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!

Posted in Release Week

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."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 9 April 2024

Posted on 2024-04-09 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

(post in progress, pardon the dust, also sorry for delay was traveling yesterday)

PICKS:

• The Familiar: A Novel By: Leigh Bardugo, read by Lauren Fortgang for Macmillan -- "In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to improve the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor."

• Catchpenny: A Novel By: Charlie Huston, read by Pete Cross for Random House -- "A thief who can travel through mirrors, a video game that threatens to spill out of the virtual world, a doomsday cult on a collision course with destiny, and a missing teenager at the center of it all. With the world on the brink of every kind of apocalypse, humanity needs a hero. What it gets is Sid Catchpenny."

NON-FICTION WATCH:

• The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality By: Amanda Montell, read by the author for Simon and Schuster -- "Think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven."

• The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians By: James Patterson and Matt Eversmann, read by a full cast for Little, Brown and Company -- "Meet the smart and talented people who live between the pages—and who can’t wait to help you find your next favorite book."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Simon Says: A John Simon Thriller, Book 1 By: Bryan Thomas Schmidt (2019), read by Derek Stephen Prince -- "The smuggling ring is a big case ‪… that got his partner killed.‪ How will Simon go on without her?‪ In 2029 Kansas City, Master Detective John Simon is a tough cop with a disdain for technology. His new movie quoting partner doesn’t make him happy. How can you trust a robot?"

SERIES WATCH:

• Valdemar: Founding of Valdemar, Book 3 By: Mercedes Lackey, read by Paul Woodson for Tantor -- "The refugees from the Empire have established a thriving city called Haven with the help of the Tayledras and their allies. But the Tayledras have begun a slow withdrawal to the dangerous lands known as the Pelagirs, leaving the humans of Haven to find their own way."

MORE FICTION:

• How to End a Love Story: A Novel By: Yulin Kuang, read by Katharine Chin and Andrew Eiden for Harper -- "A sexy and emotional enemies-to-lovers romance guaranteed to pull on your heartstrings and give you a book hangover."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• Point Nemo by Jeremy Robinson, read by R.C. Bray -- "In the heart of the South Pacific lies Point Nemo, the most desolate and remote place on Earth. At its core is a dead zone, devoid of life, where government agencies crash their obsolete satellites and space stations, confident they won't harm a soul. When the International Space Station suffers a catastrophic failure and plummets through the atmosphere, it's here that Mission Specialist Julie Rohr, an astrobiologist studying living space dust called xylem, finds herself marooned. Julie's only hope for rescue lies in the hands of her estranged father, Dr. Finn Maddern, a renowned mycologist. Plucked from the depths of the Amazon rainforest, Finn is thrust into a daring rescue mission alongside a team of specialists. Their destination: an impossible island at the center of Point Nemo—an island that shouldn't exist—composed of xylem."

• George Orwell’s 1984: An Audible Original adaptation

• Aldous Huxley: A BBC Radio Collection Including Brave New World, Antic Hay, The Devils & More

• Mal Goes to War

• Wicked Problems by Max Gladstone

• The Book That Broke the World by Mark Lawrence

• Forge of the High Mage by Ian C. Esslemont

• Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

• Mania: A Novel by Lionel Shriver

• The Last Phi Hunter By: Salinee Goldenberg, read by David Lee Huynh for Dreamscape Lore

• A Sweet Sting of Salt: A Novel By: Rose Sutherland

• Frontier By: Patrick Chiles

• Threading the Needle By: Monalisa Foster

• The Fates By: Rosie Garland

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 2 April 2024

Posted on 2024-04-02 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• I Cheerfully Refuse By: Leif Enger, read by David Aaron Baker for Recorded Books -- "Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. Rainy, an endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. Amid the Gulliver-like challenges of life at sea and no safe landings, Rainy is lifted by physical beauty, surprising humor, generous strangers, and an unexpected companion in a young girl who comes aboard. And as his innate guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his strengthening wake."

• A Short Walk Through a Wide World: A Novel By: Douglas Westerbeke, read by Saskia Maarleveld for Simon and Schuster -- "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue meets Life of Pi in this dazzlingly epic debut that charts the incredible, adventurous life of one woman as she journeys the globe trying to outrun a mysterious curse that will destroy her if she stops moving."

• Someone You Can Build a Nest In By: John Wiswell, read by Carmen Rose for Tantor -- "Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body using a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she's found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warmhearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent coparent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen's eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don't think about love that way."

• The Cemetery of Untold Stories By: Julia Alvarez, read by Alma Cuervo for Recorded Books -- "Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives."

• Clear: A Novel By: Carys Davies, read by Russ Bain for Simon and Schuster -- "A stunning, exquisite novel from an award-winning writer about a minister dispatched to a remote island off of Scotland to “clear” the last remaining inhabitant, who has no intention of leaving—an unforgettable tale of resilience, change, and hope."

• The Stone Home: A Novel By: Crystal Hana Kim, read by Jennifer Sun Bell, Sue Jean Kim, Intae Kim, and Greta Jung for Harper -- "A hauntingly poetic family drama and coming-of-age story that reveals a dark corner of South Korean history through the eyes of a small community living in a reformatory center."

• The Titanic Survivors Book Club: A Novel By: Timothy Schaffert, read by Max Meyers for Random House -- "For weeks after the sinking of the Titanic, Yorick spots his own name among the list of those lost at sea. As an apprentice librarian for the White Star Line, his job was to curate the ship’s second-class library. But the day the Titanic set sail he was left stranded at the dock. After the ship’s sinking, Yorick takes this twist of fate as a sign to follow his lifelong dream of owning a bookshop in Paris. Soon after, he receives an invitation to a secret society of survivors where he encounters other ticket holders who didn’t board the ship. Haunted by their good fortune, they decide to form a book society, where they can grapple with their own anxieties."

• Table for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles, read by Edoardo Ballerini for Books on Tape -- "From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories, including a novella featuring one of his most beloved characters."

• The Black Girl Survives in This One: Horror Stories edited by Desiree S. Evans and Saraciea J. Fennell, with an introduction by Tananarive Due, read by Shayna Small for Macmillan -- "Celebrating a new generation of bestselling and acclaimed Black writers, The Black Girl Survives in This One makes space for Black girls in horror. Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and survivors who slay monsters, battle spirits, and face down death."

• Lake of Souls: The Collected Short Fiction By: Ann Leckie, read by Adjoa Andoh for Orbit -- "Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke award-winner Ann Leckie is a modern master of the SFF genre, forever changing its landscape with her groundbreaking ideas and powerful voice. Now, available for the first time comes the complete collection of Leckie's short fiction, including a brand new novelette."

• A View from the Stars: Stories and Essays By: Cixin Liu, read by Brian Nishii for Macmillan -- "A range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years."

NON-FICTION WATCH:

• Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America's Second Slavery By: Earl Swift, read by Mark Deakins for Harper -- "From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Chesapeake Requiem comes a gripping new work of narrative nonfiction telling the forgotten story of the mass killing of eleven Black farmhands on a Georgia plantation in the spring of 1921—a crime which exposed for the nation the existence of the “peonage system,” a form of legal enslavement established after the Civil War across the American South."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Hard to Be a God By: Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky (1964), translated by Olena Bormashenko, read by Matt Addis for Random House -- "The story of Don Rumata, who is sent from Earth to the medieval kingdom of Arkanar with instructions to observe and to influence, but never to directly interfere. Masquerading as an arrogant nobleman, a dueler and a brawler, Don Rumata is never defeated but can never kill. With his doubt and compassion, and his deep love for a local girl named Kira, Rumata wants to save the kingdom from the machinations of Don Reba, the First Minister to the king. But given his orders, what role can he play?"

• The State of the Art: Culture, Book 4 By: Iain M. Banks (1991), read by Peter Kenny for Orbit -- "This is a striking addition to the body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale. All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks's staggering talent."

• Vigil: Verity Fassbender, Book 1 By: Angela Slatter (2017), read by Taryn Ryan for WF Howes -- "Verity Fassbinder has her feet in two worlds. The daughter of one human and one Weyrd parent, she has very little power herself, but does claim unusual strength and the ability to walk between one world and the other as a couple of her talents. A rarity, she is charged with keeping the peace, and ensuring the Weyrd remain hidden. But now Sirens are dying, illegal wine made from the tears of human children is for sale—and in the hands of those who hold to old, dangerous ways—and someone has released an unknown and terrifyingly destructive force on the streets of Brisbane."

• Dracula Park By: Dana Grigorcea (2021), read by Sophie Roberts for WF Howes -- "In post-Communist Romania, on the border with Transylvania, the sleepy little town of B. is losing its young people to the West. A young painter returned from Paris and her eccentric great-aunt seem unconcerned with the decline of the town, until a mutilated corpse is found in the family crypt of Prince Vlad the Impaler, better known as Dracula. As the world's attention turns to B., the mayor and his son take advantage and turn the town into a vampire-inspired theme park. Tourists flock, but beneath the surface ancient horrors live on."

MORE FICTION:

• The Reaper Follows By: Heather Graham, read by Roger Wayne for Harlequin -- "Deep in the Florida Everglades, the body of a woman is discovered in pieces, presumably ravaged by an alligator. Upon closer inspection, it’s determined no animal could make such perfectly precise cuts. Only a blade could do that. Wielded by a human. Soon, dozens of oil drums emerge amid the river of grass. Each one packed to the brim with body parts. FDLE special agent Amy Larson and her partner, FBI special agent Hunter Forrest, share a bad feeling that extends beyond the horrifying nature of the grim discovery. They’ve seen this kind of sadistic killing before, and when a small beige horse is discovered at the bottom of one of the barrels, they know exactly what it means. The fourth horseman of the apocalypse rides a pale horse—and his name is Death."

• The House on Biscayne Bay By: Chanel Cleeton, read by Caroline Hewitt and Frankie Corzo for Penguin -- "With the Great War finally behind them, many Americans flock to South Florida with their sights set on making a fortune. When wealthy industrialist Robert Barnes and his wife, Anna, build Marbrisa, a glamorous estate on Biscayne Bay, they become the toast of the newly burgeoning society. Anna and Robert appear to have it all, but in a town like Miami, appearances can be deceiving, and one scandal can change everything. Years later following the tragic death of her parents in Havana, Carmen Acosta journeys to Marbrisa, the grand home of her estranged older sister, Carolina, and her husband, Asher Wyatt. On the surface, the gilded estate looks like paradise, but Carmen quickly learns that nothing at Marbrisa is as it seems."

• The Orchids of Ashthorne Hall By: Rebecca Anderson, read by Elizabeth Knowelden for Blackstone -- "1887, the Cornwall coast. For years, rumors have flown through the village of Suttonsbury about Ashthorne Hall—that its occupants hoard pirate treasure, that a ghost walks its halls—but botanist Hyacinth Bell only cares about the estate’s extensive one-of-a-kind orchid collection. As an independent woman, she is eager to focus on her career, even if it means waiting to pursue a romantic relationship. After all, love—like an orchid—must be nurtured and tended before it can bloom. What she doesn’t expect is to be swept away by Lucas Harding, the manor’s caretaker, upon their first meeting. He is handsome and charming, and the connection between the two is nearly instantaneous. Hyacinth is certain this autumn will be the season that everything good in her life takes root. But then strange things start happening in the seemingly empty halls of the estate: unexplainable noises, items appearing then disappearing from her room, threatening messages, and glimpses of a woman in white who vanishes into the dark."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• First Contact: Eclipsed Evolution: Phase 1 By: Kim Harrison, read by Xe Sands for Penguin -- "In the wake of the solar eclipse, a portal between our world and a paranormal realm opens—and a scientist’s life will never be the same."

• The Book of Thorns By: Hester Fox, read by Ell Potter and Fiona Hardingham for Harlequin -- "Penniless and stranded in France after a bid to escape her cruel uncle goes awry, Cornelia Shaw is far from the Parisian life of leisure she imagined. Desperate and lacking options, she allows herself to be recruited to Napoleon’s Grande Armée. As a naturalist, her near-magical ability to heal any wound with herbal mixtures invites awe amongst the soldiers…and suspicion. For behind Cornelia’s vast knowledge of the natural world is a secret she keeps hidden—the flowers speak to her through a mysterious connection she has felt since childhood. One that her mother taught her to heed, before she disappeared."

• The Monstrous Misses Mai: A Novel By: Van Hoang, read by Elyse Dinh for Brilliance -- "A determined young woman in 1950s Los Angeles walks a darker city than she ever imagined in a spellbinding novel about the power to make dreams come true—whatever the sacrifice."

• The Lies Among Us: A Novel By: Sarah Beth Durst, read by Soneela Nankani for Brilliance -- "After her mother dies, Hannah doesn’t know how to exist without her. Literally. In fact, Hannah’s not even certain that she does exist. No one seems to see or hear her, and she finds herself utterly alone. Grief-stricken and confused, her sense of self slowly slipping away, Hannah sets out to find new purpose in life—and answers about who (and what) she really is."

• Four Minutes By: Jeffrey Wilson and Brian Andrews, read by Ray Porter for Blackstone -- "Special Operations Chief Tyler Brooks might not know quantum mechanics, or have an eidetic memory, but he is the very best in the world at one thing: leading covert ops. When an unpredictable enemy causes the catastrophic loss of his entire SEAL team, Brooks is recruited by Pat Moody to lead a new elite squad, Task Force Omega. Moody’s promise—access to mind-bending tech that grants a glimpse of the future. Together with Navy Intelligence Specialist Zee Williams, Brooks leads a new kind of counterterrorism task force, one that collects intel from the future to stop attacks in the present. But there’s a catch. Each mission can only last four minutes."

SERIES WATCH:

• Paragon of Shadow: Paragon, Book 2 By: Luke Chmilenko and Alex Knight, read by Travis Baldree for Audible -- "Auric Cain found his chance. He proved himself, took control of his life, and became stronger than he ever thought possible. So why is everything falling apart? Literally."

• City in Ruins: The Danny Ryan Trilogy, Book 3 By: Don Winslow, read by Ari Fliakos for Harper -- "Following City on Fire and City of Dreams, City in Ruins is the explosive, impossible to resist conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Don Winslow’s epic, genre-defining crime trilogy and the final book of Winslow's extraordinary career."

• Sharpe’s Command: Richard Sharpe Novels, Book 14 By: Bernard Cornwell, read by Rupert Farley for Harper -- "The brand new novel from Bernard Cornwell in the global bestselling Sharpe series."

• Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire: The Official Movie Novelization By: Greg Keyes, read by Tim Campbell for Blackstone -- "The official novelization of the blockbuster Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the latest film in the Monsterverse franchise."

• Marvel: What If...Loki Was Worthy? A Loki & Valkyrie Story By: Madeleine Roux, read by Oliver Wyman for Random House -- "Loki and Valkyrie seek redemption in the first adventure of an epic new multiversal series that reimagines the origins of iconic Marvel heroes. Thor—Son of Odin, God of Thunder, Wielder of Mjolnir—is dead. And Loki is responsible. It was meant to be only a joke—tampering with the Destroyer, changing Thor’s course to Midgard—a bit of mischief with a chance of maiming. But Loki’s harmless prank spiraled out of control, unleashing death and destruction on New York City and the heroes sworn to protect it. The city was saved, at the cost of Thor’s life. Furious and heartbroken, the All-Father banishes Loki to Earth for his crime. Loki finds himself in a realm of boxed wine, instant noodles, and some sort of regional performance troupe known as the 'Buffalo Bills.'"

INDIE WATCH:

• The Phoenix Initiative: First Missions By: Chris Kennedy, Mark Wandrey, Kevin Ikenberry, Kacey Ezell, Marisa Wolf, Casey Moores, Nick Steverson, Jon R. Osborne, Melissa Olthoff, Mike Jack Stoumbos, David Shadoin, Dan Bridgwater, David Alan Jones, Benjamin Tyler Smith, and Charli Cox, read by Daniel Wisniewski -- "Nigel Shirazi, the Speaker of the Merc Guild, knows that war is coming and he’s not ready. He needs to build up the mercenary forces after years of war, and he’s proclaimed the Phoenix Initiative to give people who want to start new companies the opportunity to do so. CASPers are cheaper and financed at lower rates, and the government of Earth is offering bounties to take the mercs from alien races off the planet. Now is the time! Hearing the call to arms, a diverse group of startups, including a number of non-conventional ones and ones that originated on some of the colony worlds, have just taken their first missions. These are some of their stories."

MOST MISSING:

• What Was Left Standing: A Story Collection by Mike Jasper (UnWrecked Press) -- "Whether it’s the return of a prodigal son to the family farm ("The Chicken Project"), the young high school teacher conscripted into refereeing a basketball game with his new school’s rivals from the nearby reservation ("Home Court Advantage"), or the impossible feats of a team of mixed-race baseball players long before the days of Jackie Robinson ("The Champ Escapes"), Jasper takes you on a guided tour of the human condition. This includes the dark sides as well as the bright."

• The Wayward Mage Bounty: The Shadow Blades Chronicles, Book 3 by Patrick Dugan (Distracted Dragon Press) -- "After semi-successfully tracking down their missing person, one Elladon Kane, far across the land in the realm of the Elves, the Saria and the Shadow Blades are given yet another quest. But the reward for this one won’t be coin—it will be the very survival of Southern Holm. Saria was right about Brar Opalback. The sorceress’s interest in artifacts, according to Kane, will result in a dragon scourge that will put all previous monster invasions to shame if she’s not stopped. That is, if Kane can be trusted."

• Disquiet Gods: Sun Eater, Book 6 By: Christopher Ruocchio (Baen) -- Audio delayed to 4/30 but it's coming, read by Samuel Roukin for Recorded Books.

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 26 March 2024

Posted on 2024-03-26 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

FEATURED PICK:

• The Angel of Indian Lake: The Indian Lake Trilogy, Book 3 by Stephen Graham Jonesm read by Isabella Star LaBlanc, Barbara Crampton, Angela Goethals, Andrew J. Robinson, and the author for Simon and Schuster -- "The final installment in the most lauded trilogy in the history of horror novels picks up four years after Don’t Fear the Reaper as Jade returns to Proofrock, Idaho, to build a life after the years of sacrifice—only to find the Lake Witch is waiting."

FICTION PICKS:

• Bunyan and Henry; Or, the Beautiful Destiny: A Novel By: Mark Cecil, read by Tanis Parenteau, Ari Fliakos, and JD Jackson for Random House -- "A large-hearted reimagining of beloved all-American legends, this epic debut novel brings men of myth Paul Bunyan and John Henry alive like never before, teaming up for an adventure quest with deeper interrogations of race, class, and industrialization."

• The Emperor and the Endless Palace By: Justinian Huang, read by Dylan J. Locke, Will Dao, and Telly Leung for Harlequin -- "In the year 4 BCE, an ambitious courtier is called upon to seduce the young emperor—but quickly discovers they are both ruled by blood, sex and intrigue. In 1740, a lonely innkeeper agrees to help a mysterious visitor procure a rare medicine, only to unleash an otherworldly terror instead. And in present-day Los Angeles, a college student meets a beautiful stranger and cannot shake the feeling they’ve met before."

• Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, read by the author for Random House -- "On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship."

• Monsters We Have Made: A Novel By: Lindsay Starck, read by Patricia Santomasso for Random House -- "Thirteen years ago, Sylvia Gray's young daughter, Faye, attacked her babysitter in order to impress the Kingman, a monster she and her best friend had encountered on the Internet. When the now twenty-three-year-old Faye goes missing, leaving her toddler behind, Sylvia launches a search that propels her back into the past and back into the Kingman's orbit. With the help of her estranged husband and a sister she hasn't spoken to in years, Sylvia draws dangerously closer not only to Faye, but also to the truth about the monster that once inspired her. Will Sylvia be able to reach her daughter before history repeats itself? Or will it be Sylvia, this time, who loses her grip on reality and succumbs to the dark powers of this monstrous fiction?"

• Tomorrow's Children By: Daniel Polansky, read by Peter Berkrot for Podium -- A solid get for Podium, a new novel by Polansky, out from Angry Robot: "Tomorrow, the funk descends on Manhattan, a noxious cloud that separates the island from the rest of the world and mutates the population. Some generations on, the surviving population exists amid the rubble of modernity, wearing our cast-off clothing, worshipping celebrities as dim gods, and using emojis in place of written language. The Island exists in a state of uneasy peace, with each neighborhood an independent fiefdom, protecting itself with scrap metal spears and Molotov cocktails. But something new has come to the Island, the first tourist in centuries, and this uneasy equilibrium is about to shatter."

• Harlan Ellison's Greatest Hits edited by J. Michael Straczynski, read by Harlan Ellison, Grover Gardner, Hillary Huber, Tim Lounibos, Scott Brick, Steven Jay Cohen, Robert Fass, Neil Hellegers, Dion Graham, Edoardo Ballerini, Stefan Rudnicki, Angelo Di Loreto, and Luis Moreno for Blackstone -- "Harlan Ellison’s work shaped the science-fiction, fantasy, and horror genres in the twentieth century, and this collection of his best-known and most-acclaimed stories is a perfect treasury for old Ellison fans as well as listeners discovering this zany, polyphonic writer for the first time."

NON-FICTION PICK:

• There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib, read by the author for Books on Tape -- "Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren’t. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling."

BACKLIST PICKS:

• Our Man in Havana By: Graham Greene (1958), read by Matthew Lloyd Davies for Tantor -- "MI6's man in Havana is Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity. To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Charles Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true."

• Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison (1967), read by Tim Campbell, Simon Vance, Steven Jay Cohen, Johnny Heller, Edoardo Ballerini, Ramiz Monsef, Neil Hellegers, Jim Meskimen, JD Jackson, P. J. Ochlan, Dion Graham, Natalie Naudus, Vikas Adam, and Scott Aiello for Blackstone -- "A landmark short story collection that put the more character-based New Wave science fiction on the map, Dangerous Visions won several prestigious awards and was nominated for many others. This now-classic anthology includes thirty-three stories by thirty-two award-winning authors, over half of whom have won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. Contributing authors include: Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl, Brian W. Aldiss, Philip K. Dick, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Theodore Sturgeon, J.G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany, and Ellison himself."

• Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi By: Brian Lumley (1996), read by Joshua Saxon for Crossroad Press -- "Thirteen terrifying tales from the master of horror who created the nationally bestselling Necroscope series. The title story, "Fruiting Bodies," in which a small village slowly disappears, won the British Fantasy Award."

• Morning and Evening By: Jon Fosse (2000), translated by Damion Searls (2015), read by Kåre Conradi for Dreamscape -- "A child who will be named Johannes is born. An old man named Johannes dies. Between these two points, Jon Fosse gives us the details of an entire life, starkly compressed. Beginning with Johannes's father's thoughts as his wife goes into labor and ending with Johannes's own thoughts as he embarks upon a day in his life when everything is exactly the same yet totally different, Morning and Evening is a novel concerning the beautiful dream that our lives have meaning."

• Bloom By: Delilah S. Dawson (2023), read by Sarah Beth Pfeifer for Tantor -- "Rosemary meets Ash at the farmers' market. Ash—precise, pretty, and practically perfect—sells bars of soap in delicate pastel colors, sprinkle-spackled cupcakes stacked on scalloped stands, beeswax candles, jelly jars of honey, and glossy green plants. Ro has never felt this way about another woman. With Ash, she wants to be her and have her in equal measure. But as her obsession with Ash consumes her, she may find she's not the one doing the devouring."

MORE BACKLIST:

• The English Civil War: An Alternative History of Britain By: Timothy Venning (2015), read by Liam Gerrard for Tantor -- "With hindsight, the victory of Parliamentarian forces over the Royalists in the English Civil War may seem inevitable, but this outcome was not a foregone conclusion. Timothy Venning explores many of the turning points and discusses how they might so easily have played out differently. What if, for example, Charles I had capitalized on his victory at Edgehill by attacking London without delay? Could this have ended the war in 1642? His actual advance on the capital in 1643 failed but came close to causing a Parliamentarian collapse-how could it have succeeded, and what then?"

• Ruin: A Novel of Flyfishing in Bankruptcy By: Leigh Seippel (2022), read by Andrew J. Andersen for Tantor -- "Frank is another dreamer whose life is suddenly burned to the ground. More a disillusioned literature PhD than an experienced financier, he had naively agreed to join his wife's inheritance with his own personal guarantee of a college friend's private equity partnership debt. The business implosion and subsequent bankruptcy took all their assets. Francy, an orphaned European heiress, now finds herself homeless, still married to pleasant, witty Frank-who had failed to protect them from disaster. ­The couple flees Manhattan to live at a desolate non-working Hudson Valley farm."

• Slattery Falls By: Brennan LaFaro (2022), read by Nikolai Hill for Crossroad Press -- "Travis, Elsie, and Josh, college kids with a ghost-hunting habit, scour New England for the most interesting haunted locales. Their journey eventually leads them to Slattery Falls, a small Massachusetts town living in the shadow of the Weeks House. The former home of the town’s most sinister and feared resident sits empty. At least that’s what the citizens say. It’s all in good fun. But after navigating the strange home, they find the locals couldn’t be more wrong. And now the roles are reversed. The hunters have become the hunted. Something evil refuses to release its grip, forcing the trio into one last adventure."

• Trouble Walked In By: Mike Kupari (2022), read by Derek Dysart for Tantor -- "Cassandra Blake, an employee for the Ascension Planetary Holdings Group-the largest and most powerful corporation in Nova Columbia-has gone missing. And her sister wants to know why. When questions need answering on Nova Columbia, Detective Ezekiel "Easy" Novak is the man folks turn to. But what begins as a routine missing person case quickly turns into something much bigger and more sinister, with implications that could affect the entire planet. It seems Cassandra wasn't just investigating her employer. She had uncovered a secret effort to excavate and exploit an ancient alien artifact known only as The Seraph. Soon, Easy finds himself trying to unravel a conspiracy that may implicate not only Ascension, but the highest echelons of the Terran Confederation itself."

• Notes on Her Color: A Novel By: Jennifer Neal (2023, Catapult), read by Angela Sullen for Tantor -- "Gabrielle has always had a complicated relationship with her mother Tallulah, one marked by intimacy and resilience in the face of a volatile patriarch. Everything in their home has been bleached a cold white—from the cupboards filled with sheets and crockery to the food and spices Tallulah cooks with. Even Gabrielle, who inherited the ability to change the color of her skin from her mother, is told to pass into white if she doesn't want to upset her father. But this vital mother-daughter bond implodes when Tallulah is hospitalized for a mental health crisis. Separated from her mother for the first time in her life, Gabrielle must learn to control the temperamental shifts in her color on her own."

• The Glass Palace By: Kathryn Trattner (2023), read by Mary Jane Wells for Podium -- "For as long as Astrid can remember, she's been betrothed to a stranger. When tragedy strikes, her husband-to-be emerges from the shadows, ready to claim her hand in marriage. Unable to resist this mysterious stranger, she is drawn into a realm of captivating magic and haunting secrets. Tyhr has lived behind a silver tiger mask for years, cursed to a dark fate and suspended in time. Astrid could be the one to break the spell, but first, he must earn her trust and break through the hard shell encircling her heart."

• The Bereaved: A Novel By: Julia Park Tracey (2023), read by Aven Shore for Tantor -- "In 1859, women have few rights, even to their own children. When her husband dies and her children become wards of a predator, Martha—bereaved and scared—flees their beloved country home, taking the children with her to the squalor of New York City. But as a naïve woman alone, preyed on by male employers, she soon finds herself nearly destitute. The Home for the Friendless offers free food, clothing, and schooling to New York's street kids, and Martha secures a place temporarily for her children there. When she returns for them, she discovers that the Society has indentured her two eldest out to work via the Orphan Train, and has placed her two youngest for adoption. The Society refusing to help and with the Civil War erupting around her, Martha sets out to reclaim each of them."

• Memory and Desire: A Novel By: Philip Caputo (2023), read by Philip Church for Scribd -- "The newsman in Luke Blackburn shuns the spotlight when he and his old friend, now the county mayor in Key West, discover stranded Cuban refugees during a fishing outing turned tragic, but he is part of the story that goes out on the wire. When Corinne, his lover from many years ago, happens to read it and reaches out, the news she bears will disrupt his carefully orchestrated life and threatens to blow up his marriage."

TIE-IN WATCH:

• Halo: Battle Born By: Cassandra Rose Clarke, read by Ryan Do, Caitlin Kelly, Lee Osorio, and Angel Pean for Simon and Schuster -- "Saskia, Dorian, Evie, and Victor aren’t exactly friends at their small high school on the middle-of-nowhere colony world of Meridian. Each has their own problems, from absent parents to supporting their family, getting into a good college to making the next hit holo-film. But those problems were nothing next to the threat now facing their world: The alien alliance known as the Covenant is laying siege to Meridian, for reasons that aren’t so easily explained."

• Doctor Strange: Dimension War By: James Lovegrove, read by James Anderson Foster for Marvel -- "This creative novelization of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s original Doctor Strange stories sees Doctor Strange magically transform from a vain egoist to one of Earth’s greatest defenders."

INDIE WATCH:

• Veiled By: Jeff Strand, read by Scott Thomas -- "The first time their eyes lock, it’s an amused and sympathetic look from Alice at the next table. She can tell Nate’s blind date is going horribly awry. The second time is a chance meeting at a grocery store. Or is it by chance? It’s a little weird, but either way, Nate and Alice hit it off immediately. He really likes her. They have great chemistry. But there’s something a little off—okay, a lot off—about her. Not just the unexplained sadness. It’s an intense desire, almost a desperation, for things to move much faster than Nate is comfortable with. Alice has an obvious secret. What’s she hiding?"

• Heartwood Mage By: James Haddock, read by Daniel Wisniewski -- "When they hanged mage Baron Homburg and his family for treason, they missed one of his sons. The fourth son, ten-year-old Dale, witnessed the execution of his family, and something inside him broke. Two things happened that day: one, Dale became a borderline sociopath, and two, his mage abilities manifested at almost full strength, especially his wood or forest magic. That night he used his new wood magic to hang the earl who ordered the killing of his family. Now he has only one thing on his mind, killing all those involved in killing his family or seeing them brought to justice."

• Castor & Pollux By: C.M. Rahill, read by Jacob Buckenmeyer -- "SLACK, a deadened London lawyer with sleeping problems and a mysterious past, comes alive at night. The only problem is that he can never remember what happened the night before. One morning, as he embarks on his daily routine, Slack finds the fascinating outline of a novel he must have composed in his half-asleep state. He somehow knows the secret to his enigmatic existence lays in this unwritten novel and determines to bring it to life. Slack’s reality takes a surreal turn when he encounters the novel’s protagonist, OWEN, in the flesh. Rather than back away from this extraordinary situation, Slack decides to follow Owen and see where the journey will take him."

MOST MISSING:

• The Skinless Man Counts to Five: And Other Tales of the Macabre by Paul Jessup (Underland Press) -- "There are ghosts and butterflies, serial killers and dying stars, mermaids and monsters. You will find death cults, sewer elves, the apocalypse of youthful fervor, card games that require blood sacrifices, and self-immolation as an expression of devotion. Paul Jessup’s fiction eviscerates, shatters, and slurps the marrow from the bones of the world."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 19 March 2024

Posted on 2024-03-19 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• The Morningside by Téa Obreht, read by Carlotta Brentan for Random House -- "After being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-so-distant future, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in a place called Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family’s past, and because the once-vibrant city where she lives is now half-underwater. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia’s lonely and impoverished reality."

• The Last Bloodcarver by Vanessa Le, read by VyVy Nguyen for Macmillan -- "In the industrial city of Theumas, Nhika is seen not as a healer, but a monster that kills for pleasure. And in the city's criminal underbelly, the rarest of monsters are traded for gold. When Nhika is finally caught by the infamous Butchers, she's forced to heal the last witness to a high-profile murder. As Nhika delves into the investigation, all signs point to Ven Kochin, an alluring yet entitled physician's aide. Despite his relentless attempts to push her out of his opulent world, something inexplicable draws Nhika to him. But when she discovers Kochin is not who he claims to be, Nhika will be faced with a greater, more terrifying evil lurking in the city's center. Her only chance to survive lies in a terrible choice—become the dreaded monster the city fears, or risk jeopardizing the future of her kind."

• Memory Piece: A Novel By: Lisa Ko, read by Eunice Wong for Penguin -- "Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised."

• James: A Novel By: Percival Everett, read by Dominic Hoffman for Random House -- "A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view, from the “literary icon” (Oprah Daily) and Pulitzer Prize Finalist whose novel Erasure is the basis for Cord Jefferson’s critically acclaimed film American Fiction."

• Song of the Huntress By: Lucy Holland, read by Kristin Atherton and Lucy Holland for Redhook -- "The acclaimed author of Sistersong transforms the story of Herla and the Wild Hunt into a rich, feminist fantasy in this stunning tale of two great warriors, a war-torn land, and an ancient magic that is slowly awakening."

• Cascade Failure: A Novel By: L. M. Sagas, read by Torian Brackett for Macmillan -- "There are only three real powers in the Spiral: the corporate power of the Trust versus the Union's labor's leverage. Between them the Guild tries to keep everyone's hands above the table. It ain't easy. Branded a Guild deserter, Jal "accidentally" lands a ride on a Guild ship. Helmed by an AI, with a ship's engineer/medic who doesn't see much of a difference between the two jobs, and a "don't make me shoot you" XO, the Guild crew of the Ambit is a little . . . different. They're also in over their heads. Responding to a distress call from an abandoned planet, they find a mass grave, and a live programmer who knows how it happened. The Trust has plans. This isn't the first dead planet, and it's not going to be the last. Unless the crew of the Ambit can stop it."

• Annie Bot: A Novel By: Sierra Greer, read by Jennifer Jill Araya for Harper -- "A powerful, provocative novel about the relationship between a female robot and her human owner, exploring questions of intimacy, power, autonomy, and control."

• The Princess of Las Vegas: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian, read by Saskia Maarleveld for Books on Tape -- "From the New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and The Lioness, a Princess Diana impersonator and her estranged sister find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of money and murder in this twisting tale of organized crime, cryptocurrency, and family secrets on the Las Vegas strip."

• Fervor: A Novel By: Toby Lloyd, read by Genevieve Gaunt for Simon and Schuster -- "A chilling and unforgettable story of a close-knit Jewish family in London pushed to the brink when they suspect their daughter is a witch."

• Rainbow Black: A Novel By: Maggie Thrash, read by Hope Newhouse for Harper -- "For fans of Donna Tartt and Ottessa Moshfegh comes a brilliant, deliriously entertaining novel from the acclaimed author of Honor Girl. Rainbow Black is part murder mystery, part gay international fugitive love story—set against the ’90s Satanic Panic and spanning 20 years in the life of a young woman pulled into its undertow."

• Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad: Stories By: Damilare Kuku, read by Anniwaa Buachie and Thabang Makhubela for Harper -- "This remarkable short story collection takes us deep into the heart of modern Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, and the lives of a collection of audacious women who cope with romantic difficulties by brilliantly turning the tables on the men who wrong them."

• Self-Portraits: Stories By: Osamu Dazai (1991), translated by Ralph McCarthy, read by Brian Nishii for New Directions -- "In these short stories, collected and translated by Ralph McCarthy, we can see just how closely Dazai’s life mirrored his art, and vice versa, as the writer/narrator falls from grace, rises to fame, and falls again. Addiction, debt, shame, and despair dogged Dazai until his self-inflicted death, and yet despite all the lies and deception he resorted to in life, there is an almost fanatical honesty to his writing. And that has made him a hero to generations of listeners who see laid bare, in his works, the painful, impossible contradictions inherent in the universal commandment of social life—fit in and do as you are told—as well as the possibility, however desperate, of defiance."

NON-FICTION WATCH:

• The Observable Universe: An Investigation By: Heather McCalden, read by the author for Random House -- "Is anyone ever truly lost in the internet age? A moving, original memoir of a young woman reckoning with her parents’ absence, the virus that took them, and what it means to search for meaning in a hyperconnected world."

• Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar By: Cynthia Carr, read by Justin Vivian Bond for Macmillan -- "From the acclaimed biographer Cynthia Carr, the first full portrait of the queer icon and Warhol superstar Candy Darling."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny, read by Adam Barr for Tantor -- "He'd been an important part of the team putting together the International Data Bank, which would track every single move made by every single human being. As the project neared completion, he realized that no one would ever truly be free again. At the very last moment he blanked his file, changed his face, and created a back door into the system. Now he was nameless, had no past, left no traces, according to the IDB he no longer existed. But he could become anyone at any time for any reason. Not being in the system meant that he had to earn a living outside of the normal confines of human society. But there were people willing to pay cold, hard cash for a man who could be anyone and then disappear once the job was done."

• The Old Man Who Read Love Stories: A Novel By: Luis Sepúlveda (1994), read by Ian Guerra for Harper -- "The spellbinding classic tale of man and nature, honor, and adventure, in which the peaceful life of an aging, book-loving widower in the Ecuadorean jungle is upended when an ignorant tourist provokes a mother ocelot."

• John James Audubon: The Making of an American By: Richard Rhodes (2004), read by Grover Gardner for Blackstone -- "Rhodes shows us young Audubon arriving in New York from France in 1803, his illegitimacy a painful secret, speaking no English but already drawing and observing birds. We see him falling in love, marrying the wellborn English girl next door, crossing the Appalachians to frontier Kentucky to start a new life, fashioning himself into an American just as his adopted country was finding its identity."

• All the Sad Young Literary Men By: Keith Gessen (2008), read by Ari Fliakos for Penguin -- "A charming yet scathing portrait of young adulthood at the opening of the twenty-first century. The novel charts the lives of Sam, Mark, and Keith as they overthink their college years, underthink their love lives, and struggle to find a semblance of maturity, responsibility, and even literary fame."

• The Iron King: The Iron Fey, Book 1 By: Julie Kagawa (2010, 2020), read by Khristine Hvam for Harlequin -- "Enter a fantastical world of dangerous faeries, wicked princes and one half-human girl who discovers her entire life is a lie."

• World Breakers edited by Tony Daniel and Christopher Ruocchio (2021), read by J. Rodney Turner for Tantor -- "Formed from cold steel and superpowered computing brains, these gigantic tanks with the firepower of an entire army have been the decisive factors in interplanetary battle. But are humans worthy of the extraordinary instruments of war that they have created? Are the Worldbreakers the greatest protector of human liberty, or its worst threat? For, while these Worldbreakers very definitely have minds of their own, the question remains: within their iron and superluminal quantum breasts, does there lie a faithful heart? Stories of world breakers and world makers in the great tradition of Keith Laumer's Bolos from David Weber, Larry Correia, Wen Spencer, and more."

• The Shuddering City By: Sharon Shinn (2022), read by Leanne Woodward for Tantor -- "In the city of Corcannon, everyone has a secret. Madeleine is planning her wedding to Tivol, but she's really in love with Reese. Jayla has become the guardian of a child named Aussen, but she knows that Aussen possesses a mysterious and dangerous power. Brandon is a temple solider keeping the enigmatic Villette a prisoner in her own home, but finds himself risking everything to keep her safe. Pietro is pretending he's surprised every time the city is wracked by tremors, but he'll do anything to stop the devastation. Even Corcannon itself has a secret. It's built on a lie, and that lie is about to come tumbling down."

• Christmas and Other Horrors: An Anthology of Solstice Horror edited by Ellen Datlow (2023), read by Carrie Coello and Andrew J. Andersen for Tantor -- "Hugo Award-winning editor, and horror legend Ellen Datlow presents a terrifying and chilling horror anthology of original short stories exploring the endless terrors of winter solstice traditions across the globe, featuring chillers by Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, Alma Katsu, and many more."

• Gollitok by Andrew Najberg (2023), read by Joe Hempel for Tantor -- "In a post-nuclear Eastern Europe, Hammel E Varka departs for a remote island to join a survey team cataloguing the abandoned Gollitok prison in the hopes that he will redeem his family's tarnished reputation. After the passage across the strait leaves a team member injured, Varka quickly realizes that this survey is far from routine and that what he thought he knew about the island was a cover for more horrifying truths."

SERIES WATCH:

• The Weavers of Alamaxa: The Alamaxa Duology, Book 2 By: Hadeer Elsbai, read by Priya Ayyar and Nikki Massoud for Harper -- "Following up on one of the most exciting fantasy debuts, The Daughters of Izdihar, Hadeer Elsbai concludes her Alamaxa Duology—inspired by Egyptian history and myth—with a tale of magic, war, betrayal, sisterhood, and love."

• Promise Kept: The Promises Series, Book 2 By: K’wan, read by Honey Jones for Blackstone -- "In this stunning sequel to Promise Broken, K’wan spins a pulse-pounding story about surviving, thriving, and the consequences of love."

• The War of the Givens: The Silvers Series, Book 3 By: Daniel Price, read by Rich Orlow for Penguin -- "X-Men meets Blake Crouch in the explosive conclusion to Daniel Price’s genre-bending Silvers trilogy about six extraordinary people whose fates become intertwined on an Earth far different from our own...one that is headed for utter destruction."

• Tower of Silence: Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, Book 4 by Larry Correia, read by Tim Gerard Reynolds for Audible -- "The assassination of the chief judge has pushed the Capitol to the edge. The Great Extermination has spread to all the land. The casteless must be annihilated."

MORE FICTION:

• Lilith: A Novel By: Eric Rickstad, read by Brittany Pressley for Blackstone -- "After her son, Lydan, suffers traumatic injuries in a school shooting, single mom Elisabeth Ross grows enraged at men in power. If they won’t do anything to help end this epidemic of violence, she will. Believing it’s her destiny, she sets out to awaken the world to the cowards these men are and commits her own shocking act of violence. Going by the name Lilith—the first wife of Adam who fled Eden rather than serve a man—she posts a video of her crime that reverberates throughout society. Praised by some, demonized by others, and hunted by the FBI and vigilantes alike, Elisabeth must keep her identity a secret as she tries to care for her son."

• The Tree Doctor By: Marie Mutsuki Mockett, read by June Angela for Dreamscape -- "When the unnamed narrator of Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s stirring second novel returns to Carmel, California, to care for her mother, she finds herself stranded at the outset of the disease. With her husband and children back in Hong Kong, and her Japanese mother steadily declining in a care facility two hours away, she becomes preoccupied with her mother’s garden—convinced it contains a kind of visual puzzle—and the dormant cherry tree within it. Caught between tending to an unwell parent and the weight of obligation to her distant daughters and husband, she becomes isolated and unmoored. She soon starts a torrid affair with an arborist who is equally fascinated by her mother’s garden, and together they embark on reviving it."

• Jaded: A Novel By: Ela Lee, read by Rosa Escoda for Simon and Schuster -- "A young lawyer wakes up the morning after a work gala with no memory of how she got home the previous night and must figure out what, exactly, happened—and how much she's willing to put up with to make her way to the top of the corporate ladder."

• How We Named the Stars By: Andrés N. Ordorica, read by Christian Barillas for Dreamscape -- "When Daniel de La Luna arrives as a scholarship student at an elite East Coast university, he bears the weight of his family’s hopes and dreams—and the burden of sharing his late uncle’s name. Daniel flounders at first, but then Sam, his roommate, changes everything. As their relationship evolves from brotherly banter to something more intimate, Daniel soon finds himself in love with a man who helps him see himself in a new light. But just as their relationship takes flight, Daniel is pulled away, first by Sam’s hesitation and then by a brutal turn of events that changes Daniel’s life forever."

• American Sycamore: A Novel By: Charles Kenney, read by Michael Ward for Skyhorse -- "A moving novel about the devotions of friendship and the power of love to heal, American Sycamore celebrates the American experiment and the importance of giving a damn."

• The Never Tell Collection from Audible Original Stories -- "How well do you know people? How well do they know you? Six award-winning, bestselling authors of suspense explore the lingering threat of secrets and the inescapable fear that they can’t stay buried forever. No matter how dark the hiding place, the consequences of revealing the truth can bring out the worst in lovers, friends, family, and strangers."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• The Memory Bank By: Brian Shea and Raquel Byrnes, read by Megan Tusing for Tantor -- "Technology pioneer Dr. Gerald Price is at the height of his scientific career. After years of research in the field of memory augmentation, he's just made a world-changing breakthrough. But his life's work is mysteriously cut short by a fatal overdose in a seedy motel. All evidence points to a suicide, and the case is closed . . . until Detective Morgan Reed begins working a series of similarly strange deaths."

• The Day Tripper By: James Goodhand, read by James Meunier for Harlequin -- "It’s 1995, and Alex Dean has it all: a spot at Cambridge University next year, the love of an amazing woman named Holly and all the time in the world ahead of him. That is until a brutal encounter with a ghost from his past sees him beaten, battered and almost drowning in the Thames. He wakes the next day to find he’s in a messy, derelict room he’s never seen before, in grimy clothes he doesn’t recognize, with no idea of how he got there. A glimpse in the mirror tells him he’s older—much older—and has been living a hard life, his features ravaged by time and poor decisions. He snatches a newspaper and finds it’s 2010—fifteen years since the fight. After finally drifting off to sleep, Alex wakes the following morning to find it’s now 2019, another nine years later. But the next day, it’s 1999. Never knowing which day is coming, he begins to piece together what happens in his life after that fateful night by the river."

• Floating Hotel By: Grace Curtis, read by Braden Wright for Brilliance -- "Welcome to the Grand Abeona Hotel: home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and the very best views the galaxy has to offer. All year round it moves from planet to planet, system to system, pampering guests across the furthest reaches of the milky way. The last word in sub-orbital luxury—and an absolute magnet for intrigue. Intrigues such as: Why are there love poems in the lobby inbox? How many Imperial spies are currently on board? What is the true purpose of the Problem Solver’s conference? And perhaps most pertinently—who is driving the ship?"

INDIE WATCH:

• Shabin: The Reluctant Prince of Rhime By: Andrew Heister, read by Caius Ashburn -- "Over four hundred years ago, Jason’s great-grandfather mixed alien and human DNA until he created a lab rat son. Since the Herodians communicated with a telepathic link, it wasn’t surprising when Jason’s grandfather gained some of those abilities. Using mental manipulation, Shabin Industries became a planetary empire—always keeping details of the power a secret. After Jason’s insane father murders his only friend, he runs away, fearing he’s next. Leaving the planet, and the protection he’s always enjoyed, was a stupid thing to do, but a chance meeting with company pilot, Sparrow, and several other minions, both willing and unwilling, turns his flight into a frantic attempt to stop an interplanetary war."

• All Hope of Becoming Human By: Lonnie Busch, read by Patricia Shade -- "FBI Special Agent Demzey knows nothing about archaeology; his specialty— anomalous crimes, the fringe edge of the aberrant and the unknown. Demzey is investigating a recent rash of vicious and brutal murders, the clues surrounding the killings both disturbing and inexplicable. He and his assistant Connie Wegman catch a break when they discover remains of two monstrous creatures unknown to science, believed to be a race of aliens responsible for attacks on humans across the globe."

MOST MISSING:

• Just Another Tuesday: The Adventures of Basil & Moebius, Book 7 by Erik Scott de Bie, Richard Lee Byers, Chris A Jackson, Ryan Schifrin, and Timothy Zahn (Red Circle Productions) -- "Spellbinding supernatural artifacts? Check. The ghost of a legendary dragon? Check. An invisible inter-dimensional carnivorous monster? Check. Sentient A.I. bent on world dominatoin? Check. And that's just for starters. For anyone else, it would be the hair raising thrill-ride of a lifetime. For Basil & Moebius, it's... just another Tuesday."

• A Voice Calling by Christopher Barzak (Psychopomp) -- "Button House has stood for centuries, digging its roots and its rot deeper and deeper, consuming all who approach: twin brothers, a child bride, an innocent baby, four young factory workers. And then came Rose Billings, who had an affinity with the house like no other. Rose, who could hear the house and the pleas of its many ghosts. Rose, who would attempt to solve the mysteries of Button House, or die trying."

• The Princess Scout by Henry Vogel (Rampant Loon) -- Alas, this series has started coming to audio in the dreaded "Virtual Voice" format, but this one hasn't, leaving me hope that Vogel and Rampant Loon will get back to actual human narrations. "Separated from their classmates during a drill, Scout Cadets Anne Villas and Christine Montide find themselves stranded on a previously uncharted world. By pure chance they've discovered a lost human colony that wants to stay lost, and the rulers of this planet will use all the power they have to keep it a secret."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 12 March 2024

Posted on 2024-03-12 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Until August: A Novel By: Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Anne McLean, read by Catalina Sandino Moreno, Cristobal Pera, and Rodrigo Garcia for Random House -- "The extraordinary rediscovered novel from the Nobel Prize–winning author of Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude—a moving tale of female desire and abandon."

• The Most Secret Memory of Men By: Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated by Lara Vergnaud, read by Leon Nixon for Tantor -- "In 2018, Diegane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer in Paris, discovers a legendary book from the 1930s, The Labyrinth of Inhumanity. No one knows what became of its author, once hailed as the "Black Rimbaud," after the book caused a scandal. Enthralled by this mystery, Diegane decides to search for T.C. Elimane, going down a path that will force him to confront the great tragedies of history, from colonialism to the Holocaust."

• Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu, read by Catherine Ho for Simon and Schuster -- "From the Hugo Award­–winning author of Folding Beijing comes a gripping science fiction thriller in which three unlikely allies attempt a desperate mission of first contact with a mysterious alien race before more militaristic minds can take matters into their own hands."

• Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology by Wole Talabi, read by Kofi Boakye, Anniwaa Buachie, Délé Ogundiran, and Tony Tambi for Recorded Books -- "The first anthology of stories set in this fictional shared world based on a blend of African cultural worldviews."

• Those Beyond the Wall: A Novel By: Micaiah Johnson, read by Angel Pean for Random House -- "A searing sci-fi thriller about a woman reckoning with her past to solve a series of sudden and inexplicable deaths in the face of a coming apocalypse—from the Compton Crook Award-winning author of The Space Between Worlds."

• All of Us Strangers: A Novel By: Taichi Yamada, read by Geoff Sugiyama for Harper -- "Screenwriter Harada is disconnected from the world. Lonely and jaded, he’s drifted apart from his son and is dismissive when approached with gestures of friendship, including from a lonely and mysterious tenant who lives in his mostly empty apartment building. One night, when Harada returns to the dilapidated downtown district of Tokyo where he grew up, he meets a man who looks exactly like his long-dead father. And so begins Harada’s ordeal, thrust into a reality where his parents appear to be alive at the exact age they had been when they died many years earlier."

• Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere By: Anastacia-Renee, read by the author for Harper -- "In this bold hybrid collection of poetry, flash fiction, and Afrofuturism sci-fi, the award-winning interdisciplinary writer and author of Side Notes from the Archivist explores what happens when god is a Black woman in a town. What happens when there are multiple universes in the middle of nowhere?"

• Between You and Us: A Novel By: Kendra Broekhuis, read by Anna Caputo for Random House -- "From the author of Sea Change comes a short story collection that explores Korean American womanhood, bodies, animals, and transformation as a means of survival."

• Welcome to Forever by Nathan Tavares, read by Neil Shah for Recorded Books -- "A sweeping, psychedelic romance of two men caught in a looping world of artificial realities, edited memories, secretive cabals and conspiracies to push humanity to the next step in its evolution."

SERIES WATCH:

• Sunbringer: Godkiller Book 2 by Hannah Kaner, read by Kit Griffiths for Harper -- "Return to the world of Godkiller in this thrilling sequel to the #1 internationally bestselling fantasy debut."

• 2054: A Novel By: Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis USN, read by Junior Nyong'o, Brian Nishii, Eunice Wong, Emily Woo Zeller, and Vikas Adam for Penguin -- "From the acclaimed authors of the runaway New York Times bestseller 2034 comes another explosive work of speculative fiction set twenty years further in the future, at a moment when a radical leap forward in artificial intelligence combines with America’s violent partisan divide to create an existential threat to the country, and the world."

• Demon Daughter: A Penric and Desdemona Novella By: Lois McMaster Bujold, read by Grover Gardner for Blackstone -- "A six-year-old shiplost girl draws the kin Jurald family of Vilnoc into complex dilemmas, and sorcerer Learned Penric and his Temple demon Desdemona into conflict—with each other. It will take all of Penric’s wits, his wife Nikys’s wisdom, and the hand of the fifth god’s strangest saint to untangle the threads of their future."

• Sanctuary: The Remaining By: D. J. Molles, read by Christian Rummel for Audible -- "Wounded and on the run from their former lives in Northern California, Bran and Kat find themselves in the Oregon wilderness, searching for a place to call home—a place where they can escape their past, with people that will accept Kat for what she is."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny (1968), read by Paul Bellantoni for Tator -- "Hell Tanner isn't the sort of guy you'd mistake for a hero: he's a fast-driving car thief, a smuggler, and a stone-cold killer. Facing life in prison for his various crimes, he's given a choice: Rot away his remaining years in a tiny jail cell or drive cross-country and deliver a case of antiserum to the plague-ridden people of Boston, Massachusetts."

• Star Wars Legends: I, Jedi By: Michael A. Stackpole (1998), read by Marc Thompson for Random House -- "The dramatic story of an X-wing pilot on the razor’s edge between the hero he once was and the power he could have—if he’s willing to embrace the Dark Side."

• Birchwood: A Novel By: John Banville (2009), read by John Lee for Harlequin -- "A classic novel of family, isolation and a blighted Ireland from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea depicts the end of innocence for a boy and his country."

MORE FICTION:

• Headshot: A Novel By: Rita Bullwinkel, read by Cassandra Campbell for Penguin -- "An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors’ pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win."

• The Underground Library: A Novel By: Jennifer Ryan, read by Fenella Woolgar for Random House -- "When the Blitz imperils the heart of a London neighborhood, three young women must use their fighting spirit to save the community’s beloved library in this novel based on true events from the author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir."

• Twilight Territory: A Novel By: Andrew X. Pham, read by David Lee Huynh for HighBridge -- "The peak of the hot season, 1942: The wars in Europe and Asia and the Japanese occupation have upset the uneasy balance of French Indochina. In the Vietnamese fishing village of Phan Thiet, Tuyet ekes out a living at a small storefront with her aunt Coi, her cousin Ha, and her two-year-old daughter, Anh. She can hardly remember her luxurious life in the city of Saigon, which she left just two years ago. The day Tuyet meets Japanese major Yamazaki Takeshi is inauspicious and stifling, with no relief from the sand-stirring wind. But to her surprise, she feels not fear or wariness, but a strange kinship."

• Great Expectations: A Novel By: Vinson Cunningham, read by Aaron Goodson for Random House -- "A historic presidential campaign changes the trajectory of a young Black man’s life in the highly anticipated debut novel from one of The New Yorker’s rising stars."

• Victim: A Novel By: Andrew Boryga, read by Anthony Rey Perez for Random House -- "A fearless satire about a hustler from the Bronx who sees through the veneer of diversity initiatives and decides to cash in on the odd currency of identity."

• Some Strange Music Draws Me In: A Novel By: Griffin Hansbury, read by Petey Gibson for Audible -- "It’s the summer of 1984 in Swaffham, Massachusetts, when Mel (short for Melanie) meets Sylvia, a tough-as-nails trans woman whose shameless swagger inspires Mel’s dawning self-awareness. But Sylvia’s presence sparks fury among her neighbors and throws Mel into conflict with her mother and best friend. Decades later, in 2019, Max (formerly Mel) is on probation from his teaching job for, ironically, defying speech codes around trans identity. Back in Swaffham, he must navigate life as part of a fractured family and face his own role in the disasters of the past."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• Beyond Enemies by Marisa Wolf, read by Morgan Hallett for Recorded Books -- "An assignment on a backwater world turns deadly for a combat vet and her AI tank."

• A Feather So Black by Lyra Selene, read by Heather O’Sullivan for Orbit -- "Set in a world of perilous magic and moonlit forests, this seductive romantic fantasy tells the story of a defiant changeling, her cursed sister, and the dangerous fae lord she must defeat to save her family."

• Unusual Minds By: Tracie Hollis, read by Chelsea Stephens for Tantor -- "As a child, Angela Mathers was the victim of a top-secret experimental program that implanted neural chips in children to correct disorders and enhance intelligence. Shunned by society, she, and others like her were locked away in camps. Now an adult Luman, she is both brilliant and calculating. Her quest for redemption brings her to DC, where she works to get a government bill that would free the Lumans passed into law. Isabella Dodge works for Control, the agency tasked with tracking and imprisoning the remaining Lumans. But Isabella has one secret. She's a Solo—an undocumented Luman who fled the camps years ago. When their paths cross, an innocent touch sparks something in both women. But is it love, or simply their neural programming? When Control finds out Isabella is a Solo and captures her, Angela finds her answer—she will risk everything to save Isabella, even her own freedom."

INDIE WATCH:

• Heretical Fishing, Book 1 By: Haylock Jobson, read by Heath Miller for Podium -- I don't usually go for LitRPG or Progression Fantasy titles but, c'mon, this one looks intriguing: "When summoned to a fantastical world and granted powers by a broken System, most freshly minted protagonists would strap on their big-boy boots and get ready for their stats to start climbing. But Fischer isn't like most MCs. In fact, he doesn't want to be a hero at all. Fame? Fortune? Power? He had enough of all that in his old life. Discovering forbidden fishing techniques and petting every cute animal that comes within scritching distance? Now that's a good time. Unfortunately for Fischer, cosmic forces rarely care for mortal feelings. He's hounded on all sides by inept cults, conspiring nobles, and more magical misunderstandings than those of a preteen relationship."

MOST MISSING:

• The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed (Solaris) -- "The Empires of Varkal and Med’ariz have always been at war. Alefret, the founder of Varkal’s pacifist resistance, was bombed and maimed by his own government, locked up in a secret prison and tortured by a ‘visionary’ scientist. But now they’re offering him a chance of freedom. Ordered to infiltrate one of Med’ariz’s flying cities, obeying the bloodthirsty zealot Qhudur, he must find fellow anti-war activists in the enemy’s population and provoke them into an uprising against their rulers. He should refuse to serve the warmongers, but what if he could end this pointless war once and for all? Is that worth compromising his own morals and the principles of his fellow resistance members?"

• The Mirror of Eternity: The Night Trilogy, Book 3 by Garrett Boatman (Crossroad Press) -- "In the Desert of Dudael, the demon Azazel is freed from the pit where he has dwelled for millennia. On the frozen world of Abyss, fallen angels banished from earth in the time of Enoch, prepare for their return."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 5 March 2024

Posted on 2024-03-05 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

FICTION PICKS:

• Parasol Against the Axe: A Novel By: Helen Oyeyemi, read by Dorje Swallow for Penguin -- "The prize-winning, bestselling author of Peaces and Gingerbread returns with a novel about competitive friendship, the elastic boundaries of storytelling, and the meddling influence of a city called Prague."

• Big Time: A Novel By: Ben H. Winters, read by Eva Kaminsky for Mulholland -- "What if time could be taken from us—the minutes, the hours, the years of our lives, extracted like organs taken for transplant? What would it mean for the world? And what would it do to the person from whom it’s taken?"

• Thirst: A Novel By: Marina Yuszczuk, translated by Heather Cleary, read by Maria Liatis for Penguin -- "It is the twilight of Europe’s bloody bacchanals, of murder and feasting without end. In the nineteenth century, a vampire arrives from Europe to the coast of Buenos Aires and, for the second time in her life, watches as villages transform into a cosmopolitan city, one that will soon be ravaged by yellow fever. She must adapt, intermingle with humans, and be discreet. In present-day Buenos Aires, a woman finds herself at an impasse as she grapples with her mother's terminal illness and her own relationship with motherhood. When she first encounters the vampire in a cemetery, something ignites within the two women—and they cross a threshold from which there’s no turning back."

• The Silver Bone: A Novel By: Andrey Kurkov, read by Josh Bloomberg for Harper -- "From Ukraine’s most celebrated novelist, a perplexing mystery that introduces rookie detective Samson Kolechko in Kyiv as he is tackling his first case, set against real life details of the tumultuous early twentieth century."

• Island Rule: Stories By: Katie M. Flynn, read by Carlotta Brentan, Corey Brill, Erin deWard, Kitty Hendrix, Jensen Olaya, Joy Osmanski, Devon Sorvari, Emily Tremaine, and Kimberly Woods for Simon and Schuster -- "An angry mother turns into a literal monster. A company in San Francisco can scrub your entire reputation and create a new one…for a price. A failed actor on a reality show turns into an unlikely world savior. And much more. Through each of these twelve interconnected stories, Katie Flynn masterfully blends people, places, and even realities."

• Fruit of the Dead: A Novel By: Rachel Lyon, read by Carlotta Brentan and Joy Osmanski for Simon and Schuster -- "An electric contemporary reimagining of the myth of Persephone and Demeter set over the course of one summer on a lush private island, about addiction and sex, family and independence, and who holds the power in a modern underworld."

• Chicano Frankenstein By: Daniel A. Olivas, read by Thom Rivera for Blackstone -- "An unnamed paralegal, brought back to life through a controversial process, maneuvers through a near-future world that both needs and resents him. As the United States president spouts anti-reanimation rhetoric and giant pharmaceutical companies rake in profits, the man falls in love with lawyer Faustina Godínez. His world expands as he meets her network of family and friends, setting him on a course to discover his first-life history, which the reanimation process erased."

• Rose/House By: Arkady Martine, read by Raquel Beattie for Tantor -- "A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else. But now Deniau's been dead a year, and Rose House is locked up tight, as commanded by the architect's will: all his possessions and files and sketches are confined in its archives, and their only keeper is Rose House itself. Rose House, and one other. Dr. Selene Gisil, one of Deniau's former protege, is permitted to come into Rose House once a year. Until this week, Dr. Gisil was the only person whom Rose House spoke to."

• The Canopy Keepers: The Scorched Earth, Book 1 By: Veronica G. Henry, read by Robin Miles for Brilliance -- "What happens when nature will no longer stand by and accept its destruction? A female fire chief discovers an ancient world rooted with secrets that can save—or destroy."

NON-FICTION PICK:

• The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir By: RuPaul, read by the author for Harper -- "From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date—a brutally honest, surprisingly poignant, and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering the power of performance, found family, and self-acceptance."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Telling: Hainish Cycle, Book 8 By: Ursula K. Le Guin, read by Alyssa Bresnahan for Recorded Books -- "Once a culturally rich world, the planet Aka has been utterly transformed by technology. Records of the past have been destroyed, and citizens are strictly monitored. But an official observer from Earth named Sutty has learned of a group of outcasts who live in the wilderness."

• Alcestis By: Katharine Beutner (2010), read by Samara Naeymi for Recorded Books -- "A fiercely feminist retelling of a little-known Greek myth: the ultimate story of sacrifice and forbidden desire."

• A God of Hungry Walls By: Garrett Cook (2015), read by Jim Patton for Fright Night -- "When you are within my walls, I am God. I have always been here, and I will always be. I have complete dominion. I control what you see, what you feel, and how you think. I will bend reality to whatever I wish. I will show you your worst fears and make you indulge in your darkest desires. Your pain is my pleasure. Your tears are my ambrosia. Your despair is my joy. I will break you. I will ruin you."

SERIES WATCH:

• The Hunter: Cal Hooper, Book 2 by Tana French, read by Roger Clark for Penguin -- "Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or less: he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge."

• The Hidden Queen: The Nightfall Saga, Book 2 By: Peter V. Brett, read by Saskia Maarleveld and Michael Crouch for Random House -- "Humanity thought the war with demonkind was over. Now, after less than a generation to rebuild, the demon corelings have returned with a vengeance. The Spear of Ala—the fortress that stands at the gates of the demon’s hive—is the last bastion against the horde, and reports say it may already have fallen."

• The Icarus Job: Icarus, Book 3 By: Timothy Zahn, read by Marc Thompson for Random House -- "Hoping to take possession of a new alien star-hopping portal, Roarke and Selene are tasked with transporting an assassin, who is herself being targeted."

• Mona of the Manor: Tales of the City, Book 10 By: Armistead Maupin, read by Mara Wilson for Harper

• Aftermarket Afterlife: InCryptid, Book 13 By: Seanan McGuire, read by Emily Bauer

MORE FICTION:

• The Great Divide: A Novel By: Cristina Henriquez, read by Robin Miles for Harper -- "An epic novel of the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there, by Cristina Henríquez, acclaimed author of The Book of Unknown Americans."

• The Extinction of Irena Rey By: Jennifer Croft, read by Lanessa Tremblett for Bloomsbury -- "From the International Booker Prize-winning translator and Women's Prize finalist, an utterly beguiling novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest."

• Anita de Monte Laughs Last: A Novel By: Xochitl Gonzalez, read by Jessica Pimentel, Jonathan Gregg, and Stacy Gonzalez for Macmillan -- "1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name has been all but forgotten—certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret. But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita’s story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist."

• The Devil and Mrs. Davenport: A Novel By: Paulette Kennedy, read by Lauren Ezzo for Brilliance -- "The bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain and Parting the Veil mines the subtle horrors of 1950s America in a gripping novel about a woman under pressure—from the living and the dead."

• Three Kinds of Lucky: The Shadow Age, Book 1 By: Kim Harrison, read by Marguerite Gavin for Penguin -- "Petra Grady has known since adolescence that she has no talent for magic—and that’s never going to change. But as a sweeper first-class, she’s parlayed her rare ability to handle dross—the damaging, magical waste generated by her more talented kin’s spellwork—into a decent life working at the mages’ university. Except Grady’s relatively predictable life is about to be upended. When the oblivious, sexy, and oh-so-out-of-reach Benedict Strom needs someone with her abilities for a research project studying dross and how to render it harmless, she’s stuck working on his team—whether she wants to or not."

• What Grows in the Dark By: Jaq Evans, read by Elena Rey for Harlequin -- "In this chilling contemporary horror novel, a phony spiritualist returns to her hometown to assist in an investigation that eerily mirrors her sister’s death, forcing her to confront the secrets she’s been running from."

MOST MISSING:

• Reports from the Deep End: Stories inspired by J. G. Ballard edited by Maxim Jabukowski and Rick McGrath (Titan Books) -- "A fascinating and unsettling anthology of 32 science fiction short stories in tribute to the prophetic dystopias of New Wave sci-fi pioneer, and literary titan of the twentieth century, J. G. Ballard—featuring Will Self, Iain Sinclair, Christopher Fowler, Chris Beckett, and a new Jerry Cornelius story from Michael Moorcock."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 27 February 2024

Posted on 2024-02-27 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Wandering Stars: A Novel by Tommy Orange, read by Shaun Taylor-Corbett for Books on Tape -- "Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle,where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines."

• In Ascension By: Martin MacInnes, read by Freya Miller for Audible -- "Longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. An astonishing novel about a young microbiologist investigating an unfathomable deep vent in the ocean floor, leading her on a journey that will encompass the full trajectory of the cosmos and the passage of a single human life."

• The Other Valley: A Novel By: Scott Alexander Howard, read by Cindy Kay for Simon and Schuster -- "For fans of Never Let Me Go and The Giver, an elegant and exhilarating literary speculative novel about an isolated town neighbored by its own past and future, and a young girl who spots two elderly visitors from across the border: the grieving parents of the boy she loves."

• King Nyx: A Novel By: Kirsten Bakis, read by Bahni Turpin for Recorded Books -- "nna Fort wants to be a supportive wife, even if that means accompanying her husband for the winter of 1918 to a remote, frozen island estate so he can finish his book as the guest of an eccentric millionaire. When she learns three girls are missing from a school run by their host, Anna realizes finding them is up to her—even if that means risking her husband’s career, and possibly her life. Her husband’s masterpiece-in-progress features strange meteorological anomalies along with wild speculations about “facts” he believes scientists hide from the public. Most people think Charles Fort is a crackpot. That’s about to change now that wealthy Claude Arkel is his patron. Yet Anna is sure something’s not right on Prosper Island, though the alarming return of her “troubles” makes her question her own sanity. Is the figure in the woods really the ghost of her long-lost friend Mary, or a product of her disturbed imagination? Accompanied reluctantly by a fellow guest, the elegant and troubled Stella Bixby, Anna embarks on a dangerous quest to find the missing girls before Arkel finds her—or her own mind unravels."

• Fathomfolk: Drowned World, Book 1 By: Eliza Chan, read by Emily Woo Zeller for Orbit -- "Welcome to Tiankawi—shining pearl of human civilization and a safe haven for those fleeing civil unrest. Or at least, that’s how it first appears. But in the semi-flooded city, humans are, quite literally, on top: peering down from skyscrapers and aerial walkways on the fathomfolk—sirens, seawitches, kelpies and kappas—who live in the polluted waters below. And the fathomfolk are tired of it. When a water-dragon and a half siren join forces, the path to equality is filled with violence, secrets, and political intrigue. And they both must decide if the cost of change is worth it, or if Tiankawi should be left to drown."

• The Lady in Glass and Other Stories By: Anne Bishop, read by Alexandra Harris and Gary Littman for Penguin -- "A magical collection of stories new and old spanning across all of Anne Bishop’s most beloved fantasy worlds."

TIE-IN WATCH:

• Halo: Epitaph By: Kelly Gay, read by Keith Szarabajka for Simon and Schuster -- "Stripped of armor, might, and memory, the legendary Forerunner warrior known as the Didact was torn from the physical world following his destructive confrontation with the Master Chief and sent reeling into the mysterious depths of a seemingly endless desert wasteland. This once powerful and terrifying figure is now a shadow of his former self—gaunt, broken, desiccated, and alone. But this wasteland is not as barren as it seems. A blue light glints from a thin spire in the far distance."

• Star Trek: Picard: Firewall By: David Mack, read by January LaVoy for Simon and Schuster -- "Two years after the USS Voyager’s return from the Delta Quadrant, Seven of Nine finds herself rejected for a position in Starfleet…and instead finds a new home with the interstellar rogue law enforcement corps known as the Fenris Rangers. The Rangers seem like an ideal fit for Seven—but to embrace this new destiny, she must leave behind all she’s ever known, and risk losing the most important thing in her life: her friendship with Admiral Kathryn Janeway."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Moon and the Desert By: Robert E. Hampson (2023), read by Roman Howell for Tantor -- "Glenn Armstrong Shepard had his sights set on going to Mars as a flight surgeon, but a training accident on the Moon left him crippled. Now he has a new plan: to be fitted with bionic prosthetics and come back even stronger. Fate and the Space Force have other plans, and Glenn is grounded. Another doctor—his ex-fiancee—takes his place, and Glenn will have to fight to prove he can be an astronaut once more."

SERIES WATCH:

• Moon of the Turning Leaves: Moon, Book 2 By: Waubgeshig Rice, read by Billy Merasty for Harper -- "In this gripping stand-alone literary thriller set in the world of the award-winning post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, a scouting party led by Evan Whitesky ventures into unknown and dangerous territory to find a new home for their close-knit Northern Ontario Indigenous community more than a decade after a world-ending blackout."

INDIE WATCH:

• Shaking Hands with Elvis By: Paul Carroll, read by Samuel James -- "Assisted dying is legalized after the NHS sell-off. Where does the killing stop? The sick and old are no longer a societal burden, healthcare costs plummet, and inventive end-of-life options emerge. Geraldine, Dawn, Jeffrey, and Woody each book their final journey at Go Gently's Charon House clinic. What they find doesn't match the brochure. As their hour nears, will it be the end for these four, or is there life in them yet?"

MOST MISSING:

• The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom) -- "At the northern edge of a land ruled by a merciless foreign tyrant lies a wild, forbidden forest ruled by powerful magic. Veris Thorn—the only one to ever enter the forest and survive—is forced to go back inside to retrieve the tyrant's missing children. Inside await traps and trickery, ancient monsters, and hauntings of the past. One day is all Veris is afforded. One misstep will cost everything."

• Eynhallow by Tim McGregor (Raw Dog Screaming Press) -- "ORKNEY ISLANDS, 1797 – Agnes Tulloch feels a little cheated. This windswept place is not the island paradise her husband promised it to be when they wed. Now with four young children, she struggles to provide for her family while her husband grows increasingly distant. When a stranger comes ashore to rent an abandoned cottage, Agnes and the other islanders are abuzz with curiosity. Who is this wealthy foreigner and why on earth would he come to Eynhallow? Her curiosity is soon replaced with vexation when her husband hires her out as cook and washerwoman, leaving Agnes with no say in the matter. Agnes begrudgingly befriends this aristocrat-in-exile; a mercurial scientist who toils night and day on some secret pursuit. Despite herself, she’s drawn to his dark, brooding charm. And who is this Byronic stranger sweeping Agnes off her feet? His name is Frankenstein and he’s come to this remote isle to fulfill a monstrous obligation."

Posted in Release Week

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?"

Posted in Release Week