Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s weekly New and Notable Audiobooks Post for the Week of January 7th.
Comment below on any I missed or what you’re excited about!
Authors, narrators, producers, and publishers — any of the books featured here are prime candidates for review.
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Valley of the Rays by Nicholas Harvey
Narrated by Kim Bretton
Self Published
Review Coming Soon!
Check out my other reviews in the AJ Bailey series
$7.47 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Nicholas Harvey
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Kim Bretton
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it might be a bird of prey….
An unassuming man coerces his way onto the island with AJ’s involuntary assistance. Could he be as harmless as he seems, or capable of something far more sinister?
When AJ encounters a stranger on a suspicious boat after her morning dives, she finds herself caught in a bizarre game of cat and mouse while she leads an unlikely villain all over the island.
Book seven in the series thrusts AJ into a knife edge predicament where the wrong move will cost her the life of a loved one.
Each book can be listened to in series order, or as standalone novels.”
Facial Justice by L. P. Hartley
Narrated by Milly Sanders
Valancourt Books
World War III left the world in ruins, but now a new society has sprung up from the ashes, ruled by an unseen dictator who believes a system of strict equality is the best way to prevent future strife. Too much beauty, intelligence, or personality is severely frowned upon. Those who run afoul of the Dictator are punished, sometimes with death and sometimes with a more mysterious and terrible fate, being “emptied”.
Jael 97 is an Alpha, whose beauty makes her a target for the Ministry of Facial Justice, where she is expected to submit to having her face altered into a plain, standardized Beta face. But Jael’s rebellious spirit refuses to submit to the Dictator’s demands. Instead she rises up against his tyranny and decides to hunt him down….
Cited by Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange) as one of the best modern English novels, Facial Justice (1960) is an unusual dystopian tale that deserves consideration alongside the works of Orwell and Huxley. This reissue makes L. P. Hartley’s classic available to American readers for the first time in over 50 years.
“An exquisitely entertaining fantasy.” (The Observer)
“Every bit as horrifying [as] George Orwell and Aldous Huxley…. The book is compelling and Mr. Hartley writes with power and distinction.” (Sydney Morning Herald)
What Happened After… by Nicole Pyland
Narrated by Carolyn Eve
Self Published
Review Coming Soon!
My reviews of the other books in the Holiday Series
$7.47 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Nicole Pyland
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Carolyn Eve
This is the Holiday Series Finale: a collection of six short stories about each featured couple in the Holiday Series. The events take place after each story’s respective epilogue. Here’s a glimpse into the lives of the ladies of the Holiday Series. Find out what’s been going on with Weston & Annie, Talon & Emerson, Aria & London, Eleanor & Carmen, Paisley & Trinity, and Scarlet & Dakota.
Epilogues are nice, but they’re a snapshot in time. Maybe it’s a year after the book ends, or even just a few months. Maybe there’s a wedding or another life-changing event. Maybe a character announces she’s pregnant. Maybe the characters are moving across the country. In this group of short stories, you’ll find out about the directions the lives of Holiday Series characters have taken and will take in the coming years, how they’re doing together, how they’re doing at work, and learn about what’s coming next for each of the characters in their relationships.
If you plan to listen to these, please listen to all the books in the series first. The context of the main stories is essential for you to enjoy these post-Epilogue vignettes.
Code 6 by James Grippando
Narrated by Christine Lakin
HarperAudio
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Christine Lakin
Harper Lee Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author James Grippando returns with a bold new thriller that asks at what price do we open our lives to Big Data.
Aspiring playwright, Kate Gamble, is struggling to launch a script she’s been secretly researching her entire life, mostly at the family dinner table. Her father is Christian Gamble, CEO of Buck Technologies, a private data integration company whose clients include the CIA and virtually every counter-terrorism organization in the Western World. Kate’s father adores her, and a play about the dark side of Big Data would be the ultimate betrayal in his eyes. But Kate is compelled to tell this story—not only as an artist exploring the personal information catastrophe that affects us all, but as a daughter trying to understand her mother’s apparent loss of purpose, made even more disturbing by the suicide note she left behind: I did it for Kate.
Then Patrick Battle comes back into her life, changing everything she has ever thought about her play, her father, and her mother’s tragic death. Patrick is a childhood friend, but he is now Buck’s golden boy with security clearance to the company’s most sensitive projects. When Buck comes under investigation by the Justice Department and Patrick suddenly goes missing, Kate doesn’t know who to trust. A phone call confirms her worst nightmare: Patrick has been kidnapped, and the ransom demand is “Code 6”—the most secret and potentially dangerous technology her father’s company has ever developed.
Kate’s fight to bring Patrick home safely reveals a conspiracy and cover up that may implicate one of the most powerful executives in the tech industry, while the development of Kate’s play unleashes family secrets and the demons behind her mother’s cryptic final note. The two paths converge in explosive fashion, leading to a shocking and terrifying discovery that puts Kate and Patrick in the crosshairs of forces who will stop at nothing to control Code 6.
Hide by Tracy Clark
Narrated by Chanté McCormick
Brilliance Audio
$1.99 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
From acclaimed author Tracy Clark comes a page-turning mystery featuring hard-boiled Chicago detective Harriet Foster, who’s on the hunt for a serial killer with a deadly affinity for redheads.
When a young red-haired woman is found brutally murdered in downtown Chicago, one detail stands out: the red lipstick encircling her wrists and ankles.
Detective Harriet Foster is on the case, even though she’s still grieving the sudden death of her partner. As a Black woman in a male-dominated department, Foster anticipates a rocky road ahead acclimating to a new team—and building trust with her new partner isn’t coming easily.
After another victim turns up with the same lipstick markings, Foster suspects she’s looking for a serial killer. Through a tip from a psychiatrist, Foster learns about Bodie Morgan: a troubled man with a twisted past and a penchant for pretty young redheads with the bluest eyes. As Foster wades into Morgan’s sinister history, the killer continues their gruesome assault on Chicago’s streets.
In her desperate race to catch the murderer before they strike again, Foster will have to confront the darkest of secrets—including her own.
Inflection Point by Nick Cook
Narrated by Luke Blackwood-Stevenson
Self Published
In Oxford on the eve of the outbreak of the First World War, Nathaniel Bishop is an electrician who is busy converting the colleges over from gas to electric light. However, his real passion is science and he idolises the famous Nikola Tesla working at the cutting edge of experimental science. To be involved in something like that seems an impossible dream for Nathan until the mysterious Professor Felix Schneider offers him the opportunity of a lifetime to work as an assistant in his home laboratory. As Nathan’s life and those he deeply cares about are torn apart by the coming war, he must embrace the opportunity to embark on an incredible journey that will determine not only the fate of those closest to him but ultimately of the cosmos too.
Follow humanity’s epic struggle to survive across parallel universes in the Multiverse Chronicles, a series of interlinked stories that include the Earth Song series, its prequel The Signal, and also the Fractured Light and Cloud Rider trilogies.
Author Note: For my friends across the pond, please note that this book is written in UK English.
No One Knows Us Here by Rebecca Kelley
Narrated by Merritt Hicks
Brilliance Audio
$1.99 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Rebecca Kelley
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Merritt Hicks
In this gripping novel about obsession, control, and self-preservation, a woman desperate to provide a new life for her sister enters a compromising arrangement with an entitled tech billionaire.
Rosemary Rabourne is already struggling to pay the bills when her recently orphaned half sister, Wendy, shows up at her door. Rosemary will try anything to provide for the traumatized teenager—including offering her services as a high-end escort.
Leo Glass is the billionaire CEO of a revolutionary social app. He wants the “girlfriend experience”—someone contractually obligated to love him—and he thinks he’s found the perfect match in Rosemary. His proposition has its perks: a luxury apartment and financial security. And its conditions: constant surveillance and availability whenever Leo calls. It’s not the life Rosemary wants, but she’s out of options.
Then she meets her new neighbor, Sam, a musician with whom Rosemary shares an immediate attraction and a genuine intimacy she’s never felt with anyone. Falling in love makes it possible to imagine a real new life. But Leo won’t let go of her that easily, and his need for control escalates. So does Rosemary’s desperation—to protect Wendy, to protect herself, and, at any price, to escape.
Four Dates and a Forever by Marina Adair
Narrated by Piper Goodeve
Insatiable Press
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Piper Goodeve
Four Dates and a Forever
When you find that last first date . . .
When interior architect Elsie Dodd discovers her musician husband hiding his drumstick under the backup singer’s dress, she files for divorce and moves back to her hometown of Portland, Oregon. Determined to get her life back on track and reboot her career, she enters her house into Modern Marvel Magazine’s Portland contest, where the winner will receive a coveted showcase boutique downtown. Only when she arrives home, she finds an uninvited and unwelcomed guest playing goldilocks in her shower—naked.
After his very public divorce, guitar prodigy Rhett Easton isn’t looking for love—or even a date until a blast from his unrequited-love past crashes his pity party. Now, he’s cohabitating with the one who got away—and was married to his buddy—and finds himself being sucked back under her sexy spell. And with Elsie’s grandmother setting her up with every Tom, Dick and Harry in Portland, Rhett’s jealously flares up, and he realizes he wants a second shot at his first love. Getting her to agree to a date is hard enough, getting this commitment-shy cutie to open her heart is like an Olympic sport. There are a hundred different reasons why they are a bad idea, including that their careers are taking them in opposite directions. But the more he’s around her the less important the obstacles become, until their past comes barreling into their relationship, and he must decide between his career and a second chance at love.
For Love or Honey by Staci Hart
Narrated by Tor Thom, Kathryn Lynhurst
Podium Audio
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Tor Thom, Kathryn Lynhurst
When the devil comes to town, you have to meet him head-on.
Which is exactly what I did when Grant Stone rolled into our small Texas town, driving a sports car I could fit in the bed of my truck, wearing a suit as black as his soul. He’s here to acquire mineral rights to half a dozen farms in town. And there’s no way he’s getting mine. I don’t make deals with the devil.
So when he challenges me to show him the small town ropes, my motivation is the prospect of seeing him make a fool of himself. He might have an angle, but if he thinks he can finagle me into endangering my bee farm, he’s got another thing coming.
Until the line in the sand is washed away: my farm in danger.
A town in upheaval. A man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And me in the middle.
When the devil comes to town, you have to meet him head-on. And when he sneaks into your heart, he’ll only break it.
The Blue Bar by Damyanti Biswas
Narrated by Sneha Mathan
Brilliance Audio
$1.99 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
On the dark streets of Mumbai, the paths of a missing dancer, a serial killer, and an inspector with a haunted past converge in an evocative thriller about lost love and murderous obsession.
After years of dancing in Mumbai’s bars, Tara Mondal was desperate for a new start. So when a client offered her a life-changing payout to indulge a harmless, if odd, fantasy, she accepted. The setup was simple: wear a blue-sequined saree, enter a crowded railway station, and escape from view in less than three minutes. It was the last time anyone saw Tara.
Thirteen years later, Tara’s lover, Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput, is still grappling with her disappearance as he faces a horrifying new crisis: on the city’s outskirts, women’s dismembered bodies are being unearthed from shallow graves. Very little links the murders, except a scattering of blue sequins and a decade’s worth of missing persons reports that correspond with major festivals.
Past and present blur as Arnav realizes he’s on the trail of a serial killer and that someone wants his investigation buried at any cost. Could the key to finding Tara and solving these murders be hidden in one of his cold cases? Or will the next body they recover be hers?
Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell by Tobias Madden
Narrated by Matthew Backer
Recorded Books
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Tobias Madden delivers another swoonworthy YA rom com winner with his second novel!
Noah is in love with his online best friend. Which is a huge problem, for the following reasons: 1. His crush has no idea. 2. Noah only knows him as his gaming avatar. 3. There’s zero chance they’ll ever meet in real life. So, when Noah sees an opportunity to secretly meet his crush, he takes it. Even though he’ll have to join the cast of a local production of Chicago with his self-obsessed mother. Even though he’ll need to lie to his best (and only) friend. And even though he’ll have to sing and dance in front of actual people. Because love is worth the risk. And, really, what could possibly go wrong?
Beyond Odin’s Gate by Greig Beck
Narrated by Sean Mangan
Bolinda Publishing
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Greig Beck
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Sean Mangan
The legend of Lemuria the mysterious island and all its wonders and dangers are all too real, and it has been found.
But the ancient stories of the great treasure and horrors that existed through the ice rift and beyond Odin’s Gate could never have prepared them what they discovered – monstrous creatures that lived in the sea, in the air and on land. And now Troy Strom and Anne Walsh are trapped there among them.
But they have a plan, and if they can retrieve the Heart of Odin, a massive ruby, they can use it to escape. Until then, they must learn to live on a primordial island among horrifying life forms that defy the normal rules of evolution. To survive, they need to travel into the dragon’s lair and find the truth about the ancient drekka of myth and what it guards, and also discover the fate of the first Viking clan that set foot there and what they had become.
