Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s weekly New and Notable Audiobooks Post for the Week of January 8th.
Comment below on any I missed or what you’re excited about!
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Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire
Narrated by Whitney Johnson
Macmillan Audio
$7.27 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
In Where the Drowned Girls Go, the next addition to Seanan McGuire’s beloved Wayward Children series, students at an anti-magical school rebel against the oppressive faculty.
“Welcome to the Whitethorn Institute. The first step is always admitting you need help, and you’ve already taken that step by requesting a transfer into our company.”
There is another school for children who fall through doors and fall back out again.
It isn’t as friendly as Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children.
And it isn’t as safe.
When Eleanor West decided to open her school, her sanctuary, her “Home for Wayward Children”, she knew from the beginning that there would be children she couldn’t save; when Cora decides she needs a different direction, a different fate, a different prophecy, Miss West reluctantly agrees to transfer her to the other school, where things are run very differently by Whitethorn, the Headmaster.
She will soon discover that not all doors are welcoming….
A Macmillan Audio production from Tordotcom
What the Heart Sees by KC Luck
Narrated by Rose Raddatz
Self Published
Check out my reviews of other titles written by KC Luck
$7.47 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Four years after a horrible car accident takes her sight and kills her parents, Sage Montgomery has learned to adapt to her new circumstances in Spruce Creek, Oregon. A new life that includes running the Montgomery horse ranch – which has been in her family for generations – it is the place where she grew up, and Sage has only the fondest memories.
When Sage learns that her home is at risk because of unpaid taxes, Sage must find a way to raise the money. While the bank threatens her, and unwanted buyers circle, she is faced with decisions she doesn’t want to make for the ranch….and her heart.
With two decades of hard work on Wall Street, Julie Aspen has everything she wants. A career she loves, the perfect Manhattan condo, and a sexy, young girlfriend. People envy what Julie has, and she could not be happier. At least, until the firm she works for is accused of fraud. Suddenly stripped of everything and risking an indictment, Julie returns to where she grew up. The small town she hates – Spruce Creek. Things couldn’t be more miserable, until she meets the daughter of a long-lost friend. Suddenly, Julie has second thoughts about what may be important in life, and if it is too late to change.
Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins
Narrated by Barrie Kreinik
Macmillan Audio
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
From Rachel Hawkins, the New York Times best-selling author of The Wife Upstairs, comes Reckless Girls, a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set on an isolated Pacific island with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.
When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She’s also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off the beaten path. But like Lux, they may have other reasons to be seeking an escape.
Shimmering on the horizon after days at sea, Meroe Island is every bit the paradise the foursome expects, despite a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumors of murder. But what they don’t expect is to discover another boat already anchored off Meroe’s sandy beaches. The owners of the Azure Sky, Jake and Eliza, are a true golden couple: gorgeous, laidback, and if their sleek catamaran and well-stocked bar are any indication, rich. Now a party of six, the new friends settle in to experience life on an exotic island, and the serenity of being completely off the grid. Lux hasn’t felt like she truly belonged anywhere in years, yet here on Meroe, with these fellow free spirits, she finally has a sense of peace.
But with the arrival of a skeevy stranger sailing alone in pursuit of a darker kind of good time, the balance of the group is disrupted. Soon, cracks begin to emerge: it seems that Brittany and Amma haven’t been completely honest with Lux about their pasts – and perhaps not even with each other. And though Jake and Eliza seem like the perfect pair, the rocky history of their relationship begins to resurface, and their reasons for sailing to Meroe might not be as innocent as they first appeared.
When it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in on them. And when one person goes missing, and another turns up dead, Lux begins to wonder if any of them are going to make it off the island alive.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press
The Starless Crown by James Rollins
Narrated by James Rollins, Nicola Barber
Macmillan Audio
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
This audiobook includes a special introduction written and read by James Rollins.
An alliance embarks on a dangerous journey to uncover the secrets of the distant past and save their world in this captivating, deeply visionary adventure from number-one New York Times best-selling thriller-master James Rollins.
A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death.
Fleeing into the unknown, she is drawn into a team of outcasts:
A broken soldier, who once again takes up the weapons he’s forbidden to wield and carves a trail back home.
A drunken prince, who steps out from his beloved brother’s shadow and claims a purpose of his own.
An imprisoned thief, who escapes the crushing dark and discovers a gleaming artifact – one that will ignite a power struggle across the globe.
On the run, hunted by enemies old and new, they must learn to trust each other in order to survive in a world evolved in strange, beautiful, and deadly ways, and uncover ancient secrets that hold the key to their salvation.
But with each passing moment, doom draws closer.
Who will claim the starless crown?
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Narrated by Catherine Ho
Simon & Schuster
A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick
In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.
Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.
Until Frida has a very bad day.
The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.
Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.
A searing pause-resister that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.
The Show Must Go On by Nicole Pyland
Narrated by Blair Baker
Self Published
Read my review of The Show Must Go On here
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Nicole Pyland
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Baker Eagan has just wrapped the TV show she created and ran for the past five years of her life. She’s ready for a break and to refocus on her writing, and the last thing she wants to do is go to her agent’s birthday party. Little does she know that her agent plans to play matchmaker.
Casey Jinx is the lead actress on a hit TV show. She’s also out and proud and happy to be playing a lesbian character on network TV. When she goes to a birthday party for her agent’s wife, she’s almost immediately introduced to Baker. Within minutes, Casey finds herself completely taken with the somewhat shy writer.
The two women hit it off instantly and discover they want more than just a chat at a birthday party. Unfortunately for them, though, Baker was just offered the job of executive producer on Casey’s show, making Baker Eagan her new boss.
Their romance begins quickly and intensely, but once Baker takes the job, their relationship is left behind. Will they find a way to get back what they’ve lost? Or will they let the show get between something they’ve both felt so strongly about? After all, the show must go on.
Digging Up Love by Chandra Blumberg
Narrated by Keylor Leigh, Amir Abdullah
Brilliance Publishing
$1.99 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
From debut author Chandra Blumberg comes a playful, heartfelt romance about chasing your dreams and finding love in the process.
Alisha Blake works her magic in the kitchen, creating delectable desserts for her grandfather’s restaurant in rural Illinois. Though Alisha relishes the close relationship she has with her family, she can’t help but dream about opening a cookie shop in Chicago. She may be a small-town baker, but Alisha has big ambitions.
Then a dinosaur bone turns up in her grandparents’ backyard. When paleontologist Quentin Harris arrives to see the discovery for himself, he’s hoping that the fossil will distract him from a recent painful breakup. Instead, he finds Alisha – and sparks fly. The big-city academic and the hometown baker seem destined for a happily-ever-after.
But Alisha is scared to fall in love. And Quentin’s trying to make a name for himself in a competitive field, which gets even more complicated when the press shows up at the dig site. For love to prevail, the two may have to put old bones aside – and focus on the future.
Salaam, with Love by Sara Sharaf Beg
Narrated by Mayuri Bhandari
Listening Library
$12.99 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
This heartfelt and humorous YA contemporary follows Dua, who spends the month of Ramadan making unexpected discoveries about family, faith, and first love.
Being crammed into a house in Queens with her cousins is not how Dua envisions her trip to New York City. But here she is, spending the holy month of Ramadan with extended family she hasn’t seen in years.
Dua struggles to find her place in the conservative household and to connect with her aloof, engaged-to-be-married cousin, Mahnoor. And as if fasting the whole day wasn’t tiring enough, she must battle her hormones whenever she sees Hassan, the cute drummer in a Muslim band who has a habit of showing up at her most awkward moments.
After just a month, Dua is surprised to find that she’s learning a lot more than she bargained for about her faith, relationships, her place in the world – and cute drummers….
The High House by Jessie Greengrass
Narrated by Camilla Rockley, Sam Newton, Mariam Abu-Hejleh
Bolinda Publishing
Shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Novel Award
In this powerful, highly anticipated novel from an award-winning author, four people attempt to make a home in the midst of environmental disaster.
Perched on a sloping hill, set away from a small town by the sea, the High House has a tide pool and a mill, a vegetable garden, and, most importantly, a barn full of supplies. Caro, Pauly, Sally, and Grandy are safe, so far, from the rising water that threatens to destroy the town and that has, perhaps, already destroyed everything else. But for how long?
Caro and her younger half-brother, Pauly, arrive at the High House after her father and stepmother fall victim to a faraway climate disaster – but not before they call and urge Caro to leave London. In their new home, a converted summer house cared for by Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally, the two pairs learn to live together. Yet there are limits to their safety, limits to the supplies, limits to what Grandy – the former village caretaker, a man who knows how to do everything – can teach them as his health fails.
A searing novel that takes on parenthood, sacrifice, love, and survival under the threat of extinction, The High House is a stunning, emotionally precise novel about what can be salvaged at the end of the world.
Space Seasons Omnibus by Dawn Chapman
Narrated by Neil Hellegers
Mountaindale Press
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Dawn Chapman
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Neil Hellegers
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Killing machines. Shadow organizations. A desperate attempt to stay sane.
The first four books in the Space Seasons series!
After failing the most important exam of his life, Kyle is forced into a VR war. Now, he fights on the front lines as cannon fodder for what he always assumed was the government, losing a little part of his memories with every virtual death.
When the mission he’s on goes wrong, Kyle is stranded on a planet far from his original destination. Finally given a chance to make an impression in the organization, Kyle will have to risk his mind for a chance at salvation.
If he fails, he’ll lose all will to resist: making him the perfect soldier.
Buy the four-book boxed set today to listen to Dawn Chapman’s Winter Harvest, Spring Mutiny, Summer Friction, and Autumn Infernos!
The Danger Within by E.L. Pini
Narrated by Corey M. Snow
Podium Audio
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Mossad Agent Avner Ehrlich is a serial rulebreaker, but whenever the need for a dangerous top-secret operation arises, he is the Israeli Mossad’s first pick. But what happens when the hunter becomes the hunted, and Ehrlich finds himself an enemy target?
Avner Ehrlich stands before the most cunning enemy he has ever faced – an enemy with innovative and sophisticated methods – that conceals the danger within….
Imad Akbariyah, a rising star in Al-Qaeda’s chain of command, recruits a fellow Palestinian doctor to perform surgeries on terrorist Shahids and implant their bodies with plastic explosives that allow them to move freely through any security check or device. Imad will never forget the day when his father was killed in front of his eyes by an Israeli commando officer. Years later, he seeks to avenge his father’s death at any cost and dreams of the day when he will finally get his revenge on the man responsible.
As the violent chases intensify, a blood-soaked war is only a matter of time. The personal encounter between the two rivals is inevitable, and Ehrlich is fighting not only to prevent the killing of innocent lives, but to save his own.
- No Rules of Engagement by Tracey Richardson (Narrated by Joana Garcia) - September 28, 2023
- Love at First Set by Jennifer Dugan (Narrated Narrated by Lori Prince) - September 26, 2023
- New and Notable Audiobook Releases for the Week of September 23rd on Brian’s Book Blog - September 23, 2023
