Release Week: 16 April 2024
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Release Week: 16 April 2024
Posted on 2024-04-16 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
Expected a quiet week as far as big releases, and that's what we got, so I'm putting a few extra "indie" and "more" titles this week.
PICKS:
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder By: Salman Rushdie, read by the author for Random House -- "From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him."
A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci, read by the author for Hachette -- "Set in the tumultuous year of 1968 in southern Virginia, a racially-charged murder case sets a duo of white and Black lawyers against a deeply unfair system as they work to defend their wrongfully-accused Black defendants in this courtroom dram."
Immortal Pleasures By: V. Castro, read by Raquel Beattie for Random House -- "An ancient Aztec vampire roams the modern world in search of vengeance and love in this seductive dark fantasy from the author of The Haunting of Alejandra."
The Oracle: A Novel By: Ari Juels, read by Colin Martin for Skyhorse -- "Life is comfortable for a prominent, if schlubby, developer at a New York City blockchain company. That is, until FBI Special Agent Diane Duménil seeks his help against a bewildering threat: The Delphians, worshippers of the god Apollo, have launched a rogue program on a blockchain. It’s offering a crypto bounty to assassinate a European archaeology professor. The developer brushes off the danger until he learns the next target: himself."
Indian Burial Ground By: Nick Medina, read by Gary Farmer and Erin Tripp for Penguin -- "All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on—just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her—things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend’s apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down. But the facts about Roddy’s death just don’t add up, and Noemi isn’t the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands. After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror, and what might be the key to determining Roddy’s true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers...but as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to wonder whether it might be best for some secrets to remain buried."
Weird Black Girls: Stories By: Elwin Cotman, read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Jade Wheeler, James Fouhey, Emily Lawrence, André Santana, and Landon Woodson for Simon and Schuster -- "In each of the seven stories in this collection, characters pursue their obsessions on paths to glory and destruction while around them their worlds twist and warp, oscillating between reality and impossibility. On display throughout is Cotman’s ability to reveal truths about the human experience—about friendship, love, betrayal, bitterness—through whimsy, horror, and fantasy. Elegiac in tone, imaginative and humorous in their execution."
To Gaze upon Wicked Gods By: Molly X. Chang, read by Natalie Naudus for Random House -- "Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen. Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe. When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence."
The Invisible Hotel: A Novel By: Yeji Y. Ham, read by Jessie Baek for Tantor -- "Yewon dreams of a hotel. In the hotel, there are infinite keys to infinite rooms—and a quiet terror she is both eager to understand and desperate to escape. When Yewon wakes, she sees her life: a young woman, out of her job at a convenience store, trapped in the tiny South Korean village of her birth, watching her mother wash the bones of their ancestors in their decrepit bathtub. Every house has them, these rotting and fragmented ribs, tibias, and femurs, whose constant care and persistent stench serve as reminders of what they have all lost to the Forgotten War that never seems to end. As the line between reality and illusion slowly begins to blur, Yewon is led to an unsettling truth about her country's collective heritage."
A Botanical Daughter By: Noah Medlock, read by Keval Shah for Tantor -- "It is an unusual thing, to live in a botanical garden. But Simon and Gregor are an unusual pair of gentlemen. Hidden away in their glass sanctuary from the disapproving tattle of Victorian London, they are free to follow their own interests without interference. For Simon, this means long hours in the dark basement workshop, working his taxidermical art. Gregor's business is exotic plants-lucrative, but harmless enough. Until his latest acquisition, a strange fungus which shows signs of intellect beyond any plant he's seen, inspires him to attempt a masterwork: true intelligent life from plant matter."
Sword of the War God By: Tim Hodkinson, read by Justin Avoth for Head of Zeus -- "436 AD. The Burgundars are confident of destroying Rome's legions. Their forces are strong and they have beaten the Romans in battle before. But they are annihilated, their king killed, his people scattered. Their fabled treasure is lost. For Rome has new allies: the Huns, whose taste for bloodshed knows no bounds. Many years later, the Huns, led by the fearsome Attila, have become the deadliest enemies of Rome. Attila seeks the Burgundars’ treasure, for it includes the legendary Sword of the War God, said to make the bearer unbeatable. No alliance can defeat Attila by conventional means. With Rome desperate for help, a one-eyed old warlord from distant lands and his strange band of warriors may have the answers... but oaths will be broken and the plains of Europe will run with blood before the end."
MOST MISSING:
- The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar (Tordotcom) -- "The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out among the stars. His whole world changes—literally—when he is yanked “upstairs” and informed he has been given an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite. Overwhelmed and alone, the boy forms a bond with the woman he comes to know as “the professor,” a weary idealist and descendent of the Chained who has spent her career striving for validation from her more senior colleagues, only to fall short at every turn. Together, the boy and the woman will embark on a transformative journey to grasp the design of the chains that fetter them both—and are the key to breaking free."