Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s weekly New and Notable Audiobooks Post for the Week of July 15th.
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.
If you see yourself featured here, I would love to review your audiobook! Click the button to submit your book for review.
Book covers and bold titles may have affiliate links to Amazon (where you can buy the Audible version).
Clicking these helps support this site, so thank you if you do.
New to Audible or Audiobooks in general? Welcome!
Try Audible Premium Plus and Get Up to Two Free Audiobooks
Sign up for Audible Plus
Savage Skies by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini
Blackstone Publishing
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini
From the NYT bestselling author of the Hell Divers series, comes a brand-new look at the future in this thrilling sci-fi military novella.
A hostile world that will doom the human race … or save it, if a few survivors can unlock its secrets …
After waking up with no memories in an underground facility, a squad of elite soldiers and scientists must try to recall what their mission is. But first, it’s a race against the clock to escape their collapsing bunker before it becomes a tomb. Topside, an even more dangerous world of fiery skies and desolate terrain awaits.
As they venture out to explore their strange new surroundings, bits of memory begin to return, though nothing can prepare them for the strange forces protecting this bleak landscape. Worse, it seems that not everyone on the team wants the mission—whatever it is—to succeed. One thing is certain: the world they remember is gone, destroyed by war or natural disaster. Soon, they will learn that they must unlock the past if they are to have any hope of ever seeing the future.
Please note, this is a novella, and is the introduction to a brand-new NSS universe.
My Heart Is Human by Reese Hogan
Narrated by MW Cartozian Wilson
Recorded Books
$7.49 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
A single father fights to retain control as he shares his body and mind with an evolving AI
It’s been nine years since the government banned all technology. So when Joel Lodowick, a young transgender father struggling to support his five-year-old daughter, has an old bionic upload itself into his head, he is faced with a decision:
Go to the cops and risk prosecution? Or use the robot’s skills to turn his life around?
Scared of losing his daughter, Joel chooses the latter. Heightened intelligence and physical enhancements quickly land him a better job and a brighter future. But things take a sinister turn when Joel realizes his uninvited companion has an agenda of its own, which may or may not include leaving him in control.
Unable to approach the government who covered up the truth about AI sentience, Joel finds himself on the run. With his daughter’s life on the line and his own body turning against him, he must find a way to convince the bionic in his head to value his human life before he loses the chance forever.
Down Below Beyond by T. A. Bruno
Narrated by Kyle Snyder
Self Published
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Levort Aatra is a prospector on the planet Tayoxe. While scavenging the wastes of the abandoned world, he discovers a mysterious starship and stakes his claim on it. Little does he know, he just put a big target on his back.
Down Below Beyond is a sprawling sci-fi fantasy adventure filled with aliens, planets, and portals set in a universe crafted by T. A. Bruno, author of the award-winning Song of Kamaria trilogy.
Worlds Away by Craig A. Falconer
Narrated by Steven Barnett
Self Published
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Two worlds. Two adventures for the ages.
Taming a new world isn’t easy.
But making a new world?
Well, only the bravest would even try….
Terradox Reborn: Six years in the making. Six seconds from disaster….
At long last, the dream of a functioning research colony on Terradox has become reality.
Thousands of men, women, and children now call the distant romosphere home, with experts in countless fields recruited from Earth to spearhead the most ambitious research projects ever devised.
All eyes fall on the closing stages of a colony-defining isolation test within Terradox’s least hospitable zone—the man-made hellscape of Little Venus, where six astronauts-in-training have survived 51 weeks surrounded by an almost impossibly hostile atmosphere.
But while the astronauts of tomorrow count down their final few days until freedom, the gravest threat of all might already be on the wrong side of their Isolation Kompound’s impenetrable walls….
Terradox Beyond: They didn’t think creating a new world would be easy, but no one ever expected this….
With the Terradox colony stable and established, attention turns to the most ambitious endeavour in human history: the creation of a planet-sized romosphere capable of carrying a sizeable population on a one-way course for the stars.
Tensions run high on Terradox regarding certain planning decisions, and tensions run even higher on Earth regarding who will be chosen for humanity’s grandest mission.
But as the lucky few make their journey to their new artificial world and its departure from orbit draws near, it soon becomes apparent that these are the least of anyone’s problems….
Worlds Away is a new collection of two novels, previously published as Terradox Reborn and Terradox Beyond, as well as the prequel story Terradox Zero: Before The Crash. These books are also available within the larger Terradox Quadrilogy box set. They have been collected here to facilitate their first ever audiobook publication as a great value bundle.
Marigold by Melissa Brayden
Narrated by Lula Larkin
Bold Strokes Book Inc
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Melissa Brayden
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Lula Larkin
When enemies fall into temptation, love brings out the most delicious flavor of all.
Marigold Lavender lights up every room she enters. Then, she’s left to turn out the lights and head home alone. Soft on the inside and a go-getter on the outside, Marigold just wants to make sure everyone else is okay before worrying about herself. When an awful big-city food critic trashes her sister Aster’s new restaurant, Marigold pauses her search for her own happily-ever to go to war with the woman, who happens to be just as delectable as she is sour.
Alexis Wakefield’s brutal honesty is what makes her successful. Her listeners trust her judgment, and a few sharp strokes from her keyboard can make or break a new restaurant. When, on a whim, she reviews a small-town eatery getting lots of buzz, the owner’s sister sabotages everything, leaving her professional world in jeopardy. Marigold Lavender has gone too far, and must pay for the damage she’s caused.
Roller Girl by Vanessa North
Narrated by Ashley Lauren Rogers
Scribd
Recently divorced Tina Durham is trying to be self-sufficient, but her personal-training career is floundering, her closest friends are swept up in new relationships, and her washing machine has just flooded her kitchen. It’s enough to make a girl cry.
Instead, she calls a plumbing service, and Joanne “Joe Mama” Delario comes to the rescue. Joe is sweet, funny, and good at fixing things. She also sees something special in Tina and invites her to try out for the roller derby team she coaches.
Derby offers Tina an outlet for her frustrations, a chance to excel, and the female friendships she’s never had before. And as Tina starts to thrive at derby, the tension between her and Joe cranks up. Despite their player-coach relationship, they give in to their mutual attraction. Sex in secret is hot, but Tina can’t help but want more.
With work still on the rocks and her relationship in the closet, Tina is forced to reevaluate her life. Can she be content with a secret lover? Or with being dependent on someone else again? It’s time for Tina to tackle her fears, both on and off the track.
You, with a View by Jessica Joyce
Narrated by Kyla Garcia
Penguin Audio
$7.47 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Kyla Garcia
“Jessica Joyce is a new and forever fave!”—Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author of Love, Theoretically
Two high school enemies must reunite for a road trip inspired by their grandparents’ broken engagement in this electric debut romance.
Noelle Shepherd is unemployed, living with her parents, and grieving the loss of her beloved grandmother when she discovers decades-old photos of Gram and a smitten man, tucked alongside a love letter. She creates a TikTok to search for the mystery man, which goes viral, and she’s shocked when his grandson responds—a man who happens to be her high school nemesis, Theo Spencer.
Noelle refuses to let Theo’s annoying accomplishments in adulthood—or his sexy smirk—stand in the way of meeting his grandfather and unlocking the secrets he knew about her gram as a young woman. When she learns that their plans to elope were thwarted, Noelle decides to take the honeymoon road trip they planned but never got to carry out. There’s a catch, though: Paul, Theo’s grandfather, asks to come with her, and he insists that Theo join them.
It’ll be a miracle if they make it through the trip without Noelle throwing Theo out of the moving car—or the bed they end up sharing. As the miles tick by, the tension simmers hotter between them…until she discovers that Theo’s hiding a secret that could cause their tenuous relationship to end before it can restart.
Stars, Hide Your Fires by Jessica Mary Best
Narrated by Natalie Naudus
Blackstone Publishing
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Natalie Naudus
A wanted thief. A murdered emperor. A killer loose on the station.
Knives Out goes sci-fi in this gripping YA mystery set in space.
As an expert thief from a minor moon, Cass knows a good mark when she sees one. The emperor’s ball is her chance to steal a fortune for herself, her ailing father, and her scrappy crew of thieves and market vendors.
Her plan is simple:
1. Hitch a ride to the planet of Ouris, the dazzling heart of the empire.
2. Sneak onto the imperial palace station to attend the emperor’s ball.
3. Steal from the rich, the royal, and the insufferable.
But on the station, things quickly go awry. When the emperor is found dead, everyone in the palace is a suspect—and someone is setting Cass up to take the fall. To clear her name, Cass must work with an unlikely ally: a gorgeous and mysterious rebel with her own reasons for being on the station. Together, they unravel a secret that could change the fate of the empire.
The Prince & the Apocalypse by Kara McDowell
Narrated by Laura Knight Keating
Recorded Books
Wren Wheeler has flown five thousand miles across the ocean to discover she’s the worst kind of traveler: the kind who just wants to go home. Her senior-year trip to London was supposed to be life-changing, but by the last day, Wren’s perfectly planned itinerary is in tatters.
There’s only one item left to check off: breakfast at the World’s End restaurant. The one thing she can still get right.
The restaurant is closed for renovations—of course—but there’s a boy there, too.
A very cute boy with a posh British accent who looks remarkably like the errant Prince Theo, on the run from the palace and his controlling mother. When Wren helps him escape a pack of tourists, the prince scribbles down his number and offers her one favor in return. She doesn’t plan to take him up on it—until she gets to the airport and sees canceled flights and chaos. A comet is approaching Earth, and the world is ending in eight days. Suddenly, that favor could be her only chance to get home to her family before the end of the world.
Wren strikes a bargain with the runaway prince: she’ll be his bodyguard from London to his family’s compound in Santorini, if he can charter her a private jet home in time to say goodbye. Traveling through Europe by boat, train, and accidentally stolen automobile, Wren finds herself drawn to the dryly sarcastic, surprisingly vulnerable Theo. But the prince has his own agenda, one that could derail both their plans. When life as they know it will be over in days, is it possible to find a happy ending?
Out of Bounds by Kelly Hodge
Narrated by A. W. Miller
Kelly Hodge
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Billy Beckett has reached more than a half million listeners.
Harley “Ace” Winters is a professional golfer who has fallen on hard times. He hasn’t won a tournament in years, and a formerly trivial hobby has turned into a dangerous addiction that threatens to bring him to ruin.
Eddie Pickett is a musician on a meteoric rise. But demons from his past hound his footsteps and jeopardize his future.
In the fifth installment of the best-selling Billy Beckett series, Billy has a dark cloud hanging over his head as his father’s dreaded illness has taken a turn for the worse. Despairing but undaunted, the agent’s tenacious nature rears its head. There’s a reason he has garnered a reputation as an agent who is willing to take chances. Sometimes those chances pay off, and sometimes they explode in spectacular fashion.
Though he knows risk is involved, he decides to take on both Ace Winters and Eddie Pickett as clients. As Billy learns more about his new charges, it becomes clear that each man has mysterious secrets that could turn deadly. Billy and his inner circle quickly find themselves tangled in two dangerous webs. Can Billy and his team steer their clients through treacherous waters? Or will the revelations prove a deadly maelstrom capable of leaving death and destruction in its wake?
From the lush greens of Hilton Head to the stark beauty of Red Rocks, Out of Bounds is a riveting novel filled with twists and suspense that will leave you gasping for air.
The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord
Narrated by Robin Miles
Random House Audio
On the verge of adulthood, Rafi attends the Lyceum, a school for the psionically gifted. Rafi possesses mental abilities that might benefit people . . . or control them. Some wish to help Rafi wield his powers responsibly; others see him as a threat to be contained. Rafi’s only freedom at the Lyceum is Wallrunning: a game of speed and agility played on vast vertical surfaces riddled with variable gravity fields.
Serendipity and Ntenman are also students at the Lyceum, but unlike Rafi, they come from communities where such abilities are valued. Serendipity finds the Lyceum as much a prison as a school, and she yearns for a meaningful life beyond its gates. Ntenman, with his quick tongue, quicker mind, and a willingness to bend if not break the rules, has no problem fitting in. But he too has his reasons for wanting to escape.
Now the three friends are about to experience a moment of violent change as seething tensions between rival star-faring civilizations come to a head. For Serendipity, this change will challenge her ideas of community and self. For Ntenman, it will open new opportunities and new dangers. And for Rafi, given a chance to train with some of the best Wallrunners in the galaxy, it will lead to the discovery that there is more to Wallrunning than he ever suspected . . . and more to himself than he ever dreamed.
Includes two bonus short stories
- 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
