Release Week: 28 February 2023
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Release Week: 28 February 2023
Posted on 2023-02-28 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
Homestead: A Novel By: Melinda Moustakis, read by Ariel Blake for Macmillan -- "Anchorage, 1956. When Marie and Lawrence first lock eyes at the Moose Lodge, they are immediately drawn together. But when they decide to marry, days later, they are more in love with the promise of homesteading than anything. For Lawrence, his parcel of 150 acres is an opportunity to finally belong in a world that has never delivered on its promise. For Marie, the land is an escape from the empty future she sees spinning out before her, and a risky bet is better than none at all."
The Angel Maker: A Novel By: Alex North, read by Rosalie Craig for Macmillan -- "Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever. Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more."
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi: A Novel By: Shannon Chakraborty, read by Lameece Issaq and Amin El Gamal for Harper -- "Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural. But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum."
The Magician's Daughter By: H. G. Parry, read by Rose McPhilemy for Redhook -- "Off the coast of Ireland sits a legendary island hidden by magic. A place of ruins and ancient trees, sea-salt air and fairy lore, Hy-Brasil is the only home Biddy has ever known. Washed up on its shore as a baby, Biddy lives a quiet life with her guardian, the mercurial magician Rowan. A life she finds increasingly stifling. One night, Rowan fails to return from his mysterious travels. To find him, Biddy must venture into the outside world for the first time. But Rowan has powerful enemies—forces who have hoarded the world’s magic and have set their sights on the magician’s many secrets. Biddy may be the key to stopping them. Yet the closer she gets to answers, the more she questions everything she’s ever believed about Rowan, her past, and the nature of magic itself."
The Unfortunates: A Novel By: J K Chukwu, read by Deanna Anthony for Harper -- "An edgy, bitingly funny debut about a queer, half-Nigerian college sophomore who, enraged and exhausted by the racism at her elite college, is determined to reveal the truth about The Unfortunates—the unlucky subset of Black undergrads who Just. Keep. Disappearing."
The Woman Who Climbed Trees: A Novel By: Smriti Ravindra, read by Deepa Samuel for Harper -- "When she marries a man from Nepal, Meena must leave behind her family and home in India and forge a new identity in a strange place. The Woman Who Climbed Trees follows her, the women who surround her, and the daughter she eventually raises, as they carefully navigate the uncertain tides of their diasporic lives."
The Way the Light Bends By: Lorraine Wilson, read by Helen McAlpine for SAGA Egmont -- "When their brother dies, sisters Freya and Tamsin lose the one thing that connected them. But when Tamsin goes missing a year later, Freya is determined to find her. Guided by a trail of diary entries, revelations are unveiled about the grief that drove Tamsin to the edge of a cliff - and into the arms of a mysterious stranger... A man who promised hope but demanded sacrifice."
Dust: The Obelisks Series, Book 1 By: Ari Marmell, read by Cindy Kay for Blackstone -- "For Flight Engineer Cynthia Han and her fellow astronauts aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 81 has proved as mundane as space travel ever gets. Yes, this would be Cynthia’s final NASA mission, for reasons she has so far kept from the rest of the crew; and yes, the latest billionaire “space tourist” has managed to irritate everyone on board. Still, none of them could have asked for a smoother experience. Until the morning they wake up to silence. All communication with Earth, gone. From half a dozen different agencies with multiple installations and redundancies across the globe, there is simply… nothing. And through the viewports of the ISS, only the thick veil of churning, lightning-veined dust to suggest the Earth remains at all."
The Levee By: William Kent Krueger, read by JD Jackson for Simon and Schuster -- "It’s 1927, and the most devastating flood in American history has swelled the Mississippi River to a width of eighty miles. In an attempt to save a family trapped by the rising water, four men in a tiny rowboat battle the treacherous flow: three are convicts, on loan from the local prison and pressed into service; the fourth, the leader of the team, is driven by his own hidden motives. But to their surprise upon arrival at Ballymore, an ancestral home protected by a high, circular levee, not everyone in the family feels the need to be saved."
The Secrets of Hartwood Hall: A Novel By: Katie Lumsden, read by Olivia Vinall for Penguin -- "It’s 1852 and Margaret Lennox, a young widow, attempts to escape the shadows of her past by taking a position as governess to an only child, Louis, at an isolated country house in the west of England. But Margaret soon starts to feel that something isn’t quite right. There are strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants, and an abandoned east wing. Even stranger is the local gossip surrounding Mrs. Eversham, Louis’s widowed mother, who is deeply distrusted in the village."
You've Lost a Lot of Blood By: Eric LaRocca, read by Eric Michael Summerer for Tantor -- "Each precious thing I show you in this book is a holy relic from the night we both perished—the night when I combed you from my hair and watered the moon with your blood."
NON-FICTION PICK:
- Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May, read by Rebecca Lee for Books on Tape -- "Many of us feel trapped in a grind of constant change: rolling news cycles, the chatter of social media, our families split along partisan lines. We feel fearful and tired, on edge in our bodies, not quite knowing what has us perpetually depleted. For Katherine May, this low hum of fatigue and anxiety made her wonder what she was missing. Could there be a different way to relate to the world, one that would allow her to feel more rested and at ease, even as seismic changes unfold on the planet? Might there be a way for all of us to move through life with curiosity and tenderness, sensitized to the subtle magic all around?"
BACKLIST WATCH:
Mistress of Mellyn By: Victoria Holt (1960, 1988), read by Henrietta Meire for Tantor -- "Mount Mellyn stood as proud and magnificent as she had envisioned . . . But what about its master—Connan TreMellyn? Was Martha Leigh's new employer as romantic as his name sounded? As she approached the sprawling mansion towering above the cliffs of Cornwall, an odd chill of apprehension overcame her."
Smoke City By: Keith Rosson (2018), read by Joshua Saxon for Meerkat -- "Marvin Deitz has some serious problems. His mob-connected landlord is strong-arming him out of his storefront. His therapist has concerns about his stability. He's compelled to volunteer at the local Children's Hospital even though it breaks his heart every week. Oh, and he's also the guilt-ridden reincarnation of Geoffroy Thérage, the French executioner who lit Joan of Arc's pyre in 1431. He's just seen a woman on a Los Angeles talk show claiming to be Joan, and absolution seems closer than it's ever been . . . but how will he find her?"
Athena's Child: The Grecian Women Series, Book 1 By: Hannah Lynn (2020), read by Helen Keeley for Tantor -- "Daughter. Sister. Priestess. Protector. Son. Brother. Demi-God. Hero. Monsters. Gifted and burdened with beauty far beyond that of mere mortals, Medusa seeks sanctuary with the Goddess Athena. But when the lustful gaze of mighty Poseidon falls upon her, even the Temple of Athena cannot protect her."
The Earth Remains: A Novel By: Shelley Burchfield (2021), read by Teri Clark Linden for Scribd -- "In tumultuous 1860, South Carolina farmer Polly struggles to hold onto both her land and the slaves who plant and tend her valuable cotton, while still reeling from the murder of her young brothers years before. This horrific crime has gone unsolved and unpunished—until now. When details of the brutal murder come to light, she must make decisions that will change not only her own life, but the lives of every person on her farm."
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: Volume Two edited by Paula Guran (2021), read by James Fouhey and Julienne Irons for Tantor -- "The supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real . . . tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle us. Chosen from a wide variety of venues, these stories are as eclectic and varied as shadows."
SERIES WATCH:
The Foreign Exchange: Mambo Reina, Book 2 By: Veronica G. Henry, read by Robin Miles for Brilliance -- "A Vodou priestess turned amateur sleuth investigating a ritual murder is embroiled in an insidious case of corruption that reaches beyond the shadows of New Orleans."
A Day of Fallen Night: Roots of Chaos, Book 0.5 By: Samantha Shannon, read by Ellie Kendrick, Sheila Atim, Thoren Ferguson, Hanako Footman, Samantha Shannon, and Saara El-Arifi for Bloomsbury -- "In A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon sweeps listeners back to the universe of The Priory of the Orange Tree and into the lives of four women, showing us a course of events that shaped their world for generations to come."
The Eidolon: The Magnus Academy, Book 1 By: K.D. Edwards, read by Josh Hurley for Audible -- "In the epic conclusion to K.D. Edwards' first blockbuster trilogy in the Tarot Sequence series, audiences followed Rune on a race against time as an age-old threat rose to threaten the city of New Atlantis. Now, for the first time, The Eidolon tells what really happened to Max, Quinn, and Anna as prisoners in the Hourglass Throne's base of operation."
Hell Divers X: Fallout By: Nicholas Sansbury Smith, read by R. C. Bray for Blackstone
The Maltese Iguana: Serge Storms, Book 26 By: Tim Dorsey, read by Oliver Wyman for Harper
TIE-IN WATCH:
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Road to Neverwinter By: Jaleigh Johnson, read by Fred Berman for Random House -- "Discover the thrilling origin stories of the bard Edgin, the barbarian Holga, and their whole adventuring party in this official prequel to Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves."
YA WATCH:
- The Headmaster's List By: Melissa de la Cruz, read by Lori Felipe-Barkin, Inés del Castillo, André Santana, and Eunice Wong for Macmillan -- "One of Us Is Lying meets Riverdale in The Headmaster's List, an edge-of-your-seat YA thriller about a fatal car crash and the dangerous lengths one teen will go to uncover the truth about what really happened."
INDIE WATCH:
- Dark Theory By: Wick Welker, read by Elizabeth Phillips -- "On the fringe of a broken civilization, a robot awakens with no memories and only one directive: find his creator. But in the village of Korthe, Beetro finds only radioactive pestilence, famine, and Miree—a tormented thief with dreams of retiring after her final score."
MOST MISSING:
The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill (Tordotcom) -- "A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mom, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it’s been just the three of them―her mom has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed. Yet when her mom brings home a six-foot tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart, and her children’s lives. Utterly enchanted and numb to his sharp edges, her mom abandons the world around her to weave the masterpiece the crane demands."
The Astronomer by Brian Biswas (Whisk(e)y Tit) -- "Franz Herbert suffers from epileptic seizures; are they a curse that takes him away from his wife, family, and friends, or a gift that allows him to explore the depths of the cosmos?"