Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s weekly New and Notable Post for the Week of January 5th.
We share the 10 books from this week that caught our eye featuring Post-Apocalyptic, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thrillers, and more. Enjoy!
Comment below on any I missed or what you’re excited about!
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The Tournament of Supervillainy by C.T. Phipps
Narrated by Jeffrey Kafer
Crossroad Press
Gary Karkofsky, aka Merciless the supervillain without mercy, is presently the most disliked supervillain in the world. Superheroes don’t want to just throw him in jail, they want to deliver an epic beat down for ending their golden age by killing Merciful, the superhero with mercy. His fellow supervillains aren’t much better, either jealous of his success or loathing him for all the other baddies he’s killed. Also, what’s up with his wife, Mandy? She’s been acting extra strange since getting her soul back (long story). That’s when Gary receives an invitation to the Primal Fighting Tournament – an interdimensional contest involving all the universe’s greatest warriors. The prize? A wish with no limitations. Gary can finally get on that world domination thing he’s been putting off.
Unfortunately, Gary is competing against good and evil way above his league. Not only Gabrielle Anders, aka Ultragoddess, his former fiancée, but Entropicus, the Space God of Evil. Thankfully, Gary has allies from unexpected sources including Jane Doe, the protagonist of I was a Teenage Weredeer, G from Agent G, and Cassius Mass from Lucifer’s Star.
The Year Without Summer by Jack Hunt
Narrated by Bruce Stone
The fight for survival starts now.
When recently divorced Catherine Shaw tries to reconnect with her young son Jordan by taking him on vacation in Yellowstone National Park, a series of disturbing events lead her to believe that the dormant supervolcano is on the brink of erupting.
With the clocking ticking down and the aid of a damaged deputy park ranger, they will have to do more than convince the park superintendent of the imminent disaster. Thousands of blissfully unaware tourists have flocked to the serene park, trouble makers are on the loose, and not everyone wants to listen.
The Year Without Summer is a fast-paced supervolcano disaster thriller from the author of Days of Panic and As We Fall. It’s a realistic, pause-resisting story about a terrifying event that begins in Yellowstone National Park at the height of summer.
Rise of the Locusts by Mark Goodwin
Narrated by Stacey Glemboski
Cyber Armageddon has come. America will not survive!
Cyber-security analyst Kate McCarthy knows something ominous is about to happen in the US banking system. She has a place to go if things get hectic, but it’s far from the perfect retreat.
When a new breed of computer virus takes down America’s financial network, chaos and violence erupt. Access to cash disappears and credit cards become worthless. Desperate consumers are left with no means to purchase food, fuel, and basic necessities. Society melts down instantly and the threat of starvation brings out the absolute worst humanity has to offer.
In the midst of the mayhem, Kate will face a post-apocalyptic nightmare that she never could have imagined. Her only reward for survival is to live another day in the gruesome new reality which has eradicated the world she once knew.
As with all works by Mark Goodwin, this book contains no profanity and no embarrassing sex scenes. However, if you’re offended by conservative principles and references to Scripture, this book might not be for you.
Undead by Ryan W. Aslesen
Narrated by Jeffrey Kafer
Podium Publishing
Max Ahlgren thought the nightmare he had endured in Alaska was over. He was wrong.
Consumed with finding those responsible for the death of his family 10 years earlier, Max is approached by Juno Rey, a seductive CIA agent with a tantalizing offer – information on the killers in exchange for Max’s help on a top-secret mission. The target: a covert biomedical research facility located deep in North Korea, where scientists are attempting to reverse engineer the alien life-form discovered in Alaska.
An elite team of CIA operatives accompanies him, but even their advanced weapons cannot ensure survival against the murderous abominations created at the facility. Max must decide who he can trust as the devastating secret of their mission unravels. To unlock the secrets of his past, Max must again face his nightmares as he fights to save humanity from an unearthly terror.
Undead is a cocktail of horror, science fiction, and thrilling military action. Fast-paced, terrifying, and visceral, it contains intense scenes of graphic violence and horror. Listener discretion is advised.
The Animal by David Beers
Narrated by Joe Hempel
Tantor Audio
FBI agent Christian Windsor’s life rests in the hands of a madman, Charles Twaller.
His only hope of salvation? The person who waged war against the entire FBI. His former partner. The genius. The psychopath.
Luke Titan.
FBI Director Alan Waverly sees none of this, though. He only knows Titan escaped and his two agents are missing. Most likely dead.
To Waverly, Titan won the war.
Going against everything he believes in, Waverly refuses to let Titan escape. He makes a phone call and steps outside of the law. He hires a killer unlike any of them have seen.
He hires an animal.
Now, the world already on a fire, a ruthlessness is let loose into it. The animal has only one objective: kill Luke Titan and anyone around him. Can anyone survive, or will the animal feast on them all?
Tuning In by Richard Roberts
Narrated by Henry Jones
Highcrest Books
Jon Gunnarson never meant to transform humanity. He just wanted a normal life. A life where he doesn’t absorb other people’s emotions, lose himself, and have to live like a hermit. So he jumps at the chance to help develop a scam telepathy app because it will get him to Bhutan, where he hopes an old friend will teach him how to disconnect.
Sure, he has to work with Ella, a neuroscientist he’s falling in love with, and Venn, a fraudulent marketer who’s wanted by the FBI. But Jon’s had a lifetime of practice at pulling away, and he figures he can handle it while he learns how to manage his condition.
The problem is, working with others is the least of his worries because Jon and Ella unwittingly trigger the onset of mass telepathy. As if that isn’t enough, they must run for their lives when they discover a way Venn can avoid arrest.
But how will they escape someone who can read their minds?
Tuning In is a well-plotted story that’s both mind-bendingly strange and intimately human – a continuously surprising science-fiction/psychological thriller about our relationship with our thoughts, with each other, and even reality itself.
Hunt Them Down by Simon Gervais
Narrated by Bon Shaw
Brilliance Audio
The dark world he’s been fighting against has caught up with him. Will his daughter pay the price?
Former Army Ranger Pierce Hunt is no stranger to violence. Fresh off a six-month suspension, he’s itching to hit a notorious Mexican drug cartel where it hurts, even if thathttps://amzn.to/2C10Y8i means protecting crime boss Vicente Garcia, a witness in the case against sadistic cartel leader Valentina Mieles. But things spiral out of control when the cartel murders Garcia and kidnaps his granddaughter and an innocent bystander, Hunt’s own teenage daughter.
Mieles wants the new head of the Garcia family on a plate – literally. Hunt has seventy-two hours to deliver, or Mieles will execute the girls live on social media. With the clock ticking, Hunt goes off the grid and teams up with Garcia’s daughter, a former lover and current enemy. To save the girls, Hunt will have to become a man he swore he’d never be again: an avenging killer without limits or mercy.
The Girl at the Border by Leslie Archer
Narrated by Brittany Pressley
Brilliance Audio
One girl missing, one woman searching, both equally lost. Will a shared tragedy help them find their way home – even in the face of imminent danger?
Renowned archaeologist Richard Mathis is half a world away on the island of Crete when he learns his daughter, Bella, has gone missing. Within twenty minutes, he’s on his way back to the States. Two days later, he’s dead.
Richard’s young assistant, Angela Chase, is devastated by the loss of the man who had become both mentor and friend, and she’s determined to find the missing girl, who seems to have made dangerous connections – and whose lonely childhood so resembles Angela’s own. Born Laurel Springfield, Angela now spends her days digging up the origins of a lost civilization while struggling to keep her own past buried. But will the search for Bella expose Angela’s carefully disguised identity – and will she find Bella before she’s lost forever?
The Perfect Candidate by Peter Stone
Narrated by John Kroft
Recorded Books
From debut author Peter Stone comes a heart-stopping, pulse-pounding political thriller that’s perfect for fans of Ally Carter and House of Cards.
When recent high school graduate Cameron Carter lands an internship with Congressman Billy Beck in Washington, DC, he thinks it is his ticket out of small town captivity. What he lacks in connections and Beltway polish he makes up in smarts, and he soon finds a friend and mentor in fellow staffer Ariel Lancaster. That is, until she winds up dead.
As rumors and accusations about her death fly around Capitol Hill, Cameron’s low profile makes him the perfect candidate for an FBI investigation that he wants no part of. Before he knows it – and with his family’s future at stake – he discovers DC’s darkest secrets as he races to expose a deadly conspiracy. If it doesn’t get him killed first.
Verses for the Dead by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Narrated by Rene Auberjonois
Hachette Audio
Preston & Child return with their number-one best-selling series, confronting FBI Special Agent Pendergast with the one challenge he never expected: a partner.
After an overhaul of leadership at the FBI’s New York field office, A. X. L. Pendergast is abruptly forced to accept an unthinkable condition of continued employment: the famously rogue agent must now work with a partner.
Pendergast and his new teammate, junior agent Coldmoon, are assigned to Miami Beach, where a rash of killings by a bloodthirsty psychopath are distinguished by a confounding M.O.: cutting out the hearts of his victims and leaving them – along with cryptic handwritten letters – at local gravestones, unconnected save in one bizarre way: all belonged to women who committed suicide.
But the seeming lack of connection between the old suicides and the new murders is soon the least of Pendergast’s worries. Because as he digs deeper, he realizes the brutal new crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg: a conspiracy of death that reaches back x.
