Release Week: 30 May 2023

Posted on 2023-05-30 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• The Light at the End of the World By: Siddhartha Deb, read by Neil Shah and Sneha Mathan for Recorded Books -- "Connecting India’s tumultuous 19th and 20th centuries to its potentially apocalyptic future, this sweeping tale of rebellion, courage, and brutality reinvents historical fiction for our time: a magisterial work of shifting forms reminiscent of Cloud Atlas and Underworld."

• Ink Blood Sister Scribe: A Novel By: Emma Törzs, read by Saskia Maarleveld for Harper -- "For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements—books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect. All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna’s isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy."

• Witch King By: Martha Wells, read by Eric Mok for Macmillan -- "After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well. But why was Kai imprisoned in the first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence? Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions. He’s not going to like the answers."

• The Wishing Game: A Novel By: Meg Shaffer, read by Paul Boehmer and Rachel L. Jacobs for Random House -- "Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher’s aide, she is able to share her love of reading with bright, young students, especially seven-year-old Christopher Lamb, who was left orphaned after the tragic death of his parents. Lucy would give anything to adopt Christopher, but even the idea of becoming a family seems like an impossible dream without proper funds and stability. Just when Lucy is about to give up, Jack Masterson announces he’s finally written a new book. Even better, he’s holding a contest at his home on the real Clock Island, and Lucy is one of the four lucky contestants chosen to compete to win the one and only copy. For Lucy, the chance of winning the most sought-after book in the world means everything to her and Christopher. But first she must contend with ruthless book collectors, wily opponents, and the distractingly handsome (and grumpy) Hugo Reese, the illustrator of the Clock Island books. Meanwhile, Jack “the Mastermind” Masterson is plotting the ultimate twist ending that could change all their lives forever."

• Beware the Woman By: Megan Abbott, read by Brittany Pressley for Penguin -- "Honey, I just want you to have everything you ever wanted. That’s what Jacy’s mom always told her. And Jacy felt like she finally did. Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy and her new husband, Jed, embark on their first road trip together to visit his father, Dr. Ash, in Michigan’s far-flung Upper Peninsula. The moment they arrive at the cottage snug within the lush woods, Jacy feels bathed in love by the warm and hospitable Dr. Ash, if less so by his house manager, the enigmatic Mrs. Brandt. But their Edenic first days take a turn when Jacy has a health scare. Swiftly, vacation activities are scrapped, and all eyes are on Jacy’s condition. Suddenly, whispers about Jed’s long-dead mother and complicated family history seem to eerily impinge upon the present, and Jacy begins to feel trapped in the cottage, her every move surveilled, her body under the looking glass."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Terry Pratchett's Discworld: City Watch (Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingy, and The Fifth Elephant) read by Jon Culshaw, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy, and Ben Aaronovitch for Penguin

• Drawn Up from Deep Places By: Gemma Files (2018), read by Emily Lawrence, Antony Ferguson, Robert Fass, Neil Hellegers, Marisa Calin, Tim Campbell, Hannah Curtis, Matthew Davies, Andrew Fallaize, Paul Woodson, Cindy Kay, Krystal Hammond, and Robin Miles for Blackstone -- "In her second collection from Trepidatio Publishing, award-winning author Gemma Files takes her listeners on journeys out beyond safe borders—from the trackless depths of the sea, to the empty desert frontiers of the Weird West, even to the edges of cracks between worlds. Here, in these narrow spaces between the known and the unknown, behind the paper-thin curtains of reality, lurk monsters both human and ancient: selkies and avenging revenants, voodoo priestesses and pirate sorcerers, ghosts and vampires, and the most famous murderer of all time."

• Factory 19: A Novel By: Dennis Glover (2020), read by David Linski for Blackstone -- "Hobart, 2022: a city with a declining population, in the grip of a dark recession. A rusty ship sails into the harbor and begins to unload its cargo on the site of the once famous but now abandoned Gallery of Future Art, known to the world as GoFA. One day the city’s residents are awoken by a high-pitched sound no one has heard for two generations: a factory whistle. GoFA’s owner, world-famous billionaire Dundas Faussett, is creating his most ambitious installation yet. He’s going to defeat technology’s dominance over our lives by establishing a new Year Zero: 1948. Those whose jobs have been destroyed by Amazon and Uber and Airbnb are invited to fight back in the only way that can possibly succeed: by living as if the internet had never been invented."

MORE FICTION:

• The Celebrants By: Steven Rowley, read by the author for Penguin -- "It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves. But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact."

• Good Night, Irene: A Novel By: Luis Alberto Urrea, read by Barrie Kreinik for Little, Brown and Company -- "In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle. After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact."

• Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea: A Novel By: Rita Chang-Eppig, read by Emily Woo Zeller for Blackstone -- "When Shek Yeung sees a Portuguese sailor slay her husband, a feared pirate, she knows she must act swiftly or die. Instead of mourning, Shek Yeung launches a new plan: immediately marrying her husband’s second-in-command, and agreeing to bear him a son and heir, in order to retain power over her half of the fleet. But as Shek Yeung vies for control over the army she knows she was born to lead, larger threats loom. The Chinese Emperor has charged a brutal, crafty nobleman with ridding the South China Seas of pirates, and the Europeans—tired of losing ships, men, and money to Shek Yeung’s alliance—have new plans for the area. Even worse, Shek Yeung’s cutthroat retributions create problems all their own. As Shek Yeung navigates new motherhood and the crises of leadership, she must decide how long she is willing to fight, and at what price, or risk losing her fleet, her new family, and even her life."

• Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves By: Quinn Connor, read by Marnye Young for Tantor -- "Years ago, yellow fever gripped the small lakeside town of Prosper, Arkansas. At the height of that summer swelter, in the wake of an unexpected storm, the dam failed and the valley flooded—drowning the town and everyone trapped inside. The secrets of old Prosper drowned with them. Now, decades later, when a mysterious locked box is pulled from the depths of the lake, three descendants of that long-ago tragedy are hurled into another feverish summer. Cassie: the reclusive sole witness to an impossible horror no one believes. Lark: a wide-eyed dreamer haunted by bizarre visions. June: caught between longing for a fresh start and bearing witness to the ghosts of the past. Bound together, all three must contend with their home's complex history—and with the ruins of the town lost far beneath the troubled water."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• More Perfect by Temi Oh, read by Nneka Okoye and Adam Courting for Simon and Schuster -- "When Moremi connects her brain to the Panopticon, a network which allows you to see inside the minds and dreams of others, she believes that it will save her from depression, loneliness and, eventually, death. That is until she meets Orpheus. Orpheus was brought up in isolation by a Neo-luddite father. He was raised to question everything, including the government who plan to make the connection procedure compulsory. They promise that connecting everyone to the Panopticon will end human suffering and usher in a more perfect world. But when Orpheus and Moremi uncover the dark side of the technology, they find themselves on opposite sides of a radical divide, between those who believe that the Panopticon will save humanity, and those who will stop at nothing to destroy it."

• The Queen with No Name by JJ Makenzie, read by Shakira Shute and Will Watt for Dreamscape -- "She was born to be a queen, yet she’s nothing more than a political pawn. With no name and no place to call her own, she’s doing her best to hold on to the only thing that belongs to her and her alone—her soul. A difficult task, given that she was kept alive for the sole purpose of being given to the formidable King Rowan of Northrend to fulfill the treaty signed by the three kingdoms of Greatland long before she was born. She must bear his heirs in the hopes of keeping the delicate peace that continually lies on the precipice of collapse. What she doesn’t know is that she’s not just the key to peace—she’s the key to war."

• Battery Life by Brennan Gilpatrick and Gregory Lang Narrated by: Thom Rivera for Blackstone -- "Welcome to the Junkyard, a toxic wasteland where humans, machines, and everything in between fight for survival among the ruins of a long-forgotten war. This is where Diane Three-One-Seven finds herself after the arkship Cradle—the only home she’s ever known—falls out of the sky. When a mysterious scavenger named Virgil stumbles upon Diane’s escape pod, the two strike a deal (if it can be called that). Virgil’s spare mechanical battle suit, nicknamed the “Grave Walker,” can help Diane survive the ruined atmosphere—but it could kill her if it runs out of power. And Diane’s untainted blood, a precious resource in this radioactive hellscape, could keep Virgil alive long enough to finish one last mission—but at what cost?"

• Project Chrysalis: A Book of the Transfigured World By: Willard Joyce, read by Amy Tallmadge for Tantor -- "A generation after a global plague depletes humanity and divides the world, Jenn and Mykol are brought together by a mysterious project and uncover a secret that changes everything they think they know."

SERIES WATCH:

• The Quarrygate Gambit: Streets of Maradaine, Book 4 by Marshall Ryan Maresca, read by Dan Calley for Tantor -- "After having thwarted some of the forces responsible for ruining their lives, reformed thieves Asti and Verci Rynax and the rest of the Holver Alley Crew had mostly settled back into sedate lives as upright citizens of Maradaine. But when they are suddenly arrested in mysterious circumstances, they find themselves in Quarrygate Prison, which tests the limits of their cunning and skill."

• Somewhere to Belong: Star Trek: Discovery, Book 9 By: Dayton Ward, read by January LaVoy for Simon and Schuster -- "After a successful journey to yet another planet cut off from the Federation, Discovery picks up a distress signal located in a nearby star system—a plea that harbors roots from their past lives in the 23rd century, and which may now lead to an entirely new crisis, plunging them all into mortal danger."

• Killing Moon: Harry Hole, Book 13 by Jo Nesbo, read by Sean Kinsella for Books on Tape -- " Brilliant rogue police investigator Harry Hole is back, this time as an outsider assembling his own team to help find a serial killer who is murdering young women in Oslo."

• Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Fallout By: Jeff Rovin, read by Roger Wayne for Macmillan -- "As fears of a dangerous nuclear confrontation between China and the US escalate, China targets individual members of the Black Wasp team."

MOST MISSING:

• Airside by Christopher Priest (Gollancz) -- "Hollywood actress Jeanette Marchand was beautiful, talented, beloved by audiences. During a time of personal crisis, she declares she is going to take a vacation in England, to explore the possibilities of working in London, before returning to the USA. She never returned to the USA. She never even left the airport. At least – no-one saw her leave. Years later, a young film student finds himself digging deeper into her disappearance. Where did she go? Was she really dead? Who was the mysterious man who sat beside her on the flight across from New York?"

• Wish I Was Here: An Anti-Memoir by M. John Harrison (Serpent's Tail) -- "M. John Harrison has produced one of the greatest bodies of fiction of any living British author, encompassing space opera, speculative fiction, fantasy, magical and literary realism. Every book is subversive of genre and united by restless intelligence, experimentation and rebelliousness of spirit. This is his first memoir, an 'anti-memoir', written in his mid-seventies with aphoristic daring and trademark originality and style, fresh after winning the Goldsmiths Prize in 2020. Many of our most prominent younger writers now recognise him as the most significant British writer of his generation."

• The Moonshine Messiah by Russell W. Johnson (Shotgun Honey Books) -- "As if being a woman sheriff in the West Virginia coal fields wasn’t tough enough, Mary Beth Cain’s life is complicated by the fact that the local hillbilly crime syndicate is run by her mother, Mamie. It's an association that, along with Mary Beth’s head-busting ways, has her staring down a corruption investigation when she gets a surprise visit from Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Connelly. Twenty years earlier, Patrick was Mary Beth’s high school sweetheart, but they broke up because Mary Beth couldn’t cut the loose ties she maintains with her villainous family. Now Patrick’s worked out a deal to wipe Mary Beth’s slate clean if she'll just do one thing: arrest her brother, Sawyer, who is the cult leader of a booming anti-government militia that's been giving the Feds headaches. It's an offer Mary Beth refuses until Sawyer's followers blow up a federal courthouse and G-men start swarming into town, preparing for a siege of the commando's compound. Suddenly Mary Beth is tasked with trying to head off a bloody, Waco-style massacre and the question isn't whether she should arrest her brother, but if she can do it in time."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 23 May 2023

Posted on 2023-05-23 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Halcyon: A Novel By: Elliot Ackerman, read by Steven Jay Cohen for Random House -- "Virginia, 2004. Gore is entering his second term as president. Our narrator, Martin Neumann, recently divorced, is living at Halcyon, the estate of renowned lawyer and World War II hero Robert Ableson. When news breaks that scientists funded by the Gore administration have discovered a cure for death, it calls into question everything Martin thought he understood about life, not least his work as a historian. Who is Ableson, really, and why did he draw Martin into his orbit? Is this new science a miraculous good or an insidious evil?"

• Scarlet by Genevieve Cogman, read by Georgia Maguire for Penguin -- "Set during the turbulent French Revolution in a world where many of the aristocrats are vampires, Scarlet is the first book in a wildly engaging new series which reinvents the beloved tale of the Scarlet Pimpernel."

• A History of the Island By: Eugene Vodolazkin, translated by Lisa C. Hayden, read by Daniel Henning for Tantor -- "This ingenious novel is presented as a chronicle of an island from medieval to modern times. The island is not on the map, but it is real beyond doubt. It cannot be found in history books, yet the events are painfully recognizable. The monastic chroniclers dutifully narrate events they witness. The entries mostly seem objective, but at least one monk simultaneously drafts and hides a "true" history, to be discovered centuries later. And why has someone snipped out a key prophesy about the island's fate?"

• The Blighted Stars By: Megan E. O'Keefe, read by Ciaran Saward for Orbit -- "She's a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they're found and Naira Sharp thinks she knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity's expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside. He's the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study rocks and read books. But Tarquin's father has tasked him with monitoring the settlement of a new planet, and he doesn't really have a choice in the matter. Disguised as Tarquin's new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy the settlement ship before they make land. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she's sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that's bigger than both of them."

• The Will of the Many: Hierarchy, Book 1 By: James Islington, read by Euan Morton for Audible -- "The Catenan Republic—the Hierarchy—may rule the world now, but they do not know everything. I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilized society in allowing my strength, my drive, and my focus—what they call Will—to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do. I tell them that I belong, and they believe me. But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart. And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family."

• Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances By: Kwame Alexander, read by the author for Little, Brown and Company -- "This powerful memoir from a #1 New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Medalist features poetry, letters, recipes, and other personal artifacts that provide an intimate look into his life and the loved ones he shares it with."

• An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created By: Santi Elijah Holley, read by Adam Lazarre-White for Harper -- "An enlightening history of the rise and lasting impact of Black liberation groups in America, as seen through the Shakurs, one of the movement’s most prominent and fiercely creative families, home to Tupac and Assata, and a powerful incubator for today’s activism, scholarship, and artistry."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Witch Wood by John Buchan (1927), read by Antony Ferguson for Blackstone -- "In seventeenth-century Scotland, religious struggles run rampant. Here, Young David Sempill, a moderate Presbyterian minister, pleas with his sect to have compassion for the remnants of King Montrose’s defeated army, who are being harried and slaughtered by religious extremists. But as pre-Christian nature worship and its accompanying black magicks seep forth from Melanudrigill Wood, Sempill himself disappears."

• Straight by Chuck Tingle (2021), read by Andrew Santana for Macmillan -- "When a strange tear in the cosmos appears within Earth’s annual path, the consequences are disastrous. For one night a year, the vast majority of humans now undergo a frightening mental change, transforming into hateful, rage-fueled zombies who will stop at nothing to satiate their desire for brutality. While not much is understood about this horrific mass hysteria, the demographic it effects is very specific: cisgender straight people."

• Moving Pictures: Discworld, Book 10 By: Terry Pratchett (1990), read by Jason Isaacs and Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy for Penguin -- "A new phenomenon is taking over the Discworld: moving pictures. Created by the alchemists of Ankh-Morpork, the growing 'clicks' industry moves to the sandy land of Holy Wood, attracted by the light of the sun and some strange calling no one can quite put their finger on... Also drawn to Holy Wood are aspiring young stars Victor Tugelbend, a wizarding student dropout, and Theda 'Ginger' Withel, a small-town girl with big dreams. But behind the glitz and glamour of the clicks, a sinister presence lurks. Because belief is powerful in the Discworld, and sometimes downright dangerous... The magic of movies might just unravel reality itself."

• Unbound II: Tales by Masters of Fantasy edited by Shawn Speakman (2022), read by James Fouhey, Anna Smith Spark, Vivienne Leheny, Scott Brick, Natasha Soudek, Brian Holsopple, Adenrele Ojo, Ellen Archer, Travis Baldree, Tim Gerard Reynolds, Laura Horowitz, and Hillary Huber for Audible -- "Enter an underworld of history and dark creatures with Kristen Britain. Return to the aftermath of Dune's Butlerian Jihad with Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Revisit the Broken Empire trilogy with Jorg Ancrath and Mark Lawrence. Go on the most enchanting and dangerous of knight quests with Anna Smith Spark. Discover how Gladys got her name in a new Ink & Sigil story by Kevin Hearne. Uncover the magical truths of the Frasier family with Tamora Pierce."

• The Animals in That Country By: Laura Jean McKay (2020), read by Helen Langford for Tantor -- "Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. She's never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue. As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realizes this is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand the language of animals-first mammals, then birds and insects, too. As the flu progresses, the unstoppable voices become overwhelming, and many people begin to lose their minds, including Jean's infected son."

• Owls to Athens: The Hellenic Traders Series, Book 4 By: Harry Turtledove (2004), read by Tim Campbell -- "After some long and perilous journeys, Menedemos and Sostratos finally head back to Athens just in time for the Dionysia, a bacchanalian festival of plays and celebrations. Like earlier installments in the series, Owls to Athens has the cousins going through various adventures, trade negotiations and sexual escapades, all set against a finely painted mosaic of Hellenic life in the fourth century BCE."

YOUNG READERS:

• The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt, read by Fred Berman for Clarion Books -- "A warm and witty novel in the tradition of The Wednesday Wars, in which a seventh grader has to figure out how to fulfill an assignment to perform the Twelve Labors of Hercules in real life—and makes discoveries about friendship, community, and himself along the way."

• Heroes of the Water Monster by Brian Young, read by Shaun Taylor-Corbett for Heartdrum -- "An unmissable companion to Healer of the Water Monster, which won the American Indian Library Association Youth Literature Award, this novel by Navajo author Brian Young tells the story of two contemporary young Navajo heroes—and one water monster—who must learn to work together to save their present world from the lasting hurts of their people's past."

MORE FICTION:

• Sing Her Down: A Novel By: Ivy Pochoda, read by Frankie Corzo, Kimberly M. Wetherell, Sophie Amoss, and Victoria Villarreal for Macmillan -- "Florence "Florida" Baum is not the hapless innocent she claims to be when she arrives at the Arizona women's prison—or so her ex-cellmate, Diosmary Sandoval, keeps insinuating. Dios knows the truth about Florida's crimes, understands the truth that Florence hides even from herself: that she wasn't a victim of circumstance, an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that darkness lives in women too, despite the world's refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida's eyes and unleash her true self. When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios's fixation on Florida turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona to the desolate streets of Los Angeles."

• Bad Summer People: A Novel By: Emma Rosenblum, read by January LaVoy for Macmillan -- "Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker rule the town of Salcombe, Fire Island every summer. They hold sway on the beach and the tennis court, and are adept at manipulating people to get what they want. Their husbands, Sam and Jason, have summered together on the island since childhood, despite lifelong grudges and numerous secrets. Their one single friend, Rachel Woolf, is looking to meet her match, whether he’s the tennis pro—or someone else’s husband. But even with plenty to gossip about, this season starts out as quietly as any other. Until a body is discovered, face down, off the side of the boardwalk."

• Identity: A Novel By: Nora Roberts, read by January LaVoy for Macmillan -- "Former Army brat Morgan Albright has finally planted roots in a friendly neighborhood near Baltimore. Her friend and roommate Nina helps her make the mortgage payments, as does Morgan's job as a bartender. But after she and Nina host their first dinner party—attended by Luke, the flirtatious IT guy who'd been chatting her up at the bar—her carefully built world is shattered. The back door glass is broken, cash and jewelry are missing, her car is gone, and Nina lies dead on the floor. Soon, a horrific truth emerges: It was Morgan who let the monster in. "Luke" is actually a cold-hearted con artist named Gavin who targets a particular type of woman, steals her assets and identity, and then commits his ultimate goal: murder."

MORE SCI-FI, FANTASY, and HORROR:

• Perilous Times: A Novel By: Thomas D. Lee, read by Nicola F. Delgado for Random House -- "An immortal Knight of the Round Table faces his greatest challenge yet—saving the politically polarized, rapidly warming world from itself—in this slyly funny contemporary take on Arthurian legend."

• Myriad By: Joshua David Bellin, read by Coleen Marlo for Blackstone -- "Agent Miriam Randle works for LifeTime, a private law enforcement agency that undertakes short-term time travel to erase crimes before they occur. Haunted by the memory of her twin brother’s unsolved murder at the age of six, Miriam thinks of herself as Myriad—an incarnation of the many lives she’s lived in her journeys to rearrange the past. When a routine assignment goes wrong and Miriam commits a murder she was meant to avert, she is thrown into the midst of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of LifeTime. Along with her partner Vax, Miriam flees into the past in an attempt to unravel the truth before LifeTime agents catch up with her."

• The Mother: A Novel By: B.L. Blanchard, read by Fleur de Wit for Brilliance -- "What if Europe had never colonized the world? It is a world that never had overseas empires, the transatlantic slave trade, or the Protestant Reformation. There is, however, in an obscure island nation called England, a woman running for her life. Marie, Duchess of Suffolk, has no choice. In this society, women are a reproductive commodity. Marriage is the only available occupation. And barren wives like Marie are expendable trade. After absconding with the family jewels, Marie fakes her own death and seeks a life outside the confines of her family and her marriage. She’s looking for freedom but finds even more: an underground network of women like her, her estranged sister, and a greater mission to discover the truth behind their mother’s inexplicable death."

• The Seer of Midgard By: A. M. Vedsø Olesen, translated by Sinéad Quirke Køngerskov, read by Kristin Atherton for SAGA Egmont -- "Snehild is born amidst a raid on a stormy, winter night. She is delivered by a mystical jötunn woman and as she slips into the world, the Norns breathe a prophecy over her. Years later, Himlinge, the royal seat of Sialand, is suffering from political unrest. King Tormod suspects his brother-in-law is plotting against him. Royal advisor Brynjulf Raveneye worries about which of the twin princes should be heir to the throne. The high priestess Ragnfrid grows jealous of the local herbalist who is favoured by the royal family. Worst still, the herbalist’s daughter, Snehild, appears to have powerful prophetic powers that may threaten the priestess’ position."

• Killing It By: Mike Bockoven, read by Joe Hempel for OrangeSky -- "Since the late 1980's, The Square had been one of the most important clubs in New York for the alt-comedy scene. But before that it was something much darker and is now a place where evil lingers, waiting for a chance to spill blood. After a night of killing on stage, four comics find themselves in a desperate situation as the spirits of the past come out to play, and a fight for laughs becomes a fight for survival in the most unlikely of places."

MORE NON-FICTION:

• The Book of Charlie By: David Von Drehle, read by the author for Simon and Schuster -- "One of our nation’s most prominent writers finds the truth about how to live a long and happy life in the centenarian next door."

SERIES WATCH:

• The Battle Drum: he Ending Fire Trilogy, Book 2 By: Saara El-Arifi, read by Nicole Lewis and Dominic Hoffman for Random House -- "Murder. Secrets. Sacrifice: Three women seek the truth of the empire’s past. And the truth they find will have the power to ignite a war, in the sequel to The Final Strife, the continuation of a visionary fantasy trilogy inspired by the myths of Africa and Arabia."

• The Poisoner's Ring: A Rip Through Time Novel, Book 2 By: Kelley Armstrong, read by Kate Handford for Macmillan -- "A modern-day homicide detective is working as an undertaker's assistant in Victorian Scotland when a serial poisoner attacks the men of Edinburgh and leaves their widows under suspicion."

• Terran Incognito: Black Ocean: Passage of Time, Book 2 By: J.S. Morin, read by Mikael Naramore -- "Space station Echo Niner remained neutral in the Earth/Mars civil war. For a pair of fugitives on the run from both sides, it sounded like the perfect place to regroup. But Eric and Jessie Ramsey barely set foot aboard Echo Niner before getting embroiled in local disputes. Rival warlords divide the station into four zones, each under its own version of martial law. Separated by the teeming masses who call the station home, the siblings need to navigate the treacherous social landscape, discover allies, and reunite. It doesn’t help that their cover gets blown. Or that the Earth Navy blockaded the station. Or that Eric appears to be the backup plan."

• Rogue Justice: Avery Keene, Book 2 By: Stacey Abrams, read by Adenrele Ojo for Random House -- "The #1 New York Times bestselling author of While Justice Sleeps returns with another riveting and intricately plotted thriller, in which a blackmailed federal judge, a secret court and a brazen murder may lead to an unprecedented national crisis."

• Preset: Reset, Book 0 by Sarina Dahlan, read by Shiromi Arserio for Blackstone -- "Inception meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in this captivating prequel to the acclaimed, bestselling science fiction romance Reset."

• Flash Point: A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel, Book 10 By: Don Bentley, read by Scott Brick for Random House -- "Jack Ryan Jr. is in a world of trouble. When a benign surveillance operation takes a deadly turn, Jack finds himself locked in a struggle with an unseen enemy bent on destroying the Campus. The chase leads Jack to the South China Sea where a midair collision between aircraft from rival nations threatens to serve as a flash point for the entire region."

TIE-IN WATCH:

• Araña and Spider-Man 2099: Dark Tomorrow By: Alex Segura, read by Victoria Villarreal for Marvel -- "Araña is a Spider-Girl lost in time. . . . Miguel is a Spider-Man who's lost his way. . . . Together, they're our only hope."

INDIE WATCH:

• Letters from Hell: Time Diving, Book 1 By: Craig Robertson, read by Kaleo Griffith for Podium -- "Matt found a way to erase his past regrets. He was an average guy who was pissing and moaning his way toward retirement. Like many people before him, he often wished things had gone differently for him. Be careful what you wish for! Matt found out all too soon that the weight of being able to alter his past was much more than he could have anticipated. It all began one dull summer vacation as an experiment in transcendental meditation. Through meditation, Matt chanced upon the ability to plant his adult thoughts in the head of his younger selves, thus altering their shared future. But innocent meddling paves the way for increasingly selfish choices. Little by little, the Matt that once was is slowly stripped away. What remains is less and less recognizable and acceptable to his loved ones and himself."

• A Mantle of Bones: The Essenburg Archives, Book 1 By: Emmet Moss, read by Colin Mace for Podium -- "The Earl of Essenburg, Steven Hargraves, is dead. Assassinated by an unknown assailant, his death plunges the earldom into a bloody civil war. Rival siblings of the murdered lord have vied for control of the region for three long years. Frederick, the rightful heir to his father’s title, lies ensconced in Bode Castle, held under siege by his younger sister Catherine’s army. As alliances shift and unforeseen forces are brought into the conflict, an innocent newcomer threatens to upset the delicate balance of the warring factions. A gravedigger by trade, this one man seeking redemption could change the fate of the land. For a man prone to a solitary existence, his world will forever be changed. But his attempts to navigate the cut-throat world of the nobility might also lead to his downfall."

• Homicidal Aliens Are Invading and All I Got Is This Stat Menu: All I Got Is This Stat Menu, Book 1 By: J.J. Ackerknecht, read by Stephanie Savannah for Podium -- "Anya Nowicki, along with thousands of people around the globe, has found herself a host for alien technology known as the Archive. The Archive allows its hosts to alter their minds and bodies in an instant through holographic menu systems. With the touch of a button, anyone can become super strong, gain magical abilities, purchase a giant robot, or become a master in an almost infinite number of skills ranging from advanced combat techniques to fidget-spinning. However, Anya has also become the target for nightmarish, shape-shifting creatures that have come to Earth following the newfound extraterrestrial tech. The Archive can grant their hosts great power, but it may not be enough to survive the horde of murderous aliens hunting them down."

MOST MISSING:

• Afterword by Nina Schuyler (CLASH Books) -- "A pioneer of artificial intelligence rebuilds the love of her life, but when she discovers he’s been feeding incriminating civilian information to the Chinese government, she’ll have to decide whether to keep or kill him."

• Hungers as Old as This Land by Zachary Rosenberg (Brigids Gate Press) -- "The settlement of Grey's Bluffs is a prosperous town. An independent community dwelling in the shadows of the mountains known only as The Hungers. Esther Foxman and Siobhan O'Clery have grown up in Grey's Bluffs, thriving out on the western territories in the aftermath of the Civil War. Devoted to one another and their home, the two set out to complete a regular pact at the Hungers to ensure that Grey's Bluffs continues to prosper."

• Talion Rule: Shadows of Otherside, Book 7 by Whitney Hill (Benu Media) -- "As Arden Finch’s magical strength grows, so does the number of people who want her under control. With the elementals, the mundanes, and out-of-state elves all making demands, she and Troy must act fast to secure their power. The first elven summit in decades offers opportunities to do so, but forces Arden to take drastic action. Amidst the turmoil, Troy’s past looms, threatening to drive a wedge between them."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 16 May 2023

Posted on 2023-05-16 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Yellowface: A Novel by R. F. Kuang, read by Helen Laser for Harper -- "Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves."

• Titanium Noir: A Novel by Nick Harkaway, read by Davis Brooks for Random House -- "A virtuosic mashup of Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler by way of Marvel—the story of a detective investigating the murder of a Titan, one of society’s most powerful, medically-enhanced elites."

• The Guest: A Novel by Emma Cline, read by Carlotta Brentan for Random House -- "Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome. A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city. With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake."

• Blue Skies by T. C. Boyle, read by Alyssa Bresnahan for Recorded Books -- "Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful boyfriend, Cat decides that she needs a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like “jewelry, living jewelry.” But when the budding social influencer finally gives in to impulse, buying a Burmese python from a local pet shop, she sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire events that culminates in one of the most memorable denouements in recent fiction, one that ensnares her entire family, from her eco-obsessed parents, Ottilie and Frank, to her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd. But there’s more than meets the eye in this compulsive family drama. Lurking beneath the banal façade of twenty-first-century California and Florida is a caricature of materialist American society that doubles as a prophetic warning about our planet’s future."

• Harold by Steven Wright, read by the author for Simon and Schuster -- "A uniquely humorous and deeply profound novel from a legendary stand-up comedian that follows the thoughts of a 1960s third grader during a single day at school."

• The Enchanted Hacienda by J.C. Cervantes, read by Frankie Corzo for Harlequin -- "When Harlow Estrada is abruptly fired from her dream job and her boyfriend proves to be a jerk, her world turns upside down. She flees New York City to the one place she can always call home—the enchanted Hacienda Estrada. The Estrada family farm in Mexico houses an abundance of charmed flowers cultivated by Harlow’s mother, sisters, aunt, and cousins. By harnessing the magic in these flowers, they can heal hearts, erase memories, interpret dreams—but not Harlow. So when her mother and aunt give her a special task involving the family’s magic, she panics. How can she rise to the occasion when she is magicless? But maybe it’s not magic she’s missing, but belief in herself. When she finally embraces her unique gifts and opens her heart to a handsome stranger, she discovers she’s far more powerful than she imagined."

• The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien de Castell, read by Joe Jameson for Jo Fletcher Books -- "Seven war mages with dark pasts and special powers must come together to fight an unknown enemy—but the stakes are higher than anyone can imagine . . . and someone's setting them up for a fall."

• The Hawkling by Rebecca Zahabi, read by Laura Hanna and Peter Kenny for Gollancz -- "The rebels on the other side of the Shadowpass are massing, and refugees are flooding in to the city. Scared, penniless and not exactly welcome, they are desperate for the protection of the Nest, and the powerful mages who live there. But there is dissension in the Nest's ranks, and there is always someone willing to make money from the fearful. The mages believe they have a secret weapon - a captured lightborn, kept prisoner by a magical slave collar and forced to do their bidding. But Tatters and Isha, tentative friends despite their suspicion of each other's motives, know something the mages do not. The rebels are aware of the lightborn. They know how to deal with it. And they are ready for war..."

• Dual Memory by Sue Burke, read by André Santana for Dreamscape -- "Antonio Moro lost everything to the Leviathan League, ruthless global pirates. Now he's alone in a city on an Arctic island fighting Freebooters with nothing but lies—and the mistaken idea that he's a spy. When things look bleak, he discovers an unusual ally. His new personal assistant program, Par Augustus, is a nascent A. I. He's also insolent, extroverted, moody, and not quite legal. Together, they forge an uneasy alliance and create a rebellion from unlikely recruits to defend the island city. The hitch? No one else can ever know. Especially the humans."

• Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life by Kristen R. Ghodsee, read by Lisa Flanagan for Simon and Schuster -- "A dazzling tour through 2,000 years of audacious utopian thinking and experiments, exploring better ways to arrange our daily lives, plus a globetrotting jaunt to the communities already putting these seemingly fanciful visions into practice today."

• Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism by Magda Teter, read by Erica Stevens Abbitt for Princeton University Press -- "A panoramic cultural and legal history that traces the roots of antisemitism and racism to early Christian theology."

SERIES WATCH:

• Descendant Machine: Stars and Bones, Book 2 by Gareth L. Powell, read by Rebecca Norfolk for W.F. Howes -- "The Grand Mechanism is a machine the size of Saturn's rings that has lain dormant for all recorded history, watched over by the alien Jzat. Now, rogue elements in Jzat and human society conspire to activate it, hoping it will bring them power and opportunity."

• Fractal Noise: Fractalverse, Book 2 by Christopher Paolini, read by Jennifer Hale for Macmillan -- "A new blockbuster science fiction adventure from world-wide phenomenon and #1 New York Times bestseller Christopher Paolini, set in the world of New York Times and USA Today bestseller To Sleep in a Sea of Stars."

• Only the Dead: Terminal List, Book 6 by Jack Carr, read by Ray Porter for Simon and Schuster -- "Navy SEAL James Reece faces a devastating global conspiracy."

• Heaven's Angels: Uplink Squadron, Book 6 by J.N. Chaney and Chris Kennedy, read by Mark Boyett for Variant Publications -- "It seemed like a good idea at the time. The allies could sneak a fleet behind enemy lines and destroy the infrastructure the Overlords were using to push them to the brink of existence. As long as the allied fleet didn’t get trapped and obliterated, everything would be great. But they got trapped and obliterated. Now, the remains of the allied fleet are on the run, with one of the largest Overlord carrier forces ever seen in pursuit."

• Murphy's Lawless: A Terran Republic Novel by Charles E. Gannon (2020) with Griffin Barber, Kacey Ezell, Kevin Ikenberry, Chris Kennedy, Mike Massa, and Mark Wandrey, read by Kevin Pariseau for Blackstone -- "Major Rodger Y. Murphy should have died when his helicopter crashed off the coast of Mogadishu in November, 1993. Instead, he woke up in August, 2125, in a binary star system 152 light years from home. Without any memory of the otherworldly abductors who spirited them away in cold sleep, Murphy and 100 other “Lost Soldiers” have been retrieved and awakened by officers of the Consolidated Terran Republic. Promising to return to the 55 Tauri B system after completing a distant mission, they leave the twentieth century castaways with a daunting objective: establish a base of operations on the main world, using local allies they have yet to recruit and enemy equipment they have yet to seize."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Runtime by S.B. Divya (2016), read by Jennifer Aquino for Recorded Books -- "The Minerva Sierra Challenge is a grueling spectacle, the cyborg’s Tour de France. Rich thrill seekers with corporate sponsorships, extensive support teams, and top-of-the-line exoskeletal and internal augmentations pit themselves against the elements in a daylong race across the Sierra Nevadas. Marmeg Guinto doesn’t have funding, and she doesn’t have support. She cobbled her gear together from parts she found in rich people’s garbage and spent the money her mother wanted her to use for nursing school to enter the race. But the race is the only chance she has at a better life for herself and her younger brothers, and she’s ready to risk it all."

• How to Buy a Planet: The Cleremont Conjectures, Book 1 by D.A. Holdsworth (2020), read by Paul Woodson for Tantor -- "The location: London. The date: Very, very soon. Beset by multiple crises and buried under a growing mountain of debt, the leaders of the G7 have taken the only logical decision. They've sold the planet. When Toby, a penniless student, and his two new flatmates find out one morning on TV, they're surprised to find the Earth's new alien owners are staggeringly cute and bring the promise of a debt-free future. They're just getting ready to celebrate along with the rest of the world, when a chance encounter with a mysterious professor reveals the truth. And there's a glitch: the Earth is about to be destroyed."

• Punarbhava by Ashutosh Jain (2020), read by Darshan Venkatesh for Audible -- "Two brave young Indian army officers, a dreaded enemy of the gods, and a war raging across time."

INDIE WATCH:

• Divide By Zero by Christopher Charles Berg, read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer -- "Winston doesn’t think like other people. He struggles to explain himself, and questions basic mathematics. Fearing expulsion from his graduate program, he takes a leave of absence to test a new class of computer. Nothing about this computer is normal, and Winston unleashes ambitious code to push its limits, only to discover there is a reason he struggles with people and can’t follow norms. Now, his greatest failure has him facing the truth about himself, the limits of human understanding, and the forgotten legacy of the dead laying deep somewhere in the Pacific."

MOST MISSING:

• The Wind Began to Howl: An Isaiah Coleridge Story by Laird Barron (Bad Hand Books) -- "Laird Barron's acclaimed crime saga makes a triumphant return in The Wind Began to Howl, an all-new story set after the events of Worse Angels. A seemingly benign case gradually pulls mob enforcer-turned-P.I. Isaiah Coleridge into a chilling mix of music, movie magic, mayhem, and madness. This time, Coleridge's dark journey forces him to confront a brutal truth: For some who try to escape the past, there is no way out."

• The Cold Light of Stars: The Icarus Code, Book 1 by Rysa Walker (Starry Night Books) -- "A chamber from an ancient civilization is uncovered deep below the surface of Mars. Science reporter Claire Echols is assigned to cover the story, but someone is determined to stop her. Is it the wealthy entrepreneur leading the ongoing terraforming effort? The mining companies desperate to protect their livelihoods? The cult leader who wants to put a stop to all scientific progress? Or is someone else so threatened by this discovery that they'll kill to keep it hidden?"

• The Drama with Doomsdays: Celia Cleary, Book 2 by Scott Reintgen (Aladdin) -- "Ever since the fateful visions about Jeffrey Johnson, Celia Cleary’s prophecies have focused on smaller things like minor mishaps and everyday inconveniences. It’s finally starting to feel like she has a handle on her powers…until things take a turn for the weird. One day at school, Celia’s notebook magically fills in with a single name written over and over: Patrick. She uses the family guidebook to investigate and learns that the mysterious Patrick is connected to a Doomsday Prophecy—a vision that involves a large group of people, a point of no return, and a terrible future. The target for this particular reckoning? The entire eighth grade."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 9 May 2023

Posted on 2023-05-09 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Breath of the Sun By: Isaac Fellman (2018), read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw for Tantor -- "Lamat Paed understands paradoxes. She's a great mountain climber who's never summited, the author of a tell-all that didn't really tell anything. For years she guided pilgrims up the foothills of the Sublime Mount, leading them as high as God would let them go. And then she partnered the apostate Southern priest Mother Disaine on the most daring, most blasphemous expedition in history—an attempt to reach the summit of the sacred mountain, the top of God's head. Disaine returned in triumph, claiming to be the first person since the prophet to have summited and lived. But Lamat went into hiding. Now, late in life and exiled from the mountain, Lamat finally tells her story to her partner, Otile. It's the story of why she really wrote her first book all those years ago, how she came to be cast out from the mountain dwelling Holoh people, and how she fled to the anonymity of the city to hide from her fame. Most of all, it's the story of her bond with Mother Disaine—the blasphemer, charlatan, and visionary who stole Lamat's life to serve her own purposes—and what really happened on their last, greatest expedition."

• The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes By: James Lovegrove (2020), read by Dennis Kleinman for Blackstone -- "Maverick detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful chronicler Dr. John Watson return in twelve thrilling short stories. The iconic duo find themselves swiftly drawn into a series of puzzling and sinister events: an otherworldly stone whose touch inflicts fatal bleeding; a hellish potion to unlock a person’s devilish psyche; a fiendishly clever, almost undetectable method of revenge and many more—including a brand-new Cthulhu Casebooks story."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• Reforged by Seth Haddon, read by Gary Furlong for Tantor -- "Since time immemorial the warriors of the Paladin Order have harnessed arcane powers to protect their rulers. For Balen, who has given up his chance at love and fought his way to the top of the Paladin Order, there can be no greater honor than to serve his king. But when assassins annihilate the royal family, Balen suddenly finds himself sworn to serve the very man he abandoned."

• We Dare: No Man's Land: An Anthology of Strong Female Leads By: Jamie Ibson, Chris Kennedy, Griffin Barber, Rick Partlow, A.K. DuBoff, Sarah A. Hoyt, Quincy J. Allen, Jonathan P. Brazee, Rachel Aukes, Kacey Ezell, Josh Hayes, Joelle Presby, Marie Whittaker, Melissa Olthoff, and Marisa Wolf, read by Richard Wright for Theogony Books -- "A collection of 15 all-new stories with female leads. Whether it’s changing an engine on the outside of a spaceship’s hull or chasing SimNACs through the jungle, these heroines have only one goal in mind—to win at all costs! From defending asteroid bases to searching giant space stations, these women get the job done."

SERIES WATCH:

• Stan Lee's The Devil's Quintet: The Shadow Society: The Devil's Quintet Series, Book 2 By: Stan Lee and Jay Bonansinga, read by Charles Everett for Blackstone -- "Stan Lee’s The Devil’s Quintet return to take on a fiendish new adversary: The Shadow Society."

• Not of This World: Gideon Sable, Book 4 by Simon R. Green, read by Gideon Emery for Recorded Books -- "This might be his biggest coup yet! Legendary master thief Gideon Sable is on the hunt for the ghost of an alien-possessed man in this fast-paced supernatural heist thriller."

• 1637: Dr. Gribbleflotz and the Soul of Stoner: Ring of Fire, Book 33 by Kerryn Offord and Rick Boatright (2021), read by George Guidall for Recorded Books

WTF WATCH:

• Monster Match by Isabel Jordan, read by Mia Madison for Tantor -- "She met a hot reanimated dead guy at a monster speed dating event. Then things really got weird."

MOST MISSING:

• The Roamers by Francesco Verso (Flame Tree Press) -- "The pulldogs, a group of people at the twilight of Western civilisation, undergo an anthropological transformation caused by the dissemination of nanites (nanorobots capable of assembling molecules to create matter). This technology changes the way they eat and gives rise to a culture which, while reminiscent of an ancient nomadic society, is creative and new. Liberation from the imperative of food, combined with the ability to 3D print objects and use cloud computing, makes it possible for the pulldogs to make a choice that seems impossible and anachronistic – a new life, but is it really an Arcadia?"

• Fairy Films: Wee Folk on the Big Screen by Joshua Cutchin (Educated Dragon Publishing) -- "Since their inception, motion pictures have brought fantastic imagery to life, mining mythology and folklore to entertain audiences worldwide. As a staple of fantasy, fairies almost immediately received attention and their influence on the artform of film has never truly waned. Even into the modern era, filmmakers draw upon the themes of fairy lore, perhaps unknowingly. Quaint children’s tales of whimsical, benevolent sprites belie a rich tradition of complex, magical beings sharing our reality, entities whose very existence may have some root in fact. In this groundbreaking collection of essays, editor Joshua Cutchin reveals how this ancient body of folklore infuses multiple genres of contemporary cinema. Featuring essays by Wren Collier, Joshua Cutchin, Susan Demeter, Patrick Dugan, David Floyd, Jack Hunter, Allison Jornlin, James P. Nettles, Neil Rushton, Mark Anthony Wyatt, and Simon Young."

FICTION PICKS:

• The Eyes and the Impossible By: Dave Eggers, read by Ethan Hawke for Listening Library -- "Johannes, a free dog, lives in an urban park by the sea. His job is to be the Eyes—to see everything that happens within the park and report back to the park’s elders, three ancient Bison. His friends—a seagull, a raccoon, a squirrel, and a pelican—work with him as the Assistant Eyes, observing the humans and other animals who share the park and making sure the Equilibrium is in balance. But changes are afoot. More humans, including Trouble Travelers, arrive in the park. A new building, containing mysterious and hypnotic rectangles, goes up. And then there are the goats—an actual boatload of goats—who appear, along with a shocking revelation that changes Johannes’s view of the world."

• Atalanta by Jennifer Saint, read by Beth Eyre for Macmillan -- "From the beloved bestselling author of Elektra and Ariadne, a reimagining of the myth of Atalanta, a fierce huntress raised by bears and the only woman in the world’s most famous band of heroes, the Argonauts."

• The Book That Wouldn't Burn By: Mark Lawrence, read by Jessica Whittaker for Penguin -- "The boy has lived his whole life trapped within a book-choked chamber older than empires and larger than cities. The girl has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust, where nightmares stalk and no one goes. The world has never even noticed them. That’s about to change. Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned."

• To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose, read by Charley Flyte for Random House -- "A young Indigenous woman enters a colonizer-run dragon academy—and quickly finds herself at odds with the “approved” way of doing things."

• The Baba Yaga Mask By: Kris Spisak, read by Allyson Voller for Tantor -- "When their Ukrainian grandmother is lost on a trans-Atlantic Flight, two sisters are swept into a quest across eastern Europe to find the woman who had always told more tales than truths. From Poland to Slovakia to Hungary and beyond, Larissa and Ira navigate the steps of Ukrainian folk dance, the cliff-side paths of Slovak Paradise National Park, and the stark realities of war, folktales, and feminism, all for the sake of chasing who they're starting to believe is a true Baba Yaga. Understanding their family's roots has never been more clear."

• Death of an Author: A Novella By: Aidan Marchine with an afterword by Stephen Marche, read by Edoardo Ballerini for Pushkin Industries -- "When Gus Dupin, literary critic and scholar, finds himself invited to the funeral of Peggy Firmin, celebrated novelist and now murder victim, he is determined to find out who killed her and why. As his investigation gets underway, it is not long before he finds himself at the center of an experiment at Marlow AI, a large language model company. Why was he included in this experiment and what role did Firmin play? Further, why is Dupin suddenly a suspect in Firmin’s murder? And worse: is he the next victim? As Dupin attempts to unravel the mystery of the death of his favorite author, listeners find themselves in an alternate reality that raises a sinister question: what is the appropriate relationship between humans and machines and is murder the consequence when it goes too far?"

• Silenced: A #MeToo Fairytale By: Ann Claycomb, read by Mia Barron, Samara Naeymi, Chriselle Almeida, Lynnette R. Freeman for Recorded Books -- "After her girlfriend breaks up with her for being too emotionally stifled, Jo Miller is trying to become more expressive. But then her boss calls her into his office for a private meeting and sexually assaults her. His parting words are, “you won't want to talk about this Jo. You think you do now, but trust me, you won’t.” Jo had been ready to go straight to the police, but every time she tries to talk about what happened, live insects crawl up her throat and into her mouth. She finds that she can’t say anything negative about the CEO or what he did to her without spitting out centipedes, red ants, beetles, slugs, wasps, and occasionally even a snake. Jo isn’t alone. Her colleagues Abony LePrince, the head of HR, and Ranjani Bakshi, a graphic designer, have also been assaulted by the CEO and cursed into staying quiet. Abony is compelled to buy a new pair of Louboutins each week, financially crippling her, and Ranjani cannot go anywhere new without making her mother suffer. When the three of them get together they discover another victim, Maia English, who’s been working from home for the last eight months after she shrank to just six inches tall."

• Nigeria Jones: A Novel by Ibi Zoboi, read by Marcella Cox for Balzer and Bray -- "Warrior Princess. That's what Nigeria Jones's father calls her. He has raised her as part of the Movement, a Black separatist group based in Philadelphia. Nigeria is homeschooled and vegan and participates in traditional rituals to connect her and other kids from the group to their ancestors. But when her mother—the perfect matriarch of their Movement—disappears, Nigeria's world is upended. She finds herself taking care of her baby brother and stepping into a role she doesn't want."

• The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece: A Novel By: Tom Hanks, read by the author with Peter Gerety, Natalie Morales, Ego Nwodim, Nasim Pedrad, Connor Ratliff, Holland Taylor, Rita Wilson, and a full cast for Random House -- "From the legendary actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film...and the humble comic books that inspired it. Funny, touching, and wonderfully thought-provoking, while also capturing the changes in America and American culture since World War II."

• Tales of Polynesia By: Yiling Changues, read by Kaleo Griffith for Chronicle Books -- "A woman falls in love with the king of the sharks. Two powerful sorcerers compete in a battle of magical wits. The king of Maui's fastest messenger races to bring a young woman back from the dead. In these traditional tales, the borders blur between life and death, reality and magic, and land and sea."

NON-FICTION PICKS:

• Laozi's Dao De Jing: A Plain Translation by Ken Liu, read by BD Wong for Audible Originals -- "Translated by bestselling author Ken Liu and read by acclaimed actor BD Wong, this new take on the Dao De Jing speaks directly to the sensibilities of a modern audience. Liu dispenses with footnotes and the granular details of academic debate in favor of presenting Laozi’s invaluable writing as clearly and colorfully as possible."

• Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino” by Héctor Tobar, read by André Santana for Macmillan -- "Assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people. Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of "Latino" as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and seeks to give voice to the angst and anger of young Latino people who have seen latinidad transformed into hateful tropes about "illegals" and have faced insults, harassment, and division based on white insecurities and economic exploitation."

• Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods By: Mariana Alessandri, read by Gisela Chípe for Princeton University Press -- "Under the light of ancient Western philosophies, our darker moods like grief, anguish, and depression can seem irrational. When viewed through the lens of modern psychology, they can even look like mental disorders. The self-help industry, determined to sell us the promise of a brighter future, can sometimes leave us feeling ashamed that we are not more grateful, happy, or optimistic. Night Vision invites us to consider a different approach to life, one in which we stop feeling bad about feeling bad."

• Bridgebuilders: How Government Can Transcend Boundaries to Solve Big Problems By: William D. Eggers and Donald F. Kettl, read by Paul Heitsch for Kalorama -- "Our government is in crisis, mired in bureaucracy and often unable to fix tough problems. This book provides an essential new model for transforming the system and getting things done."

• The Last Kings of Macedonia and the Triumph of Rome By: Ian Worthington, read by Gareth Richards for HighBridge -- "In the history of ancient Macedonia, the last three Antigonid kings—Philip V, his son Perseus, and the pretender Andriscus or Philip VI—are commonly overlooked in favor of their predecessors Philip II and his son Alexander the Great, who established a Macedonian empire. By the time Philip V became king, Macedonia was no longer an imperial power and Rome was fast spreading its dominance over the Mediterranean. Viewed as postscripts to the kingdom's heyday, the last Macedonian kings are often denounced for self-serving ambitions, flawed policies, and questionable personal qualities by hostile ancient writers. They are condemned for defeats by Rome that saw both the end of the monarchy and the fall of the formidable Macedonian phalanx before the Roman legion."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 2 May 2023

Posted on 2023-05-02 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Something Bad Wrong: A Thriller By: Eryk Pruitt, read by Khristine Hvam, Aaron Shedlock, Patrick Lawlor, George Newbern, Chris Ruen, and David de Vries for Brilliance -- "To catch the killer who eluded her detective grandfather fifty years ago, a true-crime podcaster must contend with outdated evidence, ulterior motives, and the dark family secrets that got in the way."

• The Salt Grows Heavy By: Cassandra Khaw, read by Susan Dalian for Macmillan -- "You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes. On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three “saints” who control them."

• Chain Gang All Stars: A Novel By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, read by Shayna Small, Aaron Goodson, Michael Crouch, and Lee Osorio for Random House -- "Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom."

• The Ferryman: A Novel By: Justin Cronin, read by Scott Brick and Suzanne Elise Freeman for Random House -- "Founded by the mysterious genius known as the Designer, the archipelago of Prospera lies hidden from the horrors of a deteriorating outside world. In this island paradise, Prospera’s lucky citizens enjoy long, fulfilling lives until the monitors embedded in their forearms, meant to measure their physical health and psychological well-being, fall below 10 percent. Then they retire themselves, embarking on a ferry ride to the island known as the Nursery, where their failing bodies are renewed, their memories are wiped clean, and they are readied to restart life afresh."

• The Marriage Act: A Novel By: John Marrs, read by John Marrs, Clare Corbett, Nathalie Buscombe, David Monteith, Dugald Bruce-Lockhart, and Joshua Riley for Harlequin -- "Britain. The near-future. A right-wing government believes it has the answer to society’s ills—the Sanctity of Marriage Act, which actively encourages marriage as the norm, punishing those who choose to remain single. But four couples are about to discover just how impossible relationships can be when the government is monitoring every aspect of our personal lives—monitoring every word, every minor disagreement…and will use every tool in its arsenal to ensure everyone will love, honor and obey."

• Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? A Novel by Crystal Smith Paul, read by Ariel Blake, Kineta Kunutu, and Lynnette Nicholas for Macmillan -- "When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions. A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could—and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty. The truth behind Kitty's ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them."

• Clytemnestra By: Costanza Casati, read by Olivia Vinall for Recorded Books -- "Meet Clytemnestra, the most notorious heroine of the Ancient World. You are born to a king, but marry a tyrant. You stand helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own. You play the part, fooling enemies who deny you justice. And slowly, you plot. But when your husband returns in triumph, what then?"

• Dulcinea: A Novel By: Ana Veciana-Suarez, read by January LaVoy for Blackstone -- "The daughter of a wealthy merchant, young Dolça Llull Prat is besotted with the dashing, bootstrapping Miguel Cervantes from their first meeting. Despite Miguel’s entreaties, the ever-practical Dolça, with her love of luxury and her devotion to her own art, repeatedly refuses to upend her life for him, although she always welcomes his attentions on her own terms. When Miguel renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his great Quixote, revealing their association, he commits an unforgivable offense and their decades-long affinity is severed—until he reaches out to her one last time."

• Not Alone: A Novel by Sarah K. Jackson, read by Helen Keeley for Random House -- "Five years ago, a microplastic storm wiped out most of the population. No infrastructure. No safe havens. No goodbyes. Since then, Katie and Harry have lived in isolation in their small flat outside London. Katie forages, hunts the surviving animal population, and provides for Harry, who was born after the storm, and who has never left their little home. After years without human contact, Katie and Harry are shocked by the arrival of a threatening newcomer, just as Katie’s persistent cough seems to have taken a turn for the worse. But this proof of life beyond their familiar environment spurs Katie to undertake a previously unthinkable journey, in search of her fiancé, Jack, who never came home the day of the storm, and a different kind of life for Harry."

• Swamp Story: a Novel by Dave Barry, read by the author for Simon and Schuster -- "Jesse Braddock is trapped in a tiny cabin deep in the Everglades with her infant daughter and her ex-boyfriend, a wannabe reality TV star who turned out to be a lot prettier on the outside than on the inside. Broke and desperate for a way out, Jesse stumbles across a long-lost treasure, which could solve all her problems—if she can figure out how to keep it. The problem is, some very bad men are also looking for the treasure, and they know Jesse has it."

• Shy By: Max Porter, read by Joe Gaminara for Dreamscape -- "Porter extends the excavation of boyhood that began with Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and continued with Lanny. But here he asks the question How does mischievous wonder and anarchic energy curdle into something more disturbing and violent? A bravura, lyric, music-besotted performance by one of the great writers of his generation."

NON-FICTION WATCH:

• His Majesty's Airship: the Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine by S. C. Gwynne, read by Nicholas Boulton for Simon and Schuster -- "A stunning historical tale of the rise and fall of the world's largest airship—and the doomed love story between an ambitious British officer and a married Romanian Princess at its heart."

• Merchants of the Right: Gun Sellers and the Crisis of American Democracy By: Jennifer Carlson, read by Jennifer Cole for Princeton University Press -- "An eye-opening portrait of the gun sellers who navigated the social turmoil leading up to the January 6 Capitol attack."

• Got Your Number: The Greatest Sports Legends and the Numbers They Own by Mike Greenberg with Paul "Hembo" Hembekides, read by Greenberg for Hyperion Avenue -- "In short essays certain to provoke debate between and amongst all generations, Greeny uses his lifetime of sports knowledge to spin yarns of the legends among the legends and tell you why some have claimed their spot in the top 100 of all time."

YOUNG ADULT WATCH:

• Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley, read by Isabella Star LaBlanc for Macmillan -- "Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she's stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep. Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn't feel so lost after all. But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the "Warrior Girl", an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe."

• From the World of Percy Jackson: Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure By: Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro, read by A.J. Beckles for Disney Hyperion -- "Demigods Nico di Angelo and Will Solace must endure the terrors of Tartarus to rescue an old friend."

YOUNG READER WATCH:

• The One and Only Ruby by Katherine Applegate, read by Imani Parks for Harper -- "From beloved powerhouse author Katherine Applegate comes The One and Only Ruby, starring the adorable baby elephant from the Newbery Medal-winning modern classic The One and Only Ivan and its bestselling sequel, The One and Only Bob."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Seventh Gate: A Death Gate Novel, Volume 7 by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (1991), read by Fajer Al-Kaisi for Random House -- "Alfred, Haplo, and Marit embark on a journey of death and discovery as they seek to enter the dreaded Seventh Gate. Encountering enemies both old and new, they unleash a magic no power can control, damning themselves to an apocalypse of unimagined proportion in a final struggle between good and evil."

• The Fire Dragon: The Dragon Mage, Book 3 By: Katharine Kerr (2001), read by Ruth Urquhart for Tantor -- "The final chapter begins in the holy city as it rises from the ashes of Deverry's long wars. Prince Maryn prepares to claim the high kingship, but still the rebel Boar clan stands fast against him. And at court, his illicit passion for the young dweomer apprentice, Lilli, threatens to revive a curse that only she—at her own peril—can lift."

• Find the Jinn: Wilde Contracts Series, Book 1 By: Maz Maddox (2021), read by Kirt Graves for Tantor -- "Trained to handle even the fiercest undead, Dallas Wilde took out a powerful necromancer without breaking a sweat. Okay, that's a lie—there was tons of sweat, but he was victorious all the same. Unfortunately, killing a necromancer comes with some repercussions. Broody, annoying, vampire repercussions and new abilities to resurrect the dead. Can Dallas navigate his blood-sucking bodyguard, new powers, feelings for his attractive client and still handle his contract in time to pay his very, very late rent—all while trying not to get super murdered in the process?"

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• For Love of Magic By: Simon R. Green, read by Steve West for Blackstone -- "History isn’t what you think it is. It’s been rewritten to remove all the magic. Together, two people decide to put things right."

• Spring's Arcana: The Dead God's Heart, Book 1 By: Lilith Saintcrow, read by Barrie Kreinik for Macmillan -- "Nat Drozdova is desperate to save a life. Doctors can do little for her cancer-ridden mother, who insists there is only one cure—and that Nat must visit a skyscraper in Manhattan to get it. Amid a snow-locked city, inside a sleek glass-walled office, Nat makes her plea and is whisked into a terrifying new world. For the skyscraper holds a hungry winter goddess who has the power to cure her mother…if Nat finds a stolen object of great power."

• A Portrait in Shadow By: Nicole Jarvis, read by Carlotta Brentan for Dreamscape -- "When Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking a haven for her art, she faces instant opposition from the powerful Accademia, self-proclaimed guardians of the healing and necrotic magic that protect the city from plague and curses. As artists create their masterpieces, they add layer upon layer of magic drawn from their very life essence into the paint or marble, draining their power but producing works that will heal hundreds and inspire generations. The all-male Accademia jealously guards its power over art and architecture and has no place for an ambitious young woman arriving from Rome under a cloud of scandal."

• The Sword Defiant: Lands of the Firstborn, Book 1 By: Gareth Hanrahan, read by George Weightman for Orbit -- "Set in a world of dark myth and dangerous prophecy, this thrilling fantasy launches an epic tale of daring warriors, living weapons, and bloodthirsty vengeance.​"

• Fourth Wing: Fourth Wing, Book 1 By: Rebecca Yarros, read by Rebecca Soler, Teddy Hamilton for Recorded Books -- "Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders."

MORE FICTION:

• No Two Persons: A Novel by Erica Bauermeister, read by Barrie Kreinik for Macmillan -- "Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to a free diver pushing himself beyond endurance, an artist furious at the world around her, a bookseller in search of love, a widower rent by grief. Each one is drawn into Alice's novel; each one discovers something different that alters their perspective, and presents new pathways forward for their lives."

• The Bird Hotel: A Novel By: Joyce Maynard, read by the author for Audible -- "After a childhood filled with heartbreak, Irene, a talented artist, finds herself in a small Central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano. The Bird Hotel tells the story of this young American who, after suffering tragedy, restores and runs La Llorona. Along the way we meet a rich assortment of characters who live in the village or come to stay at the hotel. With a mystery at its center and filled with warmth, drama, romance, humor, pop culture, and a little magical realism."

• You Are Here: A Novel By: Karin Lin-Greenberg, read by Jennifer Aquino for HighBridge -- "The inhabitants of a small town have long found that their lives intersect at one focal point: the local shopping mall. But business is down, stores are closing, and as the institution breathes its last gasp, the people inside it dream of something different, something more."

• Paper Names: A Novel by Susie Luo, read by Austin Ku for Harlequin -- "An unexpected act of violence brings together a Chinese-American family and a wealthy white lawyer in this propulsive and sweeping story of family, identity and the American experience."

• Simply Lies by David Baldacci, read by Lisa Flanagan for Hachette -- "A twisting psychological thriller in which two women—one a former detective, the other a dangerous con artist—go head-to-head in an electrifying game of cat and mouse."

SERIES WATCH:

• The Covenant of Water By: Abraham Verghese, read by the author for Recorded Books -- "She is twelve years old, and she will be married in the morning. Mother and daughter lie on the mat, their wet cheeks glued together. “The saddest day of a girl’s life is the day of her wedding,” her mother says. “After that, God willing, it gets better.” And so begins the decade-in-the-making follow-up to Cutting For Stone."

• In an Orchard Grown from Ash: The Wind-up Garden series, Book 2 By: Rory Power, read by Jesse Vilinsky for Random House -- "Siblings torn apart by betrayal grapple with their broken bonds—and fight to regain their power—in this stunning conclusion to a mythic epic fantasy duology."

• Fall of the School for Good and Evil: Rise, Book 2 by Soman Chainani, read by Kit Young for Harper -- "Two brothers. One Good. One Evil. In exchange for power and immortality, they watch over the Endless Woods and rule the School for Good and Evil. Yet all School Masters must face a test. Theirs is loyalty."

• Lords of Uncreation: The Final Architecture, Book 3 By: Adrian Tchaikovsky, read by Sophie Aldred for Orbit -- "This third and final novel in an extraordinary space opera trilogy depicts humanity on the brink of extinction—and reveals how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all."

• The Shattered Horn: Bravelands: Thunder on the Plains, Book 1 by Erin Hunter, read by James Fouhey for Harper -- "A thrilling new arc in Erin Hunter's bestselling Bravelands series! Set in the African highlands and told from three different animals' points of view, this is a perfect adventure for dedicated fans and readers new to the Bravelands world."

TIE-IN WATCH:

• Miles Morales Suspended: A Spider-Man Novel By: Jason Reynolds, read by Guy Lockard and Nile Bullock for Simon and Schuster -- "Miles Morales is still just your average teenager. He has unexpectedly become totally obsessed with poetry and can never seem to do much more than babble around his crush. Nothing too weird. Oh! Except, just yesterday, he used his spidey superpowers to save the world (no biggie) from an evil mastermind called The Warden."

INDIE WATCH:

• Cruel Empire: The Rebels Path, Book 1 By: Robyn Wideman and JK Daniels, read by Brian Nishii for Podium -- "In the Empire, cultivation is restricted. Weapons are forbidden. Tyranny reigns. When disaster strikes for Oren and his family, there is only one choice: flee the local magistrate and his arrogant son who wants to destroy their family."

• Tempus Fugitive: Mission 1: Black Ocean: Passage of Time, Book 1 by J.S. Morin, read by Mikael Naramore for Magical Scrivener Press -- "Jessie and Eric Ramsey have a family history of crime. Fighting back against heredity, each tried to make their way in the galaxy by respectable means. Jessie joined Earth Navy; Eric went to college for magic. But fate wasn’t having it. Eric was expelled. Jessie went AWOL. Now, due to a magical mishap that wasn’t entirely anyone’s fault (we swear!), they’re stranded five years in the future on a Mars that’s no longer friendly territory. Caught behind enemy lines in a galactic civil war they didn’t know about, the pair need every trick in their respective books to survive on Mars long enough to escape. Along the way, they’ll meet old friends and make new foes, and if they’re very lucky, manage to figure out where they belong in this new galactic order."

• The Green Cathedral By: Kerry McDonald and Lee Tidball, read by Kevin Kenerly for Level 4 -- "As a DEA agent caught in an unwinnable drug war, Abel has spent his life with the ugliest side of humanity. It’s no wonder he’s given in to corruption, bribery, and an illegal side-hustle that has him on the run from some of the most dangerous men in South America. Then he stumbles on a deadly, abandoned alien girl who has made a home under the green canopy of the deepest part of the jungle. Her space craft crash-landed a decade ago; his life crashed and burned well before that. As this unlikely pair grows closer, Abel will realize that his dark past has tracked him down and threatens to destroy the very beauty he has fallen in love with. For the first time in his life, he can sacrifice all he is to save the one he loves."

MOST MISSING:

• This Island Earth by Dale Bailey (PS Publishing) -- "Inspired by the drive-in epics of the 1950s, the stories in This Island Earth marry the exuberance of Eisenhower-era sci-fi movies to nuanced examinations of love, family, fear, and loss—without leaving the robots and ray guns behind. These stories abound with the bug-eyed monsters and irradiated highschoolers you remember from the late-night Creature Feature. But they transcend nostalgia to illuminate the complications of the human heart with wit and compassion."

• Lost Places: Stories by Sarah Pinsker collection (Small Beer Press) -- "A half-remembered children's TV show. A hotel that shouldn't exist. A mysterious ballad. A living flag. Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author Sarah Pinsker's second collection brings together a seemingly eclectic group of stories that unite behind certain themes: her touchstones of music and memory are joined by stories about secret subversions and hidden messages in art. Her stories span and transcend genre labels, looking for the truth in strange situations from possible futures to impossible pasts."

• The Last Vanishing Man and Other Stories by Matthew Cheney (Third Man Books) -- "Magic stops. Men vanish. Worlds end. Life goes on."

• Night's Plutonian Shore by Garrett Boatman (Macabre Ink) -- "Researching sustainable energy, Rick’s best friend Wally has discovered a means to tap into the bioplasmic energy field that surrounds all living things. He envisions trains and office towers running off collective psi. But when he invites his friends to test his psychotronic generator, they unleash demons residing in the human old brain, the seat of aggression and primal drives. As the body count rises, it becomes clear, for these creatures of the id to survive, their creators must die."

• Sleep and the Soul: Stories by Greg Egan -- Ten stories from Hugo Award-winning author Greg Egan: “You and Whose Army?”, “This Is Not the Way Home”, “Zeitgeber”, “Crisis Actors”, “Sleep and the Soul”, “After Zero”, “Dream Factory”, “Light Up the Clouds”, “Night Running”, and “Solidity”.

• Seeds of War: The Smokesmiths, Book 1 by Joao F. Silva -- "GIMLORE is a single mother and war veteran turned crime boss set on protecting her family and her town. ORBERESIS is a petty thief pretending to be God to protect a terrible secret. REDNOW is the world's most feared mercenary, but his best days are behind him and there's one job left to do. In a world of dangerous monsters and devastating smoke magic, the seeds of war are being planted. Allies must be treasured and enemies defeated."

• The Alchemy of Letting Go by Amber Morrell (Albert Whitman & Company) -- "Twelve-year-old Juniper Edwards can’t stop chasing the endangered butterfly her sister died trying to catch. In her grief, Juniper finds comfort in her family’s study of insects, because science is based on logic, order, and control. But then Juniper’s search for the butterfly nearly kills her, too, and when she wakes up with newfound abilities, she discovers that the line between science and magic―and life and death―is not as solid as she thought."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 25 April 2023

Posted on 2023-04-25 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

Out of the thousand or so titles out this week I came in with a list of 25, which grew to about 30. Not too shabby at the top of the list, either!

PICKS:

• Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow, read by Wil Wheaton -- Famously not available from Audible due to their refusal to sell titles without DRM, a "grabby next-Tuesday thriller about cryptocurrency shenanigans that will awaken you to how the world really works." Get it from Downpour, Libro.fm, etc.

• Small Mercies: A Novel By: Dennis Lehane, read by Robin Miles for Harper -- "In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business."

• The All-Consuming World By: Cassandra Khaw, read by Cindy Kay for Recorded Books -- "Maya has died and been resurrected into countless cyborg bodies through the years of a dangerous long career with the infamous Dirty Dozen, the most storied crew of criminals in the galaxy, at least before their untimely and gruesome demise. Decades later, she and her diverse team of broken, diminished outlaws must get back together to solve the mystery of their disastrous last mission and to rescue a missing and much-changed comrade … but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of the secret at the heart of the planet Dimmuborgir: The highly evolved AI of the galaxy have their own agenda and will do whatever it takes to keep humanity from ever regaining control."

• The Merry Dredgers By: Jeremy C. Shipp, read by Gisela Chípe for Random House -- "Seraphina Ramon will stop at nothing to find out the truth about why her sister Eff is in a coma after a very suspicious "accident." Even if it means infiltrating the last place Seraphina knows Eff was alive: a once-abandoned amusement park now populated by a community of cultists."

• Reckoning By: V, read by the author for HighBridge -- "The work of a lifetime from the Tony Award-winning, bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues—political, personal, profound, and more than forty years in the making. The newest book from V (formerly Eve Ensler), Reckoning invites you to travel the journey of a writer's and activist's life and process over forty years, representing both the core of ideas that have become global movements and the methods through which V survived abuse and self-hatred. Seamlessly moving from the internal to the external, the personal to the political, Reckoning is a moving and inspiring work of prose, poetry, dreams, letters, and essays drawn from V's lifelong journals that takes listeners from Berlin to Oklahoma to the Congo, from climate disaster, homelessness, and activism to family."

• Ascension: A Novel By: Nicholas Binge, read by Peter Kenny for Penguin -- "A mind-bending speculative thriller in which the sudden appearance of a mountain in the middle of the Pacific Ocean leads a group of scientists to a series of jaw-dropping revelations that challenge the notion of what it means to be human."

• Lonely Castle in the Mirror By: Mizuki Tsujimura, translated by Philip Gabriel, read by Sarah Skaer for Tantor -- "Bullied to the point of dropping out of school, Kokoro's days blur together as she hides in her bedroom, unable to face her family or friends. As she spirals into despair, her mirror begins to shine; with a touch, Kokoro is pulled from her lonely life into a resplendent, bizarre fairytale castle guarded by a strange girl in a wolf mask. Six other students have been brought to the castle, and soon this marvelous refuge becomes their playground. The castle has a hidden room that can grant a single wish, but there are rules to be followed, and breaking them will have dire consequences. As Kokoro and her new acquaintances spend more time in their new sanctuary, they begin to unlock the castle's secrets and, tentatively, each other's."

• The Gifts By: Liz Hyder, read by Tuppence Middleton for Dreamscape -- "October 1840. A young woman staggers alone through a forest in the English countryside as a huge pair of impossible wings rip themselves from her shoulders. In London, rumors of a fallen angel cause a frenzy across the city, and a surgeon desperate for fame and fortune finds himself in the grips of a dangerous obsession, one that will place the women he seeks in the most terrible danger."

• Untethered Sky By: Fonda Lee, read by Nikki Massoud for Recorded Books -- "Ester’s family was torn apart when a manticore killed her mother and baby brother, leaving her with nothing but her father’s painful silence and a single overwhelming need to kill the monsters that took her family. Ester’s path leads her to the king’s Royal Mews, where the giant rocs of legend are flown to hunt manticores by their brave and dedicated ruhkers. Paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra, Ester finds purpose and acclaim by devoting herself to a calling that demands absolute sacrifice and a creature that will never return her love. The terrifying partnership between woman and roc leads Ester not only on the empire’s most dangerous manticore hunt, but on a journey of perseverance and acceptance."

• In the Lives of Puppets By: TJ Klune, read by Daniel Henning for Macmillan -- "In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe. The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Fireheart Tiger By: Aliette de Bodard (2021), read by Jennifer Aquino for Tantor -- "Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she's returned to her mother's imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria's royal palace. Thanh's new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh's home. Eldris won't take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions."

• The Green Man By: Kingsley Amis (1969), read by Joe Dixon for Blackstone -- "Maurice Allington has reached middle age and is haunted by death. As he says, “I honestly can’t see why everybody who isn’t a child, everybody who’s theoretically old enough to have understood what death means, doesn’t spend all his time thinking about it. It’s a pretty arresting thought.” He also happens to own and run a country inn that is haunted."

• Bride of Pendorric By: Victoria Holt (1963, 1987), read by Henrietta Meire for Tantor -- "Favel Farrington meets Roc Pendorric on the idyllic Mediterranean island of Capri, where she was raised and lives with her father. Roc sweeps her off her feet, taking her from her home by an emerald sea to the ancient family home of the Pendorrics, in Cornwall. His sister and her family await them with open arms, welcoming young Favel. She is the much anticipated Bride of Pendorric, a name that amuses and flatters her. The castle is beautiful in its way, but the atmosphere is foreboding..."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• The Basilisk Throne By: Greg Keyes, read by John Skelley for Recorded Books -- "For centuries the Drehhu have ruled every continent, brutally enslaving the human inhabitants. Now after endless wars the human empires of Ophion, Velesa, and Modjal have pushed the inhuman enemy back to their heartland and unite in a final, massive assault. The victors will rule from The Basilisk Throne."

• A Guide to Demonic Ascension By: Tim Saian, read by Justin Price for Blackstone -- "Reais, a fractured abyss ruled by thousands of contesting Demon Lords no stranger to chaos, happens to be the birth place of a new chaos, a new threat. Punished for disbelief in a mortal life, a soul curses Deities for its unfair imprisonment and psychological torture. Set free by witless demons, this soul sees an opportunity for vengeance."

• The Spread By: Jacqueline Druga, read by Candace Joice for Tantor -- "Aboard the Talbot Yacht, twenty party goers suddenly fall unconscious at the same time. Placed into quarantine, it is soon believed their incident was caused by a gas leak and they are released. It is much more."

SERIES WATCH:

• Night Angel: Nemesis by Brent Weeks, read by Simon Vance for Orbit -- "Return to the New York Times bestselling world of the Night Angel, where master assassin Kylar embarks on a new adventure as the High King Logan Gyre calls on him to save his kingdom and the hope of peace."

• A Sleight of Shadows: The Unseen World, Book 2 By: Kat Howard, read by Madeleine Maby for Simon and Schuster -- "Return to Kat Howard’s Alex Award-winning world begun in An Unkindness of Magicians, a secret society of power-hungry magicians in New York City."

• Disciple: The New Apocrypha, Book 2 By: A.G. Mock, read by Jeremy Carlisle Parker for Tantor -- "A boy prophet who can raise the dead. Followers who would kill for his favor. And a sibling on the run for more than her life."

• Guardian of Shadows: Nyx Fortuna Series, Book 2 By: Michelle Manus, read by Desiree Ketchum for Tantor -- "She's been to the universe's prison planet, why not check the black market off her bucket list next?"

• Dark All Day: The Walking Shadows, Book 3 By: Brenden Carlson, read by Paul Heitsch for Tantor -- "In an alternate 1933, a sleuth and his robot partner are caught in the middle of a legal battle that will decide the fate of the world's machine population."

INDIE WATCH:

• The World of Juno created by Daniel Eavenson, edited by Heather and William C. Tracy, read by Cynthia Kimola for Tantor -- A shared world book from small imprint Space Wizard Science Fantasy which invites contributions from readers: Journey through time and space to the intricate biosphere of Juno, where three species have been birthed by the gods. First the Kuhifadi, inheritors of sun magic, able to do great deeds with magic stored in their bodies. Second the fearsome Uchafumlaji, technological savants who live in the depths of the ground. Third the weird Ngisikaa, a species uplifted from animals through communal memories. Small decisions and single individuals will affect the tide of history. Learn of the first Ngisikaa to meet death, whether a Kuhifadi will make the sacrifice to become a mage, and if an Uchafumlaji can build a bridge to the past."

• Sword & Sand: The Simorgh's Fire By: Kenneth Knight, read by Sunny Patel for Paragon Authors -- "In the sixth-century Persian Empire, the Sasanian royal court glutted itself on debauched excesses, cruelty, and tyranny. Neglect and complacency emboldened enemies within and beyond the empire, taking both mortal and monstrous forms. Child-Prince Mihran, having narrowly escaped death in one of innumerable purges in the royal court, fled to a frontier temple to live and die in sheltered obscurity. Under the care of warrior-priests, ascetic scholars, and desert nomads, Mihran escaped the attention of court conspirators long enough to grow into the embodiment of mythic heroism that the ruling class had forsaken. For those same conspirators in the royal court, a raid to intercept bandits serving as agents of their scheme would reveal that it was Mihran’s attention that they ought to have escaped. In the wake of a plot so vile that it stands to betray the concept of life itself, Mihran will fight with uncompromising severity to excise the rot within his civilization."

• Rogue By: Alex Schuler with Kevin Weir, read by John Pirhalla for Level 4 Press -- "As a war journalist, Jonah Wall saw enough of humanity’s horrors to last a lifetime. He wrecked his marriage, alienated his two sons, and escaped by working on an oil rig in Alaska, as far from civilization as possible. But when he finds a spacecraft that was buried for millennia under the tundra, he is suddenly and reluctantly thrust into an unbelievable adventure. As the ship is being unveiled to the world, it mysteriously comes to life, taking Jonah, his estranged son, and a disparate group on a terrifying journey."

MOST MISSING:

• Atenia by Jay Requard (Lookfar) -- "For fifteen years, queen-regent Fransica de Veard has ruled Atenia alongside the mysterious sorcerer Niklon. Her gilded citadel built on suffering, brutal knights enact her will, leaving her power unquestioned. Until Haidra sets fire to the fields outside the city. Three wraiths appear in the fiery wake, kicking off a rebellion of bloodshed and magic. Swept by the tide of battle, Haidra embarks upon a path of reckoning and redemption, one that will bring her face to face with Atenia’s sins."

• Life Beyond Us: An Original Anthology of SF Stories and Science Essays edited by Julie Novakova, Lucas K. Law, and Susan Forest (Laksa Media) -- "How would first contact—on earth, in space, on another planet—transform our understandings of technology, philosophy, and what it means to be human? What kind of cognitive dissonance would society experience, if we discovered a previously unrecognized sentience on Earth?" Stories by (among others) Gregory Benford, Tobias S. Buckell, Julie E. Czerneda, Mary Robinette Kowal, Geoffrey A. Landis, Rich Larson, Premee Mohamed, Malka Older, and Peter Watts.

• Make It Stop by Jim Ruland (Rare Bird Books) -- "Scores of detox and rehab centers across Southern California have adopted a controversial new conditional release policy that forces patients to stay until they pay their bills. And if they can’t pay? They don’t leave. Enter: Make It Stop, a group of highly skilled recovering addicts dedicated to rescuing those trapped in these prison hospitals by posing as patients and getting them out by any means necessary. But when Scary Gary, one of their top ops, gets killed on assignment, Melanie Marsh and her crew set out to avenge his death and unravel an unthinkable medical conspiracy that threatens to destroy the organization and cripple the city with a dangerous new drug. Melanie may be LA’s best hope but if, and only if, she can stay sober."

• Sunset by the Sea: The Golden Isles Trilogy, Book 1 by Gisele Briseia -- "Rose McKenzie is no stranger to running. After the death of her father threatens to bring her back under her mother’s control permanently, Rose flees again. This time it’s to the only sanctuary she’s ever known: a tiny island called Nora. The longer she stays in Nora, the more Rose realizes the island she knew has changed. Families are leaving in droves, and strangers are taking their places, strangers that don’t seem… human. This leaves her stuck between the fight for Nora and her startling attraction towards a mysterious man as beautiful as the sea, who may or may not be involved with Nora’s alarming decline. All Rose ever wanted was to make Nora her home, but as more secrets come to light, she becomes entangled in a war as old as humanity itself. Between threats on her life, mysterious voices that call out for help in her dreams, and the man she can’t seem to get out of her mind, will she survive long enough to build the life she truly longs for?"

• Legacy of Brick and Bone: Tainted Dominion, Book 2 by Krystle Matar (Imburleigh Book Company) -- "It all started with the girl from the river: mutilated, tattooed, murdered. Tashué couldn’t help but look for answers and in the process, he uncovered the ugly truths being hidden by the very law he used to believe in—the law of the Authority. Now he’s fighting for his life. Mere survival isn’t enough; he desperately wants to save his son from the Authority, and he wants revolution. At any cost."

• Tsalmoth: Vlad, Book 16 by Steven Brust (Tor Books) -- "Vlad Taltos is in love. With a former assassin who may just be better than he is at the Game. Women like this don’t come along every day and no way is he passing up a sure bet."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 18 April 2023

Posted on 2023-04-18 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

No fewer than 44 (45?) books made my stupidly long list this week. (Out of over 1000 audiobook titles vomited into the world, and untold thousands more in print/ebook formats.) I hardly know what to do anymore with this many books, when most can catch my attention for fewer than a few seconds. But my stupid mind makes me at least scan the listings, and I keep regurgitating these stupidly long lists of new books each week. Well, here's another one! From entropy's heart, I stab at thee!

TOP TEN PICKS:

• Greek Lessons: A Novel By: Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won, read by Greta Jung and Earl T. Kim for Random House -- "In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. Soon the two discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence."

• The Wishing Pool and Other Stories by Tananarive Due, read by Jasmin Walker and William DeMeritt for Recorded Books -- "In her first new book in seven years, Tananarive Due further cements her status as a leading innovator in Black horror and Afrofuturism."

• The Haunting of Alejandra: A Novel by V. Castro, read by Raquel Beattie for Random House -- "A woman is haunted by the Mexican folk demon La Llorona in this ravishing and provocative literary horror novel about motherhood, family legacy, and self-discovery."

• The Warden by Daniel M. Ford, read by Linsey Dorcus for Macmillan -- "There was a plan. She had the money, the connections, even the brains. It was simple: become one of the only female necromancers, pass as many certifications as she could, get a post near the capital, then… profit. The funny thing about plans is that they are seldom under your control. Now Aelis, a daughter of a noble house and a trained Magister of the Lyceum, finds herself in the far-removed village of Lone Pine. Mending fences and delivering baby goats, serving people who want nothing to do with her. But, not all is well in Lone Pine, and as the villagers Aelis is reluctantly getting to know start to behave strangely, Aelis begins to suspect that there is far greater need for a warden of her talents than she previously thought."

• Sing, Nightingale By: Marie Hélène Poitras, translated by Rhonda Mullins, read by Nathalie Toriel for Coach House -- "When the curtain rises on Malmaison, it reveals a once-enchanting estate, quietly falling into darkness and ruin, and at the heart of it, a father, one of a long line of fathers who have flourished at the expense of those around them. The silence seems peaceful, but lurking under it is a deep malevolence, scores of ugly and violent secrets kept by cast-off mistresses and abandoned daughters. Ever-greedy, the father brings in Aliénor, a woman who promises to make the lands give even more of themselves; the plants will flourish, the animals will multiply, each feast will be more sumptuous than the last. The father thinks the stage is set to satisfy his every desire, but Aliénor will bring a new script, one in which the hunters are hunted and a new reign will begin."

• Sisters of the Lost Nation By: Nick Medina, read by Elva Guerra, Nick Medina for Penguin -- "A young Native girl's hunt for answers about the women mysteriously disappearing from her tribe's reservation lead her to delve into the myths and stories of her people, all while being haunted herself."

• The Marigold By: Andrew F. Sullivan, read by Sean Patrick Hopkins for Penguin -- "In a near-future Toronto buffeted by environmental chaos and unfettered development, an unsettling new lifeform begins to grow beneath the surface, feeding off the past."

• Games for Dead Girls By: Jen Williams, read by Mhairi Morrison for Dreamscape -- "For Charlie and her niece Katie, it’s supposed to be a quiet holiday in the peaceful, out-of-the-way seaside town of Hithechurch, England. Charlie is researching a book on the folklore of the area, and the gloomy sea and dangerous caves seem to offer up plenty of material, while Katie is just there to run wild and get some fresh air. But Charlie’s research reveals a deeper, darker secret, one that uncovers her own carefully hidden past."

• The Last Animal: A Novel By: Ramona Ausubel, read by Natasha Soudek for Penguin -- "Teenage sisters Eve and Vera never imagined their summer vacation would be spent in the Arctic, tagging along on their mother’s scientific expedition. But there’s a lot about their lives lately that hasn’t been going as planned, and truth be told, their single mother might not be so happy either. Now in Siberia with a bunch of serious biologists, Eve and Vera are just bored enough to cause trouble. Fooling around in the permafrost, they accidentally discover a perfectly preserved, four-thousand-year-old baby mammoth, and things finally start to get interesting. The discovery sets off a surprising chain of events, leading mother and daughters to go rogue, pinging from the slopes of Siberia to the shores of Iceland to an exotic animal farm in Italy, and resulting in the birth of a creature that could change the world—or at least this family."

• The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa By: Stephen Buoro, read by Jude Owusu for Bloomsbury -- "Andrew Aziza is an unusually smart fifteen-year-old in Kontagora, Nigeria. He lives with his fiercely protective mother, Gloria, and fantasizes obsessively about white girls—especially blondes. When he's not in church, at school, or hanging about town with his droogs wishing to become one of “Africa’s first superheroes,” he's contemplating the larger questions with his teacher Zahrah and his equally brilliant friend Fatima, a Hausa-Fulani girl who has feelings for him. Together they discuss mathematical theorems, Black power, and what Andy has deemed the Curse of Africa."

NON-FICTION:

• The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann, read by Dion Graham for Random House -- "On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes–they were mutineers."

• Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe by Phil Plait, read by the author for OrangeSky -- "A rip-roaring tour of the cosmos with the Bad Astronomer, revealing the sky as never seen before―from everywhere but Earth."

YOUNG ADULTS:

• If I See You Again Tomorrow By: Robbie Couch, read by Kurt Kanazawa for Simon and Schuster -- "For some reason, Clark has woken up and relived the same monotonous Monday 309 times. Until Day 310 turns out to be…different. Suddenly, his usual torturous math class is interrupted by an anomaly—a boy he’s never seen before in all his previous Mondays."

YOUNG LISTENERS:

• The Rhythm of Time by Questlove with S.A. Cosby, read by Kaylor Leigh for Listening Library -- "Seventh grader Rahim Reynolds loves testing out the gadgets invented by his brilliant friend Kasia Collins. First there were the X-ray glasses and all the trouble they caused. Now there’s the new cell phone she built for his birthday, even though his parents won’t let him have one. But Rahim is excited to use the phone to search for videos of his favorite old-school rap group. What he doesn’t know is the phone has a special battery that interfaces with a secret government satellite, which spells trouble when the phone transports him back to 1997. Almost immediately, he learns what every time traveler before him has: Actions in the past jeopardize the future."

• Elf Dog and Owl Head By: M.T. Anderson, read by Pete Cross for Dreamscape -- "Clay has had his fill of home life. A global plague has brought the world to a screeching halt, and with little to look forward to but a summer of video-calling friends, vying with annoying sisters for the family computer, and tuning out his parents’ financial worries, he’s only too happy to retreat to the woods. From the moment the elegant little dog with the ornate collar appears like an apparition among the trees, Clay sees something uncanny in her. With this mysterious Elphinore as guide, he’ll glimpse ancient secrets folded all but invisibly into the forest."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Waves Extinguish the Wind By: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (1986), translated by Daniels Umanovskis, read by Kevin Pariseau for Blackstone -- "The epic conclusion to the Noon Universe saga, as eighty-nine-year-old Maxim Kammerer looks back at his most earth-shattering investigation, which brought an entire era of human civilization to an end. Searching for evidence that the mysterious alien Wanderers were interfering in Earth’s development, Kammerer and his young trainee Toivo Glumov discovered a deeper and more disturbing secret within humanity itself."

• Slippage by Harlan Ellison (1997), read by Cindy Kay and Luis Moreno for Recorded Books -- "With this, his bestselling and most critically acclaimed collection ever, Ellison celebrates four decades of brilliant, outrageous writing. The award-winning novella Mefisto in Onyx is the centerpiece of an irreverent and wildly imaginative book."

• The Monsters We Deserve By: Marcus Sedgwick (2018), read by Alan Irving for SAGA Egmont -- "The Villa Diodati, on the shore of Lake Geneva, 1816: the Year without Summer. As Byron, Polidori, and Mr and Mrs Shelley shelter from the unexpected weather, old ghost stories are read and new ghost stories imagined. Born by the twin brains of the Shelleys is Frankenstein, one of the most influential tales of horror of all time. In a remote mountain house, high in the French Alps, an author broods on Shelley's creation. Reality and perception merge, fuelled by poisoned thoughts. Humankind makes monsters; but who really creates who?"

• The Return By: Walter de la Mare (1910), read by Stefan Rudnicki for Blackstone -- "While wandering the local graveyard on behalf of his wife, whom he can sense wishes him out of the house for a bit, exceedingly ordinary Arthur Lawford comes across the grave of Nicholas Sabathier and experiences a nasty shock that feels something like a heart attack. But when he wakes back up in the graveyard the next morning, he returns home, goes to his bedroom, and turns to the mirror only to see that a dead Frenchman is staring back at him from the looking glass."

• Wendy, Darling By: A. C. Wise (2021), read by Ella Lynch for Blackstone -- "A lush feminist re-imagining on what happened to Wendy after Neverland."

• Hooked by A.C. Wise (2022), read by Joel Froomkin for Blackstone -- "A dark, gorgeous reimagining about what happened to Captain Hook after Neverland."

• In the Ruins: Crown of Stars, Book 6 by Kate Elliott (2005), read by Shiromi Arserio for Tantor -- "The lost land of the Aoi has returned to the earth from which it was cast forth millennia ago. And though the battle for survival must be the primary focus, there are always those eager to seize power."

MORE FICTION:

• Trace Evidence By: Charif Shanahan, read by the author for HighBridge -- "In Trace Evidence, the urgent follow-up to his award-winning debut Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, Charif Shanahan continues his piercing meditations on the intricacies of mixed-race identity, queer desire, time, mortality, and the legacies of anti-Blackness in the US and abroad."

• Brother & Sister Enter the Forest By: Richard Mirabella, read by Eve Passeltiner for Dreamscape -- "After years of severed communication, Justin appears on his sister’s doorstep needing a place to stay. The home he's made for himself has collapsed, as has everything else in his life. When they were children, Willa played the role of her brother’s protector, but now, afraid of the chaos he might bring, she’s reluctant to let him in."

• Silver Alert By: Lee Smith, read by Caitlin Davies for Algonquin -- "This funny and endearing novel of family, secrets, and aging follows an elderly man who heads off on a joyride with a new young friend—who may have some secrets of her own."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• Flux: A Novel by Jinwoo Chong, read by David Lee Huynh for Tantor -- "A blazingly original and stylish debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his mysterious employers have inadvertently discovered time travel—and are using it to cover up a string of violent crimes."

• The Reinvented Heart edited by Cat Rambo and Jennifer Brozek, read by Krystal Hammond for Tantor -- "What happens when emotions like love and friendship span vast distances—in space, in time, and in the heart?"

• Five First Chances By: Sarah Jost, read by Amy Scanlon for Recorded Books -- "Lou feels like she is stuck on the wrong path: alone, in a city far from home, watching other people be happy. When the man she’s in love with announces his engagement to someone else, Lou is consumed by what-ifs. That’s when she finds herself slipping back in time to a night two years ago, where one small decision changed everything. Suddenly, Lou has a chance to fix her mistakes. But as her choices lead her down roads she never could have imagined, she finds herself stuck in a time loop of her own making. And with each slip, Lou notices her life intersecting with one person again and again."

SERIES WATCH:

• City of Dreams: City on Fire, Book 2 By: Don Winslow, read by Ari Fliakos for Harper -- "Following the epic, ambitious, instant New York Times bestseller City on Fire, “The Godfather for our generation” (Adrian McKinty), comes the dramatic second novel in an epic crime trilogy."

• Furious Heaven: The Sun Chronicles, Book 2 by Kate Elliott, read by Natalie Naudus for Macmillan -- "The action-packed sequel to bestselling author Kate Elliott's thrilling space adventure The Unconquerable Sun, a genderspun Alexander the Great."

• The Blood Gift: The Blood Gift Duology, Book 2 By: N. E. Davenport, read by Jeanette Illidge for Harper -- "Elite warrior Ikenna and her rogue cohort must outrun bounty hunters, their former comrades, and a megalomaniacal demi-god, all in the hopes of saving their friends and enemies from the racist and misogynistic oppression that threatens the continents from all sides."

• Talos: Book 2 By: Brian D. Anderson, read by Bradford Hastings for Blackstone -- "Recovered from his wounds, James Talos is more determined than ever to find his family and spirit them away to safety. But the road ahead is long and fraught with peril. Killer clones, feral cannibals, and murderous bandits are only the beginning of the dangers he must face. And should he find a way to stay alive, what will he discover? What truth lies beneath the layers of lies and deceit?"

• The Bone Shard War: The Drowning Empire, Book 3 by Andrea Stewart, read by Natalie Naudus, Feodor Chin, and Emily Woo Zeller for Orbit -- "The fate of Lin Sukai—and her family’s dynasty—lay in her hands in this action-packed, magic-laced epic fantasy."

• For the First Time, Again: Take Them to the Stars, Book 3 by Sulvain Neuvel, read by Imogen Wilde, Kevin Shen, Kristin Atherton, Lance C. Fuller, and Rory Alexander for Macmillan -- "Against the backdrop of authentic historical events, Sylvain Neuvel concludes his acclaimed Take Them to the Stars series with a biting satire on the role of authority in all its guises, bringing us a truly breathtaking science fiction trilogy that spans the ages."

• The Secret Service of Tea and Treason: Dangerous Damsels, Book 3 by India Holton, read by Elizabeth Knowelden for Penguin -- "Two rival spies must brave pirates, witches, and fake matrimony to save the Queen."

• The Valley: A Lee Harden Novel by D.J. Molles, read by Christian Rummel for Audible -- "It has been six years since plague, famine, and war ravaged the planet. World powers have collapsed. The human population has been reduced by 90 percent, and those who survived must always contend with a novel apex predator: human beings whose very DNA has been radically altered by the plague."

INDIE WATCH:

• Groom Lake By: S. E. England, read by Siobhan Waring for Tantor -- "Lauren Stafford, a traumatized divorcee, decides to rent a cottage on the edge of a beautiful ancestral estate in the Welsh Marches. But from the very first day of arrival she instinctively knows there's something terribly wrong here—something malevolent and ancient—a feeling the whole place is trapped in a time warp. She really ought to leave. But the pull of the lake is too strong, its dark magic so powerful it crosses over into dreams . . . turning them into nightmares. What lies beneath its still black surface? And why can't Lauren drag herself away? Why her? And why now?"

• The Tempest: First Contact by Peter Cawdron, read by Kaleo Griffith and Caitlin Davies for Podium -- "Marc and Emma are on the graveyard shift onboard the Sycorax, an interstellar spacecraft bound for New Haven, a colony world fifty light years from Earth. For the crew of the Sycorax, interstellar flight is boring—that is, until they run into a tempest. Before long, they find themselves on a crippled spacecraft falling toward a black hole, but that's the least of their problems..."

• Mageling: Millennial Mage, Book 1 by J.L. Mullins, read by Tess Irondale for Mountaindale Press -- "The Wilds relentlessly reclaim all things. Humanity shelters within their ever-dying cities. Mages create the only path forward."

MOST MISSING:

• The Iron Children by Rebecca Fraimow (Rebellion) -- "Asher has been training her entire life to become a Sor-Commander. One day, she'll give her soul to the gilded, mechanical body of the Sor and become a commander to a battalion of Dedicates. These soldiers, encased in exoskeletons, with extra arms, and telepathic subordination to the Sor-Commanders, are the only thing that's kept the much larger Levastani army of conquest at bay for decades."

• The Other Lives Of Miss Emily White by A.J. Elwood (Titan) -- "1864. Banished from her parents' farm to a boarding school for young ladies, Ivy feels utterly alone. In a crumbling and isolated seminary that has seen better days, she is shunned by the other pupils for her working-class origins, and mourns for her sister, who died not long after she was sent away. Hope comes in the form of a new teacher, Miss Emily White, but almost immediately, suspicions are raised that she is not all she should be. Ivy is captivated, yet as her devotion grows, odd reports begin to circulate that Miss White has been glimpsed in the garden picking flowers whilst also teaching a class, leaving the school but stalking the halls at the same time."

• Goblins and Grimalkin: the Tooth of the Troll by Joe M. McDermott -- "Rambol goblin is determined to be the greatest sneak thief of all goblin-kind, not a tree-sniffer like his parents. He wants his statue forever on display in the Goblin Hall of Greatness and Their Great Goings On, and that means he must do an exceptional act of thievery, like taking the tooth of a living troll. The path is perilous, and the danger vast. But, he does not go alone into the grimalkin kingdoms, where giants live among the roads and buildings."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 11 April 2023

Posted on 2023-04-11 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

FEATURED PICK:

• Veniss Underground: A Novel By: Jeff VanderMeer (2003), read by Ron Butler, Scott Brick, Emily Woo Zeller, and Bronson Pinchot for Blackstone -- "Set in the mysterious and magical city of Veniss, a surreal metropolis that sits over an underground labyrinth of tunnels and mines. In this tale, epic and mythological in scope, VanderMeer takes the listener below the surface of the earth to the dark and decadent future. It’s a world where Living Artists craft works out of biological material, and humans are either tossed out or recycled into something wholly unrecognizable. Told from three distinct viewpoints―Nicholas, a not-quite-talented-enough Artist; his twin sister, Nicola; and Nicola’s former lover, Shadrach."

FICTION WATCH:

• The Trackers: A Novel By: Charles Frazier, read by Will Patton for Harper -- "Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he’s landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office. A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding the rails and singing in a western swing band. Long holds shady political aspirations, but was once a WWI sniper—and his right hand is a mysterious elder cowboy, a vestige of the violent old west. Val quickly finds himself entranced by their lives. One day, Eve flees home with a valuable painting in tow, and Long recruits Val to hit the road with a mission of tracking her down."

• The Weight By: Jeff Boyd, read by JD Jackson for Simon and Schuster -- "A powerful coming-of-age novel about a twenty-something Black musician living in predominantly white Portland, Oregon, playing in a rock band on the verge of success while struggling with racism, romance, and the legacy of his strict religious upbringing."

• The Only Survivors by Megan Miranda, read by Alex Allwine for Simon and Schuster -- "A decade ago, two vans filled with high school seniors on a school service trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine—a tragedy that claimed the lives of multiple classmates and teachers. The nine students who managed to escape the river that night were irrevocably changed. A year later, after one of the survivors dies by suicide on the anniversary of the crash, the rest of them make a pact: to come together each year to commemorate that terrible night."

• Life and Other Love Songs By: Anissa Gray, read by Dominic Hoffman, Karen Murray, and Nicole Lewis for Penguin -- "It’s a warm, bright October afternoon, and Ozro Armstead walks out into the brilliant sunshine on his thirty-seventh birthday. At home, his wife Deborah and daughter Trinity prepare a surprise celebration; down the street, his brother waves as Oz heads back to his office after having lunch together. But he won’t make it to the party or even to his briefcase back at his desk. He's about to disappear."

HISTORICAL FICTION:

• Odin's Betrayal By: Donovan Cook, read by Sean Barrett for Boldwood Books -- "After a failed Viking raid on the Frankish coast over 20 years ago, Jarl Sven the Boar is forced to leave his only son, Torkel, as a hostage and warned never to raid Francia again or his son will die. In Hügelburg, a small town in East Francia, Torkel and his 9-year-old son Charles are ambushed at home. Before dying, Torkel thrusts a package into young Charles’s hands and tells him to flee Francia for Denmark in search of his grandfather Sven the Boar’s protection."

SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• Some Desperate Glory By: Emily Tesh, read by Sena Bryer for Macmillan -- "Since she was born, Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the majoda their victory over humanity. They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. When Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to Nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity's revenge into her own hands."

• In Ascension By: Martin MacInnes, read by Freya Miller for W.F. Howes -- "Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as a refuge from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the marine world of her childhood, she excels in postgraduate research on ancient algae. When an unfathomable vent appears in the mid-Atlantic floor, Leigh joins the investigating team; what she finds there will change her life forever. Around the same time, a trio of engineers, unknown to each other, make a seismic breakthrough in rocket propulsion, announcing an almost limitless era of space exploration. Billions of dollars is poured into projects, and Leigh's classified research on the ocean vent sees her recruited to develop an experimental food source for off-world travel."

• The Keeper's Six By: Kate Elliott, read by Sharon Freedman for Podium -- "It’s been a year since Esther set foot in the Beyond, the alien landscape stretching between worlds, crossing boundaries of space and time. She and her magical traveling party—her Hex—haven’t spoken since the Concilium banned them from the Beyond for a decade. But when she wakes in the middle of the night to her grown son’s cry for help, the members of her Hex are the only ones she can trust to help her bring him back from wherever he has been taken. Esther will have to risk everything to find him. Undercover and hidden from the Concilium, she and her Hex will be tested by false dragon lords, a darkness so dense it can suffocate, and the bones of an old crime come back to haunt her. There are terrors that dwell in the space between worlds."

• Brute Force By: Scott Meyer, read by Luke Daniels -- "A peaceful organization of civilized planets is faced with a threat to their very existence. Desperate to save themselves, they turn for help to the most brutal, backward, violent species in the known galaxy: humans."

• The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson, read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading for Dragonsteel -- "A man awakens in a clearing in what appears to be medieval England with no memory of who he is, where he came from, or why he is there. Chased by a group from his own time, his sole hope for survival lies in regaining his missing memories, making allies among the locals, and perhaps even trusting in their superstitious boasts. His only help from the “real world” should have been a guidebook entitled The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, except his copy exploded during transit. The few fragments he managed to save provide clues to his situation, but can he figure them out in time to survive?" NOTE: Not available on Audible as Sanderson tries to push them into making changes.

YOUNG LISTENER WATCH:

• Creatures of the In Between by Cindy Lin, read by David Lee Huynh for Harper Children's -- "Princess Mononoke meets How to Train Your Dragon in this magical middle grade adventure from Cindy Lin, author of The Twelve, featuring a blend of East and Southeast Asian folklore and mythical creatures, and starring a boy with a hero's destiny."

NON-FICTION WATCH:

• You Could Make This Place Beautiful: a Memoir by Maggie Smith, read by the author for Simon and Schuster -- "Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels."

SERIES WATCH:

• Heir of Uncertain Magic: Whimbrel House, Book 2 By: Charlie N. Holmberg, read by Amanda Leigh Cobb and Graham Halstead for Brilliance -- "Thanks to house tamer Hulda Larkin, the mischief infesting Whimbrel House has calmed. But if Hulda’s job is done, what does that mean for Merritt Fernsby, inheritor of the remote Narragansett Bay estate, who’s only now coming to terms with his enchanted place in the world?"

• Promises Stronger than Darkness: Unstoppable, Book 3 By: Charlie Jane Anders, read by Imani Jade Powers, Marcella Lentz-Pope, and Sena Bryer for Macmillan -- "When Elza became a space princess, she thought she'd be spending her time at the palace, wearing gorgeous couture and soaking up everything there is to know—but instead, she's on the run, with everyone hunting for her and her friends."

• Black Girls Must Have It All: Black Girls Must Die Exhausted, Book 3 By: Jayne Allen, read by Marcella Cox for Harper -- "Tabitha is juggling work, relationships, and a newborn baby—but will she find the happy ending she’s always wanted?"

NEW EDITION WATCH:

• Dust: The Silo Saga, Book 3 by Hugh Howey (2013), read by Edoardo Ballerini for Blackstone -- "Wool introduced the world of the silo. Shift told the story of its creation. Dust will describe its downfall."

• The Mysterious Island By: Jules Verne (1875), read by Bill Homewood for Naxos -- "A group of men escape imprisonment during the American Civil War by stealing a balloon. Blown across the world, they are air-wrecked on a remote desert island. In a manner reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe, the men apply their scientific knowledge and technical skill to exploit the island s bountiful resources, eventually constructing a sophisticated society in miniature." About the narrator: "Bill Homewood is known for his innumerable television performances and leading credits in the West End and for the Royal Shakespeare Company."

WTF WATCH:

• Reincarnated into a Time-Loop Dungeon as a LVL100 Catgirl Chef! By: Sadie McKenzie, read by Reba Buhr for Podium -- "Dear Diary: I was reincarnated as a catgirl NPC in a dungeon. There are loops. There are marble races. There are other catgirls. What else is there? (Ice cream.) Press play and see!!!"

MOST MISSING:

• Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee (Tor.com) -- "Ester’s family was torn apart when a manticore killed her mother and baby brother, leaving her with nothing but her father’s painful silence and a single, overwhelming need to kill the monsters that took her family. Ester’s path leads her to the King’s Royal Mews, where the giant rocs of legend are flown to hunt manticores by their brave and dedicated ruhkers. Paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra, Ester finds purpose and acclaim by devoting herself to a calling that demands absolute sacrifice and a creature that will never return her love. The terrifying partnership between woman and roc leads Ester not only on the empire’s most dangerous manticore hunt, but on a journey of perseverance and acceptance."

• Descendant Machine by Gareth L. Powell (Titan Books) -- "When Nicola Mafalda’s scout ship comes under attack, she’s left deeply traumatised by the drastic action it takes to keep her alive. Months later, when an old flame comes to her for help, she realises she has to find a way to forgive both the ship and her former lover. Reckless elements are attempting to reactivate a giant machine that has lain dormant for thousands of years. To stop them, Nicola and her crew will have to put aside their differences, sneak aboard a vast alien megaship, and try to stay alive long enough to prevent galactic devastation."

• Multiverses: An Anthology of Alternate Realities edited by Preston Grassmann (Titan) -- "What if every decision you’ve ever made created a new reality. A new life, a new world of possibilities for what you could become? What if the best of all possible worlds is just around the corner? Or the worst? This anthology brings together an international cast of luminaries to explore the infinite worlds of what could be. The smashed together chaos of multiple Londons piled on top of each other; a world where a tunnel turns Japan and the United States into close neighbours; catastrophic accidents on multidimensional spacecraft; shadowy organisations and the merciless assassins they control; the unstoppable force of your infinite grandmothers. Explore the infinite beauties and terrors of the multiverse with the finest minds writing in science fiction today, and see what could have been."

• Thar She Blows: A Novel by Susan Emshwiller (Pinehead Press) -- "Caught in a redundant housewife existence, Ann never leaves her beige suburban home, her schlubby do-nothing son Brian is directionless after graduating high-school, and it looks like nothing will ever change. But when Brian is swallowed by a whale and Ann receives a garbled phone call from him, she is determined to find that monstrous beast and rescue her son."

• Ybor City: The Crucible of the Latina South by Sarah McNamara (Duke University Press) -- "When we think about the origins of Cuban immigration to the United States, we often imagine the anti-Communist exiles who fled the regime of Fidel Castro and settled in South Florida during the 1950s and 1960s. But before Miami became Havana USA, a wave of leftist, working-class migrants from prerevolutionary Cuba crossed the Florida Straits and made Ybor City the center of the immigrant South and the global capital of the Cuban cigar industry."

• All These Worlds: Reviews and Essays by Niall Harrison -- "Harrison's first collection of reviews and essays, [examining] work by authors as varied as Stephen Baxter, Liu Cixin, Bernadine Evaristo, and Kelly Link. This retrospective collection of in-depth reviews and essays looks at SF between 2005 and 2014, painting a portrait of an increasingly international and diverse community of writers grappling with technological, political, social and ecological issues that in most cases remain only too relevant today."

MORE FICTION:

• I Could Live Here Forever: A Novel By: Hanna Halperin, read by Megan Trout for Penguin -- "When Leah Kempler meets Charlie Nelson in line at the grocery store, their attraction is immediate and intense. Charlie, with his big feelings and grand proclamations of love, captivates her completely. But there are peculiarities of his life—he’s older than her but lives with his parents; he meets up with a friend at odd hours of the night; he sleeps a lot and always seems to be coming down with something. He confesses that he’s a recovering heroin addict, but he promises Leah that he’s never going to use again."

• Under the Cover of Mercy: A Novel By: Rebecca Connolly, read by Justine Eyre for Shadow Mountain -- "The Great War has come to Brussels, the Germans have occupied the city, and Edith Cavell, Head Nurse at Berkendael Medical Institute, faces an impossible situation. As matron of a designated Red Cross hospital, Edith has sworn an oath to help any who are wounded, under whatever flag they are found. But Governor von Lüttwitz, the ranking German officer, has additional orders for her. She and her nurses must also stand guard over the wounded Allied prisoners of war and prevent them from escaping."

• Things I Wish I Told My Mother by Susan Patterson and Susan DiLallo, with James Patterson, read by Ellen Archer for Hachette -- "A mother and daughter on vacation in Paris unpack a lifetime of secrets and hopes."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• Going Zero: A Novel By: Anthony McCarten, read by Marin Ireland for Harper -- "Ten Americans have been carefully selected to Beta test a ground-breaking piece of spyware. FUSION can track anyone on earth. But does it work? For one contestant, an unassuming Boston librarian named Kaitlyn Day, the stakes are far higher than money, and her reasons for entering the test more personal than anyone imagines. When the timer hits zero, there will only be one winner."

• Wings Once Cursed & Bound By: Piper Drake, read by Cindy Kay for Dreamscape -- "Bennet Andrews represents a secret organization of supernatural beings dedicated to locating and acquiring mythical objects, tucking them safely away where they cannot harm the human race. When he meets Peeraphan Rahttana, it's too late—she has already stepped into The Red Shoes, trapped by their curse to dance to her death. But Bennet isn't the only supernatural looking for deadly artifacts. And when the shoes don't seem to harm Peeraphan, he realizes that he'll have to save her from the likes of creatures she never knew existed."

• Cries of a Dying World by G. Michael Hopf, read by TJ Clark for Tantor -- "What would you do if you only had two weeks to live? That's the very question billions of people are grappling with after news an asteroid, named Colossus, will impact Earth and bring about an extinction level event. Many are in shock; some turn inward and towards God while others lash out in panic and violence. There is nowhere to go and nowhere to hide . . . except for a select few who have been chosen to go live in bunkers deep below the surface."

• The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Henry Herz, read by a full cast for Blackstone -- "At the cusp of between child- and adulthood, at the crossroads between science and superstition, a teen Marie Curie faces the factual and the fantastic in this fabulous collection of stories that inspire, delight, and ask the question: What if she had used her talents for diabolical purposes?"

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Our Blue Orange By: A Merrydew (2013), read by Martin Reeve -- "When inventor Godfrey Davis arrived at the ministry that Monday morning he had his first experience of the new phenomenon. There was something wrong with the aging android fleet that served the colony. Since when did they ever have names? The president’s visit to his office later that morning gave credence to his earlier experience in the foyer, and somehow his long deceased father now seemed implicated."

• Departures By: E.J. Wenstrom (2021), read by Jillian Yetter for Tantor -- "Tonight, seventeen-year-old Evalee is scheduled to die. She's planned her celebration for weeks, and other than leaving her sister Gracelyn behind, she's ready. The Directorate says this is how it should be, and she trusts them, as all its citizens do. So tonight she dresses up, she has a party, and she dances. Then she goes to sleep for the last time . . . except, the next morning, Evalee wakes up."

• It Rides a Pale Horse By: Andy Marino (2022), read by Brian Telestai for Tantor -- "The Larkin siblings are known around the small town of Wofford Falls. Both are artists, but Peter Larkin, Lark to his friends, is the hometown hero. The one who went to the big city and got famous, then came back and settled down. He's the kind of guy who becomes fast friends with almost anyone. His sister Betsy on the other hand is more . . . eccentric. She keeps to herself. When Lark goes to deliver one of his latest pieces to a fabulously rich buyer, it seems like a regular transaction. Even being met at the gate of the sprawling, secluded estate by an intimidating security guard seems normal. Until the guard plays him a live feed: Betsy being abducted in real time. Lark is informed that she's safe for now, but her well-being is entirely in his hands. He's given a book. Do what the book says, and Betsy will go free. It seems simple enough. But as Lark begins to read he realizes: the book might be demonic. Its writer may be unhinged. His sister's captors are almost certainly not what they seem. And his town and those within it are . . . changing."

• An Ocean of Others: Dance of the Sibling Suns, Book 1 By: Joshua Scott Edwards (2022), read by Danny Gavigan for Podium -- "Survival is never easy, but it’s never been harder for Grim, the last bounty hunter in Liwokin. He survived the Great Riot that killed Liwo by the thousands, endured the bloody chaos that ruled the city in its aftermath, and avoided the crushing fist of the Agency created to quell the unrest. The rule of law has returned, but following the rules doesn’t put food in your belly."

• The Melody and the Master: The Darkwood Cycle, Book 1 By: Sarah M. Cradit (2022), read by Alexis Van Aiken for OrangeSky -- "Siofra has lived her entire life in isolation, terrified of her unrestrained dark magic. Then the unthinkable happens, and she and her brother are imprisoned for murder. Before the law can deliver their punishment, the siblings are rescued by a mysterious benefactor, whisked away to a glamorous manor in the far north, where everyone treats them like a prince and princess."

• The Altruist and the Assassin: The Guardians Cycle, Book 1 By: Sarah M. Cradit (2022), read by Kimberly M. Wetherell for OrangeSky -- "Rhiain enjoys a charmed life as the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the realm. Spoiled and vain, she has never met a need or want she couldn’t attain. The dark spots in her memory have been tucked away, with all other unpleasant things. Then a terrible mistake brings her entire world crashing down around her. Her life shifts in an instant; her fate, uncertain. Her father’s punishment for her is forcing her to train for a life as one of his prized assassins."

• The Space Pioneers: A Tom Corbett Space Cadet Adventure, Book 4 By: Carey Rockwell (1953), read by Charles Constant for Oasis -- "Tom Corbett, Roger Manning, and the big Venusian Astro have triumphed over the perils of interplanetary pirates, rogue reactors, and hostile environments. But when the Polaris is assigned to lead a “wagon train” of ships to colonize a distant world, the cadets find themselves in a dangerous situation that could finally signal the end of the “best unit” in the Academy."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 4 April 2023

Posted on 2023-04-04 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Camp Zero: A Novel By: Michelle Min Sterling, read by Graham Halstead, Greta Jung, and Emily Tremaine for Simon and Schuster -- "In a near-future northern settlement, a handful of climate change survivors find their fates intertwined in this mesmerizing and transportive novel in the vein of Station Eleven and The Power."

• I'll Stop the World: A Novel By: Lauren Thoman, introduction by Mindy Kaling, read by Michael Crouch, Natasha Tina Liu, Alaska Jackson, Brian Holden, Mark Sanderlin, Sarah Naughton, Scott Merriman, Marcus Stewart, and David de Vries for Brilliance -- "Trapped in a dead-end town, Justin Warren has had his life defined by the suspicious deaths of his grandparents. The unsolved crime happened long before Justin was born, but the ripple effects are still felt after thirty-eight years. Justin always knew he wouldn’t have much of a future. He just never imagined that his life might take him backward. In a cosmic twist of fate, Justin’s choices send him crashing into the path of determined optimist Rose Yin. Justin and Rose live in the same town and attend the same school, but have never met—because Rose lives in 1985. Justin won’t be born for another twenty years. And his grandparents are still alive—for now. In a series of events that reverberate through multiple lifetimes, Justin and Rose have a week to get Justin unstuck in time and put each of them in control of their futures—by solving a murder that hasn’t even happened yet."

• House of Gold By: C. T. Rwizi, read by Susan Dalian and Jaime Lincoln Smith for Brilliance -- "A corporate aristocracy descended from Africa rules a colony on a distant planet. Life here is easy—for the rarified and privileged few. The aristocrats enjoy a powerful cybernetic technology that extends their life spans and ensures their prosperity. Those who serve them suffer under a heavy hand. But within this ruthless society are agents of hope and change."

• The Winter Knight By: Jes Battis, read by Gail Shalan, Dylan Kiedman, Nicky Endres, Lee Osorio, and Gabra Zackman for Penguin -- "The knights of the round table are alive in Vancouver, but when one winds up dead, it’s clear the familiar stories have taken a left turn. Hildie, a Valkyrie and the investigator assigned to the case, wants to find the killer―and maybe figure her life out while she’s at it. On her short list of suspects is Wayne, an autistic college student and the reincarnation of Sir Gawain, who these days is just trying to survive in a world that wasn’t made for him. After finding himself at the scene of the crime, Wayne is pulled deeper into his medieval family history while trying to navigate a new relationship with the dean’s charming assistant, Burt―who also happens to be a prime murder suspect. To figure out the truth, Wayne and Hildie have to connect with dangerous forces: fallen knights, tricky runesmiths, the Wyrd Sisters of Gastown. And a hungry beast that stalks Wayne’s dreams."

• Paradise-1 By: David Wellington, read by Laurel Lefkow for Orbit -- "Paradise-1. Earth’s first deep space colony. For thousands of people, it was an opportunity for a new life. Until it went dark. No communication has been received from the colony for months. And it falls to Firewatch inspector Alexandra Petrova and the crew of the Artemis to investigate. What they find is more horrifying than anything they could have imagined."

• The Scourge Between the Stars By: Ness Brown, read by Bahni Turpin for OrangeSky -- "A debut space horror adventure in the vein of Alien, in which a starship captain must keep her crew alive while an unknown intruder hunts them."

• One for My Enemy By: Olivie Blake, read by Ferdelle Capistrano for Macmillan -- "A tale of two rival witch families in modern day New York City, fighting to maintain control of their respective criminal ventures."

• The Last Heir to Blackwood Library By: Hester Fox, read by Ell Potter for Harlequin -- "In post-World War I England, a young woman inherits a mysterious library and must untangle its powerful secrets."

• Cursed Bread: A Novel By: Sophie Mackintosh, read by Genevieve Gaunt for Random House -- "From the Booker Prize–nominated author of The Water Cure comes an elegant and hypnotic new novel of obsession that centers on the real unsolved mystery of the 1951 mass poisoning of a French village."

• The Insatiable Volt Sisters By: Rachel Eve Moulton, read by Janet Metzger, Erin deWard, Chelsea Stephens, Nancy Peterson, and Amanda Stribling for Blackstone -- "It’s the summer of 1989 and Beatrice and Henrietta Volt are coming of age on remote Fowler Island, their ancestral home and wild playground. Thicker than thieves, the sisters plot their futures, having no idea that their parents are separating. Or that the plan is to separate them. Ten years pass before Henrie gets a desperate call from her sister―their father has died suddenly and B.B. needs her to come back to the island for the funeral. But Henrie doesn’t want to go back. She’s barely put the island and all those rumors about missing women behind her. And isn’t it odd that she remembers nothing at all about the night she left? And why is she suddenly filled with fear about the quarry pond behind the house?"

• The Vanishing at Castle Moreau By: Jaime Jo Wright, read by Sara Farrington for Recorded Books -- "In 1865, orphaned Daisy Francois takes a position as housemaid at a midwestern Wisconsin castle and finds that the reclusive and eccentric Gothic authoress inside hides more than the harrowing tales in her novels. With women disappearing from the area and a legend that seems to parallel these eerie circumstances, Daisy is thrust into a web that may threaten to steal her sanity, if not her life. In the present day, Cleo Clemmons is hired by the grandson of American aristocratic family the Tremblays to help his matriarchal grandmother face her hoarding in the dilapidated Castle Moreau. But when Cleo uncovers more than just the woman's stashes of collectibles, a century-old mystery of disappearance, insanity, and the dust of the old castle's curse threaten to rise again, and this time, leave no one alive to tell the sordid tale."

NON-FICTION WATCH:

• A Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung, read by Jennifer Kim for Harper -- "From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter's search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she's lost."

• Getting Out of Saigon: How a 27-Year-Old Banker Saved 113 Vietnamese Civilians by Ralph White, read by Mark Bramhall for Simon and Schuster -- "The gripping and remarkable true story of author Ralph White's desperate effort to save the entire staff of the Saigon branch of Chase Manhattan bank and their families before the city fell to the North Vietnamese Army."

YOUNG ADULT WATCH:

• Blood Debts By: Terry J. Benton-Walker, read by Bahni Turpin, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Torian Brackett, and Zeno Robinson for Macmillan -- "Thirty years ago, a young woman was murdered, a family was lynched, and New Orleans saw the greatest magical massacre in its history. In the days that followed, a throne was stolen from a queen. On the anniversary of these brutal events, Clement and Cristina Trudeau—the sixteen-year-old twin heirs to the powerful, magical, dethroned family—are mourning their father and caring for their sick mother. Until, by chance, they discover their mother isn’t sick—she’s cursed. Cursed by someone on the very magic council their family used to rule. Someone who will come for them next."

• Silver in the Bone: Silver in the Bone, Book 1 By: Alexandra Bracken, read by Sophie Amoss for Listening Library -- "Born without a trace of magic, Tamsin Lark is no match for the sorceresses and Hollowers who populate the magical underground of Boston. But when the only parent she’s ever known disappears without so much as a goodbye, she has no choice but to join in their cutthroat pursuit of enchanted relics to keep herself—and her brother, Cabell—alive. Ten years later, rumors are swirling that her guardian found a powerful ring from Arthurian legend just before he vanished. A run-in with her rival Emrys ignites Tamsin’s hope that the ring could free Cabell from a curse that threatens both of them. But they aren’t the only ones who covet the ring."

MORE FICTION:

• The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland, read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Andi Arndt, Michael Crouch, and Ruffin Prentiss III for Simon and Schuster -- "A riveting reimagining of one of early America’s deadliest tragedies, the Richmond Theater Fire of 1811, told from the perspectives of four characters whose lives are irrevocably altered in the aftermath of the inferno."

• Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick, read by Natalie Naudus for Simon and Schuster -- "Stevie and Nora had a love. A secret, epic, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. They also had a plan: to leave their small, ultra-conservative town and families behind after graduation and move to California, where they could finally stop hiding that love. But then Stevie has a terrible fall. And when she comes to, she can remember nothing of the last two years—not California, not coming to terms with her sexuality, not even Nora. Suddenly, Stevie finds herself in a life she doesn't quite understand, one where she's estranged from her parents, drifting away from her friends, lying about the hours she works, dating a boy she can't remember crushing on, and headed towards a future that isn't at all what her fifteen-year-old self would have envisioned."

• Romantic Comedy: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, read by Kristen Sieh for Books on Tape -- "A comedy writer thinks she’s sworn off love, until a dreamy pop star flips the script on all her assumptions."

• Natural Beauty: A Novel By: Ling Ling Huang, read by Carolyn Kang for Penguin -- "Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City. Holistik is known for its remarkable products and procedures—from remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silk—and her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and gives her a long-awaited sense of belonging. She becomes transfixed by Helen, the niece of Holistik’s charismatic owner, and the two strike up a friendship that hazily veers into more. All the while, our narrator is plied with products that slim her thighs, smooth her skin, and lighten her hair. But beneath these creams and tinctures lies something sinister."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• The Valkyrie By: Kate Heartfield, read by Eleanor Jackson and India Shaw-Smith for Harper -- "Brynhild is a Valkyrie: shieldmaiden of the Allfather, chooser of the slain. But now she too has fallen, flightless in her exile. Gudrun is a princess of Burgundy, a daughter of the Rhine, a prize for an invading king – a king whose brother Attila has other plans, and a dragon to call upon. And in the songs to be sung, there is another hero: Sigurd, a warrior with a sword sharper than the new moon. As the legends tell, these names are destined to be lovers, fated as enemies. But here on Midgard, legends can be lies…"

• The Hive: Book 1: DELIO By: R. R. Haywood, read by Laura Aikman and Vikas Adam for Audible -- "When everyone on the planet suddenly freezes in place a single artificial intelligence threatens the survival of humanity."

• Divine Rivals: Letters of Enchantment, Book 1 By: Rebecca Ross, read by Alex Wingfield, Rebecca Norfolk for Macmillan -- "When two young rival journalists find love through a magical connection, they must face the depths of hell, in a war among gods, to seal their fate forever."

SERIES WATCH:

• The Way Home: Two Novellas from the World of The Last Unicorn By: Peter S. Beagle, read by Orlagh Cassidy for Penguin -- "The Last Unicorn is one of fantasy’s most revered classics, beloved by generations of readers and with millions of copies in print. Revisiting the world of that novel, Beagle’s long-awaited Hugo and Nebula-Awards-winning “Two Hearts” introduced the irrepressible Sooz on a quest to save her village from a griffin, and explored the bonds she formed with unforgettable characters like the wise and wonderful Molly Grue and Schmendrick the Magician. In the never-before-published “Sooz,” the events of “Two Hearts” are years behind its narrator, but a perilous journey lies ahead of her, in a story that is at once a tender meditation on love and loss, and a lesson in finding your true self."

• Engines of Chaos: The Age of Uprising, Book 2 By: R. S. Ford, read by Alison Campbell, Phoebe McIntosh, Ciaran Saward, Andrew Kingston, Martin Reeve, Mark Meadows, Katie Villa, and Diana Croft for Orbit -- "The second novel in a trilogy where guilds clash, magic fuels machines, and an empire begins a revolution."

• The Black: Arrival By: Paul E. Cooley, read by Joe Hempel for Fireside -- "The crew of the deep-sea exploration rig Leaguer discovers oil sweeter, purer, and easier to refine than the fields in Saudi Arabia. To confirm their own analysis of their trillion dollar find, a test barrel is flown from the drill site off the coast of Papua/New Guinea to Houston Analytical Laboratories (HAL). As the unsuspecting scientists at HAL await the arrival of the oil, they ready their lab for what they know is an important job. They've seen the test results from Leaguer; this find could be history. While the barrel is on its way to Houston, an "infection" breaks out on the far-away rig. As life aboard the rig descends into chaos, the scientists at HAL make their own discovery—what Leaguer found isn't oil."

• Robert Ludlum's the Treadstone Rendition: Treadstone, Book 4 by Joshua Hood, read by Ron Butler for Books on Tape -- "The final days of the American presence in Afghanistan bring Adam Hayes a summons he can't ignore."

• Cataclysm: Star Wars: The High Republic, Book 7 By: Lydia Kang, read by Marc Thompson for Random House -- "After the thrilling events of The High Republic: Convergence, the Jedi race to confront the Path of the Open Hand and end the Forever War."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Metropolis By: Thea Von Harbou, read by Rupert Degas for Dreamscape -- "Originally published in German in 1925, this expressionist epic tells a story about class difference and love in a city that boasts technological growth at the expense of exploited laborers, contending with the relationship between advances in technology and social progress. Written in tandem with the 1927 science-fiction film of the same name, which was directed by Thea von Harbou's husband Fritz Lang, the story, through both the novel and the film, has inspired and influenced countless works of art, creating a legacy that extends across the science-fiction genre and beyond it."

• The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth By: J. R. R. Tolkien, read by the author with essays read by Christopher Tolkien for Harper -- "This 1953 reel-to-reel recording, together with an introduction and the two accompanying essays read by Christopher Tolkien, was released on cassette tape in 1992, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of J.R.R. Tolkien and the 1001st anniversary of the Battle of Maldon. It was presented as a gift to the participants of the Tolkien Centenary Conference, Keble College, Oxford, and is now available as an audiobook for the first time."

• Pyramids: Discworld, Book 7 By: Terry Pratchett (1989), read by Alfred Enoch, Bill Nighy, and Peter Serafinowicz for Penguin -- " Young Prince Teppic is sent far away from his desert homeland to the city of Ankh-Morpork for the best education money can buy. Which just so happens to be at the Assassins' Guild."

• The Hand of Chaos: A Death Gate Novel, Volume 5 and Into the Labyrinth: A Death Gate Novel, Book 6 By: Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (1993), read by Fajer Al-Kaisi for Random House -- "Chaos is everywhere as the Lord of the Nexus orders his servant Haplo and the human child known as Bane to further their master's work on Arianus, the realm of air."

INDIE WATCH:

• The Captain: The Last Horizon, Book 1 by Will Wight, read by Travis Baldree for Audible -- "On a little-known planet, Archmage Varic Vallenar casts a grand spell to empower himself with the magical abilities of his alternate selves. The ritual works too well, granting Varic not only the magic but also the memories from six lives. Including their gruesome deaths."

• The Weight of Magic: Restriction, Book 1 By: D.K. Holmberg, read by John Pirhalla for Aethon -- "Torian Ranth wants nothing more than to master his sahir magic. Having spent years training, he still can’t form even his primary patterns consistently, let alone attempt any higher tiered power. His continued failures mean that his time in school must come to an end. When the neighboring country attacks his town and the trained sahir are lost, Torian escapes. There he meets a strange man who demonstrates power greater than any of his instructors and who understands an ancient power that has not been seen for centuries."

• A Kingdom of Stars and Shadows: Stars and Shadows, Book 1 By: Holly Renee, read by Stella Hunter and J.F. Harding for Podium -- "I am told my union to the crowned prince will determine the fate of the kingdom, but it isn’t my betrothed who haunts my dreams. It’s the half-breed prince who stands at his side. He is darkness and sin, and when he whispers promises of wickedness in my ear, I crave a man who I can’t have. Every thought I have is treasonous. The way my hands ache to touch him deceitful. Even my dreams make me a traitor to the kingdom I am sworn to protect. But when the kingdom is attacked, I am forced to make choices I’m not prepared for. Our lies and deception are entangled in the shadows and stars, and as they unravel so shall my fate. Betray a kingdom or betray my heart."

• Into the Darkness: The Proxima Logfiles and Evolution: The Proxima Logfiles By: Brandon Q. Morris (2021, 2022), read by Eli Snuggs -- "Luhman 16 is a binary system of brown dwarfs – stars that have failed to ignite the nuclear fusion process inside them. Therefore, the sun never rises on the planets orbiting them. The crew of the spaceship "Majestic Draght", consisting of aliens and humans, must plunge deep into the darkness to help castaways fighting for their lives here, of all places. But then something happens that no one could have expected..."

• The Penrose Triangle: The Penrose Triangle, Book 1 By: Kristopher Clewell, read by Eric Jason Martin -- "In a ruined future split between those who have and those who do not, America has contracted like a singularity into a single city. There, citizens live under a divided society, split by five walls. At the center, their depraved leader, Gideon, rules with the iron fisted reach of propaganda and an oppressive governmental agency. Outside the city walls Penny, an adopted young girl, farms a one ranch of many that provides food to the citizens of Mercury. There she has learned self reliance, and the ability to fix just about anything. Her family and identity are shattered when agents of the city come to collect. Once everything has been taken from her, she sets out for technologically advanced city on horseback to get revenge."

• Apnea By: Jay Sizemore, read by Yvonne Roberts for Crow Hollow Books -- "In the future, a virus threatens humanity with extinction. During the Great Sleep, nearly all men on the planet suddenly perish, throwing the world into chaos. For the few left behind, but one hope remains: an experimental drug that keeps carriers of the virus awake for 21 straight days. The treatment offers a slim chance of survival, but those willing to undergo the trial do so at the risk of losing their very minds. Joseph Conrad is about to begin this treatment...against his will."

MOST MISSING:

• Rose/House by Arkady Martine (Subterranean Press) -- "Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with. A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused in every load-bearing beam and fine marble tile with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else altogether. 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."

• A Woman of the Sword by Anna Smith Spark (Luna Press) -- "An epic fantasy seen through the eyes of an ordinary woman. Lidae is a daughter, a wife, a mother - and a great warrior born to fight. Her sword is hungry for killing, her right hand is red with blood. War is very much a woman's business. But war is not kind to women. And war is not kind to mothers and their sons."

• Wraithbound: Spiritbinder Saga, Book 1 by Tim Akers (Baen) -- "Since he was a boy, Rae Kelthannis has dreamed of being a stormbinder like his father, with an air elemental stitched into the fabric of his soul and the winds of heaven at his command. Those dreams died when his father, through no fault of his own, fell into disgrace and was banned by the justicars of the Iron Council. The family fled to the edge of the Ordered World, to live in fear in the shadow of encroaching Chaos. When Rae defies his father’s orders and attempts to stitch an air elemental to his soul, he instead binds himself to a mysterious wraith. That’s when things get complicated and the world starts to fall apart around him."

• Never Steal from Dragons: Pixiepunk, Book 1 by Patrick Dugan (Distracted Dragon Press) -- "n Hub, a city of treachery and deceit, Gelsey, a pixie, is one of the best thieves around. When a smash and grab assignment turns into a job interview with a powerful dragon, Gelsey finds herself a part of a crew including five more of the best criminals Hub has to offer. Her crew includes Silai, a con artist with a deadly secret. Kelthar, a mage who’s bent on self-destruction. Aikila, a smuggler set on avenging her father's murder. Nyx, a hacker coming off a busted run, and Lorcan, a mercenary whose child is being held hostage. The dragon pulls all their strings, forcing them to accept an impossible job: break into a fortress nobody in all of Hub’s long history has ever cracked. And if they fail, they’ll end up dead one way or another."

• Escape Orbit: Eccentric Orbits, Book 2 by Patrick Chiles (Baen) -- "Five years ago, astronaut Jack Templeton took the spacecraft Magellan to the farthest reaches of our solar system, never to be heard from again. Until now. When the Magellan suddenly reappears where an undiscovered planet was suspected to be, it poses more questions than answers. How did Jack survive all this time? Can he be rescued before his life support runs out? And what is the object long thought to be the elusive “Planet Nine?” In a race against time, Jack’s former crewmate Traci Keene spearheads a desperate effort to outfit a rescue mission. But she has competition. Agencies of both American and foreign governments have their own agendas, and rescuing rogue astronauts isn’t among them."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 28 March 2023

Posted on 2023-03-28 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

Almost all the same titles as Audible, except not:

1. titles published by Audible
2. many indie titles published through ACX (very heavily incentivized to be exclusive to Audible)

etc. Now, Downpour does have something which Audible doesn't have: Cory Doctorow! (Audible won't sell his audiobooks DRM free, so he won't allow them to sell them at all.)

PICKS:

• Lone Women: A Novel By: Victor LaValle, read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt for Random House -- "Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and a bracing new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling."

• A House with Good Bones By: T. Kingfisher, read by Mary Robinette Kowal for Macmillan -- "[S]tepping inside, [Sam Montgomery] quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be. Gone is the warm, cluttered charm her mom is known for; now the walls are painted a sterile white. Her mom jumps at the smallest noises and looks over her shoulder even when she’s the only person in the room. And when Sam steps out back to clear her head, she finds a jar of teeth hidden beneath the magazine-worthy rose bushes, and vultures are circling the garden from above. To find out what’s got her mom so frightened in her own home, Sam will go digging for the truth. But some secrets are better left buried."

• White Cat, Black Dog: Stories By: Kelly Link, read by Rebecca Lowman, Dan Stevens, Dominic Hoffman, Kristen Sieh, Ish Klein, Tanya Cubric, and Patton Oswalt for Random House -- "Seven ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with astonishing consequences in the modern world, from one of today's finest short story writers."

• Loki's Ring By: Stina Leicht, read by Shiromi Arserio for Simon and Schuster -- "Gita Chithra embarks on a mission through space to save the robot she loves as a daughter—or risk losing her in the depths of Loki’s Ring."

• The Great Reclamation: A Novel By: Rachel Heng, read by Windson Liong for Penguin -- "Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy’s unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country."

• Y/N: A Novel By: Esther Yi, read by Greta Jung for OrangeSky -- "It’s as if her life only began once Moon appeared in it. The desultory copywriting work, the boyfriend, and the want of anything not-Moon quickly fall away when she beholds the idol in concert, where Moon dances as if his movements are creating their own gravitational field; on live streams, as fans from around the world comment in dozens of languages; even on skincare products endorsed by the wildly popular Korean boy band, of which Moon is the youngest, most luminous member. Seized by ineffable desire, our unnamed narrator begins writing Y/N fanfic—in which you, the audience, insert [Your/Name] and play out an intimate relationship with the unattainable star."

• Chlorine: A Novel By: Jade Song, read by Catherine Ho, Imani Parks for Harper -- "A debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies…a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming."

• A Brief History of Living Forever: A Novel By: Jaroslav Kalfar, read by Juanita McMahon for Little, Brown and Company -- "In an authoritarian near-future America obsessed with digital consciousness and eternal life, two long-lost siblings risk everything to save their mother from oblivion."

• I’d Really Prefer Not to Be Here with You, and Other Stories By: Julianna Baggott, read by January LaVoy, Kelli Tager, Natasha Soudek, Emily Woo Zeller, Em Grosland, Rachel Jacobs, Kimberly M. Wetherell, Cassandra Campbell, Lisa Flanagan, Erin Bennett, Sarah Beth Pfeifer, Xe Sands, Emily Lawrence, Tavia Gilbert, and Andi Arndt for Blackstone -- "Bestselling author Julianna Baggott delivers her mind-bending debut short-story collection, featuring an array of genres populated by deeply human characters."

• The New One By: Evie Green, read by Anniwaa Buachie and Ellie Rose Boswell for Penguin -- "A suspenseful, cutting-edge novel about two parents who finally get the daughter they’ve always wanted—it’s too bad she isn’t real."

• The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill By: Rowenna Miller, read by Jesse Vilinksy for Orbit -- "There is no magic on Prospect Hill—or anywhere else, for that matter. But just on the other side of the veil is the world of the Fae. Generations ago, the first farmers on Prospect Hill learned to bargain small trades to make their lives a little easier—a bit of glass to find something lost, a cup of milk for better layers in the chicken coop. Much of that old wisdom was lost as the riverboats gave way to the rail lines and the farmers took work at mills and factories. Alaine Fairborn’s family, however, was always superstitious, and she still hums the rhymes to find a lost shoe and to ensure dry weather on her sister’s wedding day. When Delphine confides her new husband is not the man she thought he was, Alaine will stop at nothing to help her sister escape him. Small bargains buy them time, but a major one is needed. Yet, the price for true freedom may be more than they’re willing to pay."

NON-FICTION WATCH:

• Dispatches from Puerto Nowhere: An American Story of Assimilation and Erasure By: Robert Lopez, read by Lee Osorio for HighBridge -- "Robert Lopez's grandfather Sixto was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, in 1904, immigrating to the United States in the 1920s, where he lived in a racially proportioned apartment complex in East New York, Brooklyn, until his death in 1987. The family's efforts to assimilate within their new homeland led to the near complete erasure of their heritage, culture, and language within two generations."

YOUNG ADULT WATCH:

• A Door in the Dark By: Scott Reintgen, read by Jesse Vilinsky for Simon and Schuster -- "One of Us Is Lying meets A Deadly Education in this fantasy thriller that follows six teenage wizards as they fight to make it home alive after a malfunctioning spell leaves them stranded in the wilderness."

MIDDLE GRADE WATCH:

• Hamra and the Jungle of Memories by Hanna Alkaf, read by Samantha Tan for Harper -- "A Malaysian spin on Little Red Riding Hood from the critically acclaimed author of The Girl and the Ghost."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Where It Rains in Color By: Denise Crittendon (2022), read by Mia Ellis for Tantor -- "Lileala has just been named the Rare Indigo—beauty among beauties—and is about to embrace her stardom, until something threatens to change her whole lifestyle and turn the planet of Swazembi upside down. Colonized by the descendants of Earth's West African Dogon Tribe, the planet of Swazembi is a blazing, color-rich utopia and famous vacation center of the galaxy. No one is used to serious trouble in this idyllic, peace-loving world, least of all the Rare Indigo. But Lileala's perfect, pampered lifestyle is about to be shattered. The unthinkable happens and her glorious midnight skin becomes infected with a mysterious disease. Where her skin should glisten like diamonds mixed with coal, instead it scabs and scars. On top of that, she starts to hear voices in her head, and everything around her becomes confusing and frightening."

• In That Endlessness, Our End By: Gemma Files (2021), read by Deanna Anthony, Neil Hellegers, Steven Jay Cohen, Bronson Pinchot, Andi Arndt, Chelsea Stephens, Zura Johnson, and Sarah Beth Pfeifer for Blackstone -- "Hot on the heels of her 2018 This Is Horror Award–winning short story collection Spectral Evidence, critically horror author Gemma Files compiles fifteen more of her most startling recent nightmares—a creepily seductive downward spiral of dark poetry and existential dread, entirely suitable to the slow apocalypse going on all around us. So take your mind off your troubles and send it somewhere the rules still operate, if only to punish those who violate them."

• Whale By: Cheon Myeong-kwan (2004), translated by Chi-Young Kim, read by Cindy Kay for Tantor -- "A woman sells her daughter to a passing beekeeper for two jars of honey. A baby weighing fifteen pounds is born in the depths of winter but named "Girl of Spring." A storm brings down the roof of a ramshackle restaurant to reveal a hidden fortune. Whale, set in a remote village in South Korea, follows the lives of many linked characters, including Geumbok, an extremely ambitious woman who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle."

• Glory Lane By: Alan Dean Foster (1987), read by Alexander Cendese for Tantor -- "It's just another boring late night in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Seeth, a disillusioned punk rocker with too much time on his hands and too little money. That is, until he heads to a bowling alley and runs into Kerwin, a geeky graduate student who's there doing research for a sociology assignment. While trying to distract Kerwin from his scholarly pursuits, Seeth notices two burly cops trying to unlawfully arrest a lone bowler, and for laughs, he jumps in to save him. When it turns out the bowler, the cops, and even the bowling ball are all different races of aliens involved in an interstellar chase, Seeth and Kerwin find themselves on a ship careening through space—protecting a mysterious, all-powerful lifeform that might possibly be the most valuable thing in the universe."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• Rubicon By: J. S. Dewes, read by Eunice Wong for Macmillan -- "Sergeant Adriene Valero wants to die. She can't. After enduring a traumatic resurrection for the ninety-sixth time, Valero is reassigned to a special forces unit and outfitted with a cutting-edge virtual intelligence aid. They could turn the tide in the war against intelligent machines dedicated to the assimilation, or destruction, of humanity. When her VI suddenly achieves sentience, Valero is drawn into the machinations of an enigmatic major who’s hell-bent on ending the war—by any means necessary."

• Infinity Gate By: M. R. Carey, read by Dami Olukoya for Orbit -- "[A] genre-defying story of humanity's expansion across millions of dimensions—and the AI technology that might see it all come to an end."

MORE FICTION:

• The Echo of Old Books: A Novel By: Barbara Davis, read by Vanessa Johansson, Steve West, and Sarah Zimmerman for Brilliance -- "Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance."

• The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts By: Soraya Palmer, read by Jaimi Gray for Dreamscape -- "Sisters Zora and Sasha Porter are drifting apart. Bearing witness to their father’s violence and their mother’s worsening illness, an unsettled Zora escapes into her journal, dreaming of being a writer, while Sasha discovers sex and chest binding, spending more time with her new girlfriend than at home. But the sisters, like their parents, must come together to answer to something more ancient and powerful than they know—and reckon with a family secret buried in the past."

• Sea Change: A Novel By: Gina Chung, read by Jeena Yi for Random House -- "An enchanting novel about Ro, a woman tossed overboard by heartbreak and loss, who has to find her way back to stable shores with the help of a giant Pacific octopus at the mall aquarium where she works."

• The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise By: Colleen Oakley, read by Hillary Huber for Penguin -- "Twenty-one-year-old Tanner Quimby needs a place to live. Preferably one where she can continue sitting around in sweatpants and playing video games nineteen hours a day. Since she has no credit or money to speak of, her options are limited, so when an opportunity to work as a live-in caregiver for an elderly woman falls into her lap, she takes it. One slip on the rug. That’s all it took for Louise Wilt’s daughter to demand that Louise have a full-time nanny living with her. Never mind that she can still walk fine, finish her daily crossword puzzle, and pour the two fingers of vodka she drinks every afternoon. Bottom line: Louise wants a caretaker even less than Tanner wants to be one."

• The Lonely Hearts Book Club By: Lucy Gilmore, read by Angie Kane for Dreamscape -- "Sloane Parker lives a small, contained life as a librarian in her small, contained town. She never thinks of herself as lonely...but still she looks forward to that time every day when old curmudgeon Arthur McLachlan comes to browse the shelves and cheerfully insult her. Their sparring is such a highlight of Sloane's day that when Arthur doesn't show up one morning, she's instantly concerned. And then another day passes, and another."

• So Close: Blacklist, Book 1 By: Sylvia Day, read by Tamika Katon-Donegal, Simon Mattacks, Caitlin Kelly, Susan Nezami for Brilliance -- "Widower Kane Black is still ruinously married to his late wife, Lily. Grief has hollowed him… until he sees a woman with his wife’s inimitable beauty on the streets of Manhattan. He whisks her up to his towering penthouse, protectively under guard, nestling her in dark opulence where Lily’s memory is a possessive beguiling force. Aliyah, Kane’s mother, deals in science. There are too many questions, too few answers, and too much at stake. “Lily” has dangerous control over Kane and there can be only one queen on the throne. Amy, Kane’s sister-in-law, has been bloodied by deceit and betrayal, and she’s devolving into murderous rage. She’s paid too high a price and now intends to claim what she’s owed. Three women, linked by buried secrets, circle the man who unquestioningly accepts the return of his beloved long-dead wife. Kane is happier than he’s ever been, and he’ll do anything to stay that way."

• Community Board: A Novel by Tara Conklin, read by Kristen Sieh for Harper -- "Darcy Clipper, prodigal daughter, nearly thirty, has returned home to Murbridge, Massachusetts, after her life takes an unwelcome left turn. Murbridge, Darcy is convinced, will welcome her home and provide a safe space in which she can nurse her wounds and harbor grudges, both real and imagined. But Murbridge, like so much else Darcy thought to be fixed and immutable, has changed. And while Darcy's first instinct might be to hole herself up in her childhood bedroom, subsisting on Chef Boy-R-Dee and canned chickpeas, it is human nature to do two things: seek out meaningful human connection and respond to anonymous internet postings. As Murbridge begins to take shape around Darcy, both online and in person, Darcy will consider the most fundamental of American questions: What can she ask of her community? And what does she owe it in return?"

SERIES WATCH:

• Ashes: The Obelisks Series, Book 2 By: Ari Marmell, read by Cindy Kay for Blackstone -- "The world has ended. Along with other scattered survivors, astronaut Cynthia Han and the remainder of ISS Expedition 81 have finally learned what happened to the people they’d left behind, and it’s worse than any of them could have imagined."

• Dark City: The Travelers, Book 2 By: Nathan Hystad, read by Jonathan Davis for Audible -- "It’s a year after the invasion of Bell Island, and things are looking up."

• Queens of Themiscyra: The Grecian Women Series, Book 3 By: Hannah Lynn, read by Helen Keeley for Tantor -- "In ancient Themiscyra, Hippolyte rules as Queen of the Amazons. Feared throughout Greece, their skills on the battlefield are unrivalled. But when a ship lands on their shores, it brings something more dangerous than the threat of war. It brings a future Hippolyte could never have dreamed of."

• The Perfumist of PAris: The Jaipur Trilogy, Book 3 by Alka Joshi, read by Sneha Mathan for Harlequin -- "Paris, 1974. Radha is now living in Paris with her husband, Pierre, and their two daughters. She still grieves for the baby boy she gave up years ago, when she was only a child herself, but she loves being a mother to her daughters, and she's finally found her passion—the treasure trove of scents."

• Outlaw's Vengeance: Assassins of Landria, Book 5 By: Gail Z. Martin, read by Samuel Roukin for Recorded Books -- "A year after the evets of Fugitive's Vow, the worst of Rett's wounds are healed. His recovery came at a high cost, leaving Ridge indebted to a mage of dubious integrity."

NEW EDITION WATCH:

• Shift: The Silo Saga, Book 2 By: Hugh Howey (2013), read by Edoardo Ballerini for Blackstone -- Replaces the original narration by Tim Gerard Reynolds for Brilliance: "Howey goes back to show the first days of the Silo, and the beginning of the end."

INDIE WATCH:

• Thief of Crowns By: Allen Niles (2021), read by Jonathan Johns for Tantor -- "Emperor Cronos was born into luxury, ruling selfishly, insulated from the needs of his people by his wealth and magic. But upon his mysterious death, he's reincarnated as Crow, a peasant child in a village that's more poverty-stricken than he ever believed was possible. Luckily, Crow still has a gift for magic, but in this new world, magic is outlawed for the poor—and punishable by death. Crow must beg, borrow, and steal, using the knowledge of the ruling class from his past life just to stay alive. As Crow's mission oscillates between survival and vigilante justice, he'll discover the darkest secrets the kingdom has to offer and be forced to interrogate who he once was if he wants to change his destiny in this life."

MOST MISSING:

• The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan (Rebellion) -- "Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve. With the right image, values and opinions, you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent – the Virtual elite – and have the world at your feet. Otherwise you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water or even humanity. The system has no flaws. Until the elusive “Ten Percent Thief” steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city and plants a revolution in the barren soil of the Analog world."

• Peacemaker: Sharps and Springfield, Book 1 by Morgan Brice (Darkwind Press) -- "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. Can Calvin and Owen stop the mayhem, thwart the vampires, and find true love, or will everything go up in smoke?"

• Seven Tears in the Sea by Adrienne Moore (Aquarian Answers) -- "For orphaned Silas, it’s welcome oblivion to loneliness and grief, but instinct keeps forcing him back to human form, first to conceive a daughter, and later to guard and deliver her sealskin. For Silas’s daughter Alise, it’s a cage she can’t escape, stalked by obsessive Elliot who hopes to possess her by stealing her pelt, and madly in love with Douglas who has no idea his young wife is a selkie. For Alise’s daughter Ellie, it’s a death sentence, unless she can find her missing sealskin before a weakening illness destroys her."

Posted in Release Week