Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s weekly New and Notable Audiobooks Post for the Week of January 21st.
Comment below on any I missed or what you’re excited about!
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How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Narrated by Jay Aaseng, Mikhaila Aaseng
Penguin Audio
$12.99 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Grady Hendrix
New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else.
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.
But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…
Like his novels The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and The Final Girl Support Group, How to Sell a Haunted House is classic Hendrix: equal parts heartfelt and terrifying—a gripping new listen from “the horror master” (USA Today).
Please Report Your Bug Here by Josh Riedel
Narrated by Torian Brackett
Macmillan Audio
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
“An unexpected, inventive, heartfelt riff on the workplace novel—startup realism with a multiverse twist.”—Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley
Introducing Josh Riedel’s adrenaline-packed debut novel about a dating app employee who discovers a glitch that transports him to other worlds
Once you sign an NDA, it’s good for life. Meaning legally, I shouldn’t tell you this story. But I have to.
A college grad with the six-figure debt to prove it, Ethan Block views San Francisco as the place to be. Yet his job at hot new dating app DateDate is a far cry from what he envisioned. Instead of making the world a better place, he reviews flagged photo queues, overworked and stressed out. But that’s about to change.
Reeling from a breakup, Ethan decides to view his algorithmically matched soulmate on DateDate. He overrides the system and clicks on the profile. Then, he disappears. One minute, he’s in a windowless office, and the next, he’s in a field of endless grass, gasping for air. When Ethan snaps back to DateDate HQ, he’s convinced a coding issue caused the blip. Except for anyone to believe him, he’ll need evidence. As Ethan embarks on a wild goose chase, moving from dingy startup think tanks to Silicon Valley’s dominant tech conglomerate, it becomes clear that there’s more to DateDate than meets the eye. With the stakes rising, and a new world at risk, Ethan must choose who—and what—he believes in.
Adventurous and hypertimely, Please Report Your Bug Here is an inventive millennial coming-of-age story, a dark exploration of the corruption now synonymous with Big Tech, and, above all, a testament to the power of human connection in our digital era.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane
Narrated by Bailey Carr
Blackstone Publishing
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Dept. of Speculation meets Black Mirror in this lyrical, speculative debut about a queer mother raising her daughter in an unjust surveillance state
In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crime—and a warning to those they encounter. Within the Department, corruption and prejudice run rampant, giving rise to an underclass of so-called Shadesters who are disenfranchised, publicly shamed, and deprived of civil rights protections.
Kris is a Shadester and a new mother to a baby born with a second shadow of her own. Grieving the loss of her wife and thoroughly unprepared for the reality of raising a child alone, Kris teeters on the edge of collapse, fumbling in a daze of alcohol, shame, and self-loathing. Yet as the kid grows, Kris finds her footing, raising a child whose irrepressible spark cannot be dampened by the harsh realities of the world. She can’t forget her wife, but with time, she can make a new life for herself and the kid, supported by a community of fellow misfits who defy the Department to lift one another up in solidarity and hope.
With a first-person register reminiscent of the fierce self-disclosure of Sheila Heti and the poetic precision of Ocean Vuong, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is a bold debut novel that examines the long shadow of grief, the hard work of parenting, and the power of queer resistance.
Interface by Scott Britz-Cunningham
Narrated by Paul Heitsch
Dreamscape Media
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Paul Heitsch
Ahead, not too many years from now, everyone has been linked to a network of government-mandated brain implants. The Interface has become a way of life, connecting all people to limitless information, nonstop personal messaging, and instantaneous news flashes. Gone are the days of cell phones and laptops—even loneliness itself is obsolete.
But when the genius behind the Interface turns against his own creation and threatens to unleash a deadly electronic brain virus on the public, the fate of the world falls on NYPD Captain Yara Avril, who must stop this sinister, ever-escalating plot before it’s too late. A thrilling nod to a future waiting just around the corner, Interface is a remarkably prescient exploration of the potential links between boundless connection and cataclysmic disaster in digital society.
Tsunami by L.T. Ryan, Brian Shea
Rachel Hatch, Book 9
Narrated by Marnye Young
Liquid Mind Media
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Hatch seeks closure to her past. For the woman who walked through fire, redemption comes at a price. For Hatch, that could mean her life.
Hatch looks to heal the invisible wound beneath the twisted scar stretching her right arm. A moment’s hesitation on a sand-swept battlefield left her friend and teammate Graham Benson dead. His death leaves a wife without a husband and a child without a father. Hatch sets out to face her greatest fear. Her past.
Hatch finds Benson’s widow, Jessica, and her daughter, Layla, living in a small coastal town in Oregon. When she arrives, Hatch discovers the family in dire straits. Her bank accounts had been cleaned out by her brother, a low-end criminal who’d found himself in deep with the wrong people. He stole the money with promises of returning it after a big score.
An offshore nuclear plant comes under siege. And Hatch, honoring her code, sets out to right a wrong while redeeming her past. As the waters rise, so do the stakes. Hatch is a force of nature. And she’s about to hit like a Tsunami!
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis
Narrated by Bret Easton Ellis
Random House Audio
$12.99 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
A novel of sensational literary and psychological suspense from the best-selling author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho that tracks a group of privileged high school friends in a vibrantly fictionalized 1980s Los Angeles as a serial killer strikes across the city
Bret Easton Ellis’s masterful new novel is a story about the end of innocence, and the perilous passage from adolescence into adulthood, set in a vibrantly fictionalized Los Angeles in 1981 as a serial killer begins targeting teenagers throughout the city.
Seventeen-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret’s obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them—and Bret in particular—with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence. The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. Can he trust his friends—or his own mind—to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, he spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.
Set against the intensely vivid and nostalgic backdrop of pre-Less Than Zero L.A., The Shards is a mesmerizing fusing of fact and fiction, the real and the imagined, that brilliantly explores the emotional fabric of Bret’s life at seventeen—sex and jealousy, obsession and murderous rage. Gripping, sly, suspenseful, deeply haunting, and often darkly funny, The Shards is Ellis at his inimitable best.
For the Long Run by Cheyenne Blue
Narrated by Cat Gould
Tantor Audio
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Cheyenne Blue
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Cat Gould
An enemies-to-lovers lesbian sports romance about making it to the finish line.
A koala ruined her life. Well, that’s how elite athlete Shan Metz sees it.
When an idiot charity runner in a koala suit trips Shan during a community fun run, her knee blows out, destroying her dream of making the Australian Commonwealth Games team. Recovering from knee surgery will be bad enough, but living on her building’s fourth floor will make it a nightmare.
Consultant Lizzie Carras, aka the dream-wrecking koala, does guilt like a pro. The only decent thing to do is offer Shan her spare bedroom during recovery. Their incompatible lifestyles don’t help matters. Neither does Shan’s training partner, the haughty and possessive Celia. But they’ll muddle through until Shan’s knee has healed enough to get out of Lizzie’s life.
Because it’s not like Shan would ever miss a dream-wrecking koala or anything. Right?
You Have Been Judged by Craig Martelle, Michael Anderle
Judge, Jury, & Executioner, Book 1
Narrated by Chloe Cannon
Tantor Audio
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Craig Martelle & Michael Anderle
Rivka Anoa has a gift and a galactic mandate.
She’s a lawyer accused of a murder she did commit. She stands ready to accept her fate, even though her victim was a murderer. A second chance appears. Become more than a lawyer. Be one who judges and punishes the guilty.
Could she look herself in the mirror after meting out justice? She’s about to find out. Rivka heads to space to be the Judge, Jury, & Executioner. Criminals have nowhere to go.
You Have Been Judged . . .
The Mentor by Lee Matthew Goldberg
Narrated by James Anderson Foster
Blackstone Publishing
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by James Anderson Foster
Kyle Broder has achieved his lifelong dream and is an editor at a major publishing house. When he’s contacted by his favorite college professor, William Lansing, Kyle couldn’t be happier.
Kyle has his mentor over for dinner to catch up and introduce him to his girlfriend, Jamie, and the three have a great time. When William mentions that he’s been writing a novel, Kyle is overjoyed. He would love to read the opus his mentor has toiled over—until the novel turns out to be not only horribly written but also the most depraved story Kyle has ever read.
After Kyle politely rejects the novel, William becomes obsessed, causing trouble between Kyle and Jamie, threatening Kyle’s career and even his life. As Kyle delves into more of this psychopath’s work, it begins to resemble a cold case from his college town, when a girl went missing. William’s work is looking increasingly like a true-crime confession.
The Mentor is a twisty, nail-biting thriller that explores how the love of words can lead to a deadly obsession, with the fate of all those connected and hanging in the balance.
The Handler by L.T. Ryan, C.R. Gray
Maddie Castle, Book 1
Narrated by Katie Hagaman
Liquid Mind Media
$7.47 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
A dead police officer.
A department desperate for answers.
Maddie Castle must take on the role that nearly took her life.
She must once again become The Handler.
New from Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author L.T. Ryan with C.R. Gray!
Wounded in the line of duty, former K9 Handler Maddie Castle finds herself back to square one. The bullet that shredded her leg took the life of her four-legged partner. The pain of recovery goes well beyond the daily physical torment she endures.
Time is the supposed healer of all wounds. In Castle’s case, this hasn’t proven true. In a hail of gunfire, she lost not only her dog, but the one thing she loved above all else…the job.
Castle is back home in the trailer park she vowed never to return to. Taking a job as a private investigator has proven an unrewarding comparative to her former career. Barely making ends meet and hampered by the ever-present pain in her leg, Castle struggles to keep her footing in her new life.
A K9 handler from Castle’s old unit is gunned down. Castle is called in to assess whether the dog can be rehabilitated. The alternative is a consequence Castle can’t live with. Working to save the K9 might just well save Castle from herself.
As the hunt for the killer, Castle receives a call from a desperate mother searching for her missing son. The hunt for the boy leads Castle into the criminal underbelly of Pittsburgh, with powerful players who will stop at nothing stand in her way.
Behind them lies the truth. Getting to it may cost her everything, including her life, as she seeks to expose a dark secret that could bring a city to its knees.
Follow Maddie Castle as she walks the blurred line of right and wrong in a desperate search for justice.
Operation DFC by Janelle Taylor, Ashley Fontainne
Narrated by Randy McCarten
Georgia Girl Press
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Janelle Taylor, Ashley Fontainne
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Randy McCarten
I came to rescue my imprisoned brothers, but now I’m one.
Arriving in Thailand for my first black-op, Operation DFC, as part of an elite team ready to act on recent intel that over a thousand men and/or their remains are still behind enemy lines, Bangkok is our last stopping point before slipping into Vietnam and extracting as many American prisoners as possible.
For me, this is personal. From 1971 to 1973, I was a POW; and now, ten years later, I work for the CIA under the fake identity of John Sims, Field Expert for Crop World, an international firm run by the agency. While in my hotel room, the unthinkable happens. Bangkok may end up being my greatest challenge as my courage, patriotism, and honor are on the line, and I find myself in the toughest physical and mental battle of my life, wondering if Operation DFC will be my first, and last, covert mission.
Future Apocalypse by Barbara Gilbert
A Time Travel Series Box Set, Books 1-3
Narrated by Krista Nicely
Self Published
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
New and updated material in Book 1.
Book 1
Looking for a different twist to the Apocalypse?
In eighth grade, she knew one thing….
Science was awesome.
Would her future self change the world?
At 24, Paulette’s got a dream, but it’s going to take a lot of money. The best solution is to start her own bionics company and then she can fund her real vision.
When she confides in a friend, he’s not sure it will work.
But he believes in her.
Greg is working on his bachelor’s in engineering and he’s got dreams of his own, but there’s always the friend from high school on his mind. He loves how smart Paulette is and treasures their friendship, but could there be more?
How would he get her attention?
When Paulette had her breakthrough and the pod worked, she desperately wanted to go back in time and save her father, but she knew that messing with the past could be devastating to the world.
But time travel goes backward and forward.
Could she learn from the year 2280 and make a difference now?
The future isn’t what she imagined.
Book 2
Paulette is finally able to begin her next adventure.
She and a small group of her newfound friends begin their trek across an apocalyptic landscape to the Mythical City of Technology but find themselves running and fighting for their lives during their journey.
Will they survive?
If so, will she find the help she needs?
Meanwhile, back in the present, Greg and Susan find themselves in a frantic race to solve the problem and retrieve Paulette. Will they succeed in finding and rescuing her or will their efforts be in vain?
Book 3
Paulette is now a prisoner of the City of Technology. They want her program so that they can use their time pod to go back and change the past. Paulette doesn’t want to give it to them and has to figure out a way to stop them.
With her and Thomas’ life in danger, she embarks on a dangerous mission to prove that changing the past won’t work.
She must devise a way to not only save the future, but also find a way back home to her friends.
Will she be able to stop the City from changing the past? Can she escape and make it back to her time?
Only time will tell.
You’ll adore this post-apocalyptic time travel book, because science, time, and love create a brilliant mix that will keep you turning the pages.
Get it now!
“Barbara Gilbert takes us on a creative, thought-provoking journey through time and a not-so-far-off apocalyptic world.” (Tom Abrahams, Author of the Traveler’s Series)
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