. In the twenty-third century, this job has moved into outer space. A network of beacons allows ships to travel across the Milky Way at many times the speed of light. These beacons are built to be robust. They never break down. They never fail. At least, they aren’t supposed to."
SERIES WATCH:
Hell Bent: Alex Stern, Book 2 By: Leigh Bardugo, read by Lauren Fortgang and Michael David Axtell for Macmillan -- "Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to Ninth House."
Son of the Poison Rose: Kagen the Damned, Book 2 By: Jonathan Maberry, read by Ray Porter for Macmillan -- "The Silver Empire is in ruins. War is in the wind. Kagen and his allies are on the run from the Witch-king. Wild magic is running rampant everywhere. Spies and secret cabals plot from the shadows of golden thrones. Kagen Vale is the most wanted man in the world, with a death sentence on his head and a reward for him—dead or alive—that would tempt a saint. The Witch-king has new allies who bring a terrible weapon—a cursed disease that drives people into a murderous rage. If the disease is allowed to spread, the whole of the West will tear itself apart."
The Sapphire Altar: Vagrant Gods, Book 2 By: David Dalglish, read by Devante Johnson, Imani Parks for Orbit -- "A usurped prince must master the magic of shadows in order to reclaim his kingdom and his people."
MOST MISSING:
The Witches of Vardo by Anya Bergman (Bonnier Books UK) -- While the UK Audible store has this one (Narrated by: Sofia Engstrand) no sign yet of a US Release: "Norway, 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. After recently widowed Zigri's affair with the local merchant is discovered, she is sent to the fortress at Vardø to be tried as a witch. Zigri's daughter Ingeborg sets off into the wilderness to try to bring her mother back home. Accompanying her on this quest is Maren - herself the daughter of a witch - whose wild nature and unconquerable spirit gives Ingeborg the courage to venture into the unknown, and to risk all she has to save her family. Also captive in the fortress is Anna Rhodius, once the King of Denmark's mistress, who has been sent in disgrace to the island of Vardø. What will she do - and who will she betray - to return to her privileged life at court? These Witches of Vardø are stronger than even the King. In an age weighted against them, they refuse to be victims. They will have their justice. All they need do is show their power."
The Kudzu Queen by Mimi Herman (Regal House) -- "Fifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T. Cullowee, the Kudzu King, arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina in 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu—claiming that it will improve the soil, feed cattle at almost no cost, even cure headaches—Mattie is ready. Mr. Cullowee is determined to sell the entire county on the future of kudzu, and organizes a kudzu festival, complete with a beauty pageant. Mattie is determined to be crowned Kudzu Queen and capture the attentions of the Kudzu King. As she learns more about Cullowee, however, she discovers that he, like the kudzu he promotes, has a dark and predatory side. When she finds she is not the only one threatened, she devises a plan to bring him down."