Release Week: 20 February 2024
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Release Week: 20 February 2024
Posted on 2024-02-20 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
SPOTLIGHT:
- The Bezzle: The Martin Hench Novels, Book 2 By Cory Doctorow, read by Wil Wheaton -- Famously not available on Audible (due to their DRM requirements) so you'll need to head to Downpour or Libro.fm etc. for this one, a follow up to last year's fantastic "Red Team Blues". Here, our series-titular forensic accountant delivers "A seething rebuke of the privatized prison system that delves deeply into the arcane and baroque financial chicanery involved in the 2008 financial crash."
PICKS:
Vangie’s Ghosts By: Paul Di Filippo, read by Emily Lawrence for Blackstone -- "Three-year-old Vangie is mute and unresponsive. She shows no interest in the people or world around her, much to the frustration of her callous adoptive parents. Little do they know, Vangie is otherwise occupied observing “ghosts”—an infinite number of versions of herself, in an infinite number of parallel universes. When a tornado hits their trailer and Vangie is severely injured, she makes a desperate leap into another timeline where she survives the tornado, but her adoptive parents do not. So begins a life of shuttling through various foster homes, cultivating her abilities to seek out alternate timelines, and making jumps calculated to better her circumstances in order to avoid the exploitation of adults who seek to harness her powers for their own means."
Ours: A Novel By: Phillip B. Williams, read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt for Penguin -- "In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours."
Batshit Seven By: Sheung-King, read by Derek Kwan for Penguin -- "Glen Wu (aka Glue) couldn’t care less about his job. He’s returned to Hong Kong, the city he grew up in, and he’s teaching ESL, just to placate his parents. But he shows up hungover to class, barely stays awake, and prefers to spend his time smoking up until dawn breaks. As he watches the city he loves fall—the protests, the brutal arrests—life continues around him. So he drinks more, picks more fights with his drug dealer friend, thinks loftier thoughts about the post-colonial condition and Frantz Fanon. The very little he does care about: his sister, who deals with Hong Kong’s demise by getting engaged to a rich immigration consultant; his on-and-off-again relationship with a woman who steals things from him; and memories of someone he once met in Canada."
Sun of Blood and Ruin: A Novel By: Mariely Lares, read by Victoria Villareal for Harper -- "In sixteenth-century New Spain, witchcraft is punishable by death, indigenous temples have been destroyed, and tales of mythical creatures that once roamed the land have become whispers in the night. Hidden behind a mask, Pantera uses her magic and legendary swordplay skills to fight the tyranny of Spanish rule. To all who know her, Leonora de las Casas Tlazohtzin never leaves the palace and is promised to the heir of the Spanish throne. The respectable, law-abiding Lady Leonora faints at the sight of blood and would rather be caught dead than meddle in court affairs. No one suspects that Leonora and Pantera are the same person. Leonora’s charade is tragically good, and with magic running through her veins, she is nearly invincible. Nearly. Despite her mastery, she is destined to die young in battle, as predicted by a seer. When an ancient prophecy of destruction threatens to come true, Leonora—and therefore Pantera—is forced to decide: surrender the mask or fight to the end."
The Knowing By: Carolyn Mitchell Boykin, read by Lynnette R. Freeman for Recorded Books -- "Cora was born with a veil. She is able to discern spirits and wield the power of both the dark and the light as well as the ability to heal. Her grandmother, Mi, called it The Knowing. Cora has carried it as both a prophetic blessing and a curse, struggling under the burden until one decision changes her world. Possessed with a healer’s compulsion to help, she is unable to turn away when Fannie arrives on her doorstep, ripped, torn, and hanging precariously on the knife’s edge of death. As torn at the birth of her child, Clyde, as she was at his conception, Fannie believes she has been chosen as the vessel for this coming savior."
Remedial Magic By: Melissa Marr, read by Jeremy Carlisle Parker, and Max Meyers for Macmillan -- "The Magicians meets One Last Stop in this brand-new fantasy romance Remedial Magic, about an unassuming librarian who 1) has fallen in love with a powerful witch; 2) has discovered that she is a witch; and 3) must attend magical community college to learn how to save her new world from complete destruction."
NON-FICTION WATCH:
Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes by Chantha Nguon, read by Kim Green for Hachette -- "A haunting and beautiful memoir from a Cambodian refugee who lost her country and her family during Pol Pot's genocide in the 1970s but who finds hope by reclaiming the recipes she tasted in her mother's kitchen."
LatinoLand: A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority by Marie Arana, read by Cynthia Farrell for Simon and Schuster -- "A sweeping yet personal overview of the Latino population of America, drawn from hundreds of interviews and prodigious research that emphasizes the diversity and little-known history of our largest and fastest-growing minority."
MORE FICTION:
Twice Lived By: Joma West, read by Jessica Hayles for Recorded Books -- "There are two Earths. Perfectly ordinary and existing in parallel. There are no doorways between them, no way to cross from one world to another. Unless you’re a shifter. Canna and Lily are the same person but they refuse to admit it. Their split psyche has forced them to shift randomly between worlds—between lives and between families—for far longer than they should. But one mind can’t bear this much life. It’ll break under the weight of it all. Soon they’ll experience their final shift and settle at last in one world, but how can they prepare both families for the eventuality of them disappearing forever?"
Island Witch by Amanda Jayatissa, read by Isuri Wijesundara for Penguin -- "Set in 19th century Sri Lanka and inspired by local folklore, the daughter of a traditional demon-priest—relentlessly bullied by peers and accused of witchcraft herself—tries to solve the mysterious attacks that have been terrorizing her coastal village."
Night for Day By: Roselle Lim, read by Ferdelle Capistrano and Will Damron for Penguin -- "Exes Ward Dunbar and Camille Buhay thought they would never see each other again. They had broken up to pursue their dream jobs on opposite sides of the country—her to New York City, and him to Los Angeles. But years later, they unexpectedly reconnect in London, where they are interviewing for similar jobs. The spark they feel when they meet again is palpable—the attraction comes back like muscle memory, reminding them of what they had lost. When Ward and Camille discover they both got the job working opposing shifts, they vow to give their relationship another try. Ward starts the day shift and finds the immortal clientele unusual and dazzling. When he clocks out at the end of the day, he finds the door locked and himself trapped in the building. After a horrific first night shift contending with restless spirits and ghosts, Camille is also unable to escape. In their respective prisons, they discover that they’re able to talk to each other a few minutes before dawn."
Projections By: S.E. Porter, read by Ryan McCarthy and Lily Ganser for Audible -- "As a young woman seeks vengeance on the obsessed sorcerer who murdered her because he could not have her, her murderer sends projections of himself out into the world to seek out and seduce women who will return the love she denied—or suffer mortal consequence. A lush, gothic journey across worlds full of strange characters and even stranger magic."
INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS:
- River Mumma By: Zalika Reid-Benta, read by Tymika Tafari for Recorded Books (Penguin Canada, 2023) -- "Alicia has been out of grad school for months. She has no career prospects and lives with her mom, who won’t stop texting her macabre news stories and reminders to pick up items from the grocery store. Then, one evening, the Jamaican water deity River Mumma appears to Alicia, telling her that she has twenty-four hours to scour the city for her missing comb."
BACKLIST WATCH:
Quozl By: Alan Dean Foster (2014), read by Paul Bellantoni for Dreamscape -- "The Quozl just need somewhere to call home. A gentle race of extraterrestrial rabbits, they have a propensity for reproduction that has left their home planet, Quozlene, dangerously overpopulated, and in their search for greener and less-crowded pastures, they have discovered the perfect place to start over: the third planet away from a healthy, warming sun. What they don’t realize is that this world they call Shiraz is already inhabited by a species of violent sentient creatures known as humans. But there’s no going back now. In the midst of the brutal and helpfully distracting global conflict the Shirazians call World War II, the colony ship lands undetected, and the space rabbits immediately go into hiding. But a secret like the Quozl can be concealed for only so long, especially when their numbers start to increase and certain rebellious members of the long-eared society decide the time is ripe to claim their place in a world they believe is rightfully theirs."
A Theory of Haunting By: Sarah Monette (2023), read by Matt Godfrey for Tantor -- "Kyle Murchison Booth, archivist at the Parrington Museum, has heard of Thirdhop Scarp. Everyone has. The house has been notorious ever since the night that homeowner J. A. Cathcart murdered his entire family, and was found cupping the heart of his eldest daughter in his hands as tenderly as he would a wounded bird. It is not the first time the house has experienced unsettling events. And it will not be the last. Now the new owner of Thirdhop Scarp, one Marcus Oleander, is gathering an esoteric order at the house, including Miss Griselda Parrington, daughter of the museum's founder. The museum director demands that Mr. Booth discredit Oleander's occult teachings and end his influence over the credulous Miss Parrington. Reluctantly, Mr. Booth joins the weekend seance. In the beautiful but eerie surrounds of the house and gardens, Mr. Booth is drawn into an investigation that spans years—and reveals the house to be much, much more than it seems."
Peacemaker: Sharps and Springfield, Book 1 By: Morgan Brice (2023), read by John Solo for Tantor -- "Supernatural Secret Service agents Owen Sharps and Calvin Springfield meet on the train to their new assignment in St. Louis, and sparks fly between them. But it's 1897, and they need to be very careful—falling in love can be dangerous for men like them. It's their first case together, investigating mysterious disappearances-including the two agents who preceded them. Grim evidence leads them to look for a darker purpose. Old ghosts haunt the railroad line, zombie rise, signs point to ritual sacrifice, and they suspect someone is trying to open the gates of hell."
MOST MISSING:
- Jordan Version 3.2 by Stacey Cochran (Blank Slate Press) -- "When a young man wakes in the middle of the ocean, he has no memory. His ability to read has been erased. Even the cryptic words "Anag. Norisis, Inc." written on his life jacket are beyond his comprehension. He discovers a raft rigged with hidden cameras and survives to reach an island whose inhabitants have formed two tribes. Determined to learn who he is and who put him on the island, he befriends reclusive Aleah who tells him she's lived alone for years. He suspects she's withholding some deeper truth from him about the island and about who he is. But why?"