Release Week: 23 April 2024
← Release Week: 16 April 2024Release Week: 30 April 2024 →
Release Week: 23 April 2024
Posted on 2024-04-23 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
The Sky Was Ours: A Novel By: Joe Fassler, read by Leanne Woodward for Penguin -- "From prizewinning writer Joe Fassler comes a brilliant modern reimagining of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus as a story of obsession, longing, and the radical pursuit of utopia."
Your Presence Is Mandatory: A Novel By: Sasha Vasilyuk, read by Sam Rushton for Bloomsbury -- "A riveting debut novel, based on real events, about a World War II veteran with a secret that could land him in the Gulag, and his family who are forced to live in the shadow of all he has not told them."
Lucky by Jane Smiley, read by Stina Nielsen for Recorded Books -- "Before Jodie Rattler became a star, she was a girl growing up in St. Louis. One day in 1955, when she was just six years old, her uncle Drew took her to the racetrack, where she got lucky—and the roll of two-dollar bills she won has never since left her side. Jodie thrived in the warmth of her extended family, and then—through a combination of hard work and serendipity—she started a singing career, which catapulted her from St. Louis to New York City, from the English countryside to the tropical beaches of St. Thomas, from Cleveland to Los Angeles and back again. Jodie comes of age in recording studios, backstage, and on tour, and tries to hold her own in the wake of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell. Yet it feels as if something is missing. Could it be true love? Or is she looking for what she already has?"
Ocean's Godori: A Novel By: Elaine U. Cho, read by Judy Alice Lee for Hillman Grad -- "Becky Chambers meets Firefly in this big-hearted Korean space opera debut about a disgraced space pilot struggling to find her place while fighting to protect the people she loves."
Dragon Rider: A Novel By: Taran Matharu, read by Tom Babbage for Harper -- "Jai lives as a royal hostage in the Sabine Court—ever since his father Rohan, leader of the Steppefolk, led a failed rebellion and was executed by the very emperor Jai now serves. When the emperor’s son and heir is betrothed to Princess Erica of the neighboring Dansk Kingdom, she brings with her a dowry: dragons. Endemic to the northern nation, these powerful beasts come in several forms, but mystery surrounds them. Only Dansk royalty know the secret to soulbonding with these dangerous beasts to draw on their power and strength. This marriage—and the alliance that forms—will change that forever."
A Letter to the Luminous Deep By: Sylvie Cathrall, read by Claire Morgan, Joshua Riley, Justin Avoth, and Kit Griffiths for Orbit -- "A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other. Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.'s home, and she and Henerey vanish. A year later, E.'s sister Sophy, and Henerey's brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery, piecing together the letters, sketches and field notes left behind—and learn what their siblings’ disappearance might mean for life as they know it."
Extinction: A Novel By: Douglas Preston, read by David Aaron Baker for Macmillan -- "Erebus Resort, occupying a magnificent, hundred-thousand acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths, Irish Elk, and giant ground sloths in their native habitat, brought back from extinction through the magic of genetic manipulation. When a billionaire's son and his new wife are kidnapped and murdered in the Erebus back country by what is assumed to be a gang of eco-terrorists, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash partners with county sheriff James Colcord to track down the perpetrators."
SERIES WATCH:
- A Whisper in the Walls: Waxways, Book 2 by Scott Reintgen, read by Jesse Vilinsky, Vikas Adam, and Caitlin Davies for Simon and Schuster -- "Ren’s intellect and cunning are stretched to the limit in her quest to take down the system that stole her father’s life."
BACKLIST WATCH:
The Making of a Marchioness By: Frances Hodgson Burnett (1901), read by Lucy Scott for Macmillan -- "Frances Hodgson Burnett’s delightful take on the Cinderella story. Born into an aristocratic family, Emily Fox-Seton is left penniless and must fend for herself after the death of her parents. Then one summer, everything changes."
New Suns 2: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color edited by Nisi Shawl (2023), foreword by Walter Mosley, read by Allyson Johnson and Diontae Black for Tantor -- "New Suns 2 brings you fresh visions of the strange, the unexpected, the shocking-breakthrough stories, stories shining with emerging truths, stories that pierce stale preconceptions with their beauty and bravery. Like the first New Suns anthology (winner of the World Fantasy, Locus, IGNYTE, and British Fantasy awards), this book liberates writers of many races to tell us tales no one has ever told."
Indigo Field By: Marjorie Hudson (2023), read by Allyson Johnson for Tantor -- "In the rural South, a retired colonel in an upscale retirement community grieves the sudden death of his wife on the tennis court. On the other side of the highway, an elderly Black woman grieves the murder of her niece by a white man. Between them lies an abandoned field where three centuries of crimes are hidden, and only she knows the explosive secrets buried there. When the colonel runs into her car, causing a surprising amount of damage, it sparks a feud that sets loose the spirits in the Field, both benevolent and vengeful."
American Ending: A Novel By: Mary Kay Zuravleff (2023), read by the author for Tantor -- "Yelena is the first American born to her Old Believer Russian Orthodox parents, who are building a life in a Pennsylvania Appalachian town. This town, in the first decades of the twentieth century, is filled with Russian transplants and a new church with a dome. Here, boys quit grade school for the coal mines and girls are married off at fourteen. The young pair up, give birth to more babies than they can feed, and make shaky starts in their new world. However, Yelena craves a different path. Will she find her happy American ending, or will a dreaded Russian ending be her fate?"
Linghun by Ai Jiang, read by Nancy Wu for Dark Matter Ink -- "Follow Wenqi, Liam, and Mrs. to the mysterious town of HOME, a place where the dead live again as spirits, conjured by the grief-sick population that refuses to let go. This edition includes a foreword by Yi Izzy Yu, Translator of The Shadow Book of Ji Yun, the essay "A Ramble on Di Fu Ling & Death" by the author, and two bonus short stories from Jiang: "Yǒngshí" and "Teeter Totter.""
NEW EDITION WATCH:
- Infinite Jest By: David Foster Wallace, foreword by Dave Eggers, read by Sean Pratt for Little, Brown and Company -- This looks like, finally, a single combined complete edition including the endnotes for the rambling, rule-bending epic. 64 hours.
MOST MISSING:
The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills (Tachyon) -- "In this gripping debut novel from acclaimed Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus Award-winning author Samantha Mills, a disgraced soldier fights to make sense of her world and the gods who abandoned it."
Living in Cemeteries by Corey Farrenkopf (JournalStone) -- "Dave Gallagher mows the lawns and digs the graves at cemeteries in his hometown on Cape Cod. He also keeps the peace between the ghosts inhabiting those cemeteries. In the world of Living in Cemeteries, wrongdoing is atoned for by a person's descendants. Spirits decapitate relatives of serial killers and lay pox blankets over men responsible for the Trail of Tears. The only way Dave can learn of his pre-ordained death is by traveling the New England countryside, visiting haunted cemeteries, asking familial ghosts what fate has in store."
Man of Peace: Seeds of Darkness Trilogy, Book 1 by Chris A. Jackson (Jaxbooks) -- "Raised in the caves of his father’s people–the brutal and warlike Oni–a half-breed boy knows only a world of darkness and pain. Life here offers one cruel lesson: fight or die. But he dreams of a world of light and beauty, the world of his human mother, an Oni slave. His only solace, she implores him not to give in to the hate and evil of the Oni, to reject their Dark God, Grund. “Be at peace,” she advises, and from this, he gleans both hope and a name."
Thanks so much!