Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s weekly New and Notable Audiobooks Post for the Week of May 20th.
Featured below are audiobooks that caught my eye, I’ve been excited about, or maybe even some that I already have a copy of and a review is coming (usually noted with the book). Check back later to see any reviews or to find that needle in a haystack for your next great audiobook.
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.
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Perdition by Liam Roberts
Narrated by Michael Crouch
Self Published
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Michael Crouch
A meteorite carrying an alien virus of unknown origin falls to Earth off the US coast. Three boys find fragments washed ashore and sell them online, unknowingly spreading the contagion around the US. One of the fragments comes to the town of Stark’s Hill, Colorado. When exposed to this virus, human beings turn into flesh-eating zombies, or as Ben Michaels and his small group of allies come to call them “the Changed”.
Corey Baines, a six-foot-eight-inch-tall mountain of a man, is transformed and augmented by the virus, making him even stronger, and faster, the ultimate predator. He becomes the alpha, the leader of the Changed. What scares Ben even more, is that Corey is still changing, into what, he doesn’t know….
Hunter’s Games by James P. Sumner
Narrated by Gary Bennett
Self Published
Read my review of the first book in the Adrian Hell series, True Conviction, here
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by James P. Sumner
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Gary Bennett
What happens when two deadly killers collide?
It’s been a year since the explosive events in Nevada. Adrian Hell has kept a low profile, continuing to earn good money killing bad people. But a simple job in San Francisco is about to turn his world upside down.
The city is under siege. A dangerous psychopath is terrorizing the city, leaving the authorities overwhelmed and the people scared. After a series of devastating attacks, the terrorist makes contact with the FBI. Their only demand:
Bring me Adrian Hell.
This pulse-pounding thriller is the second novel in the award-winning Adrian Hell series, and features some of the most intense blockbuster action sequences ever written. If you’re a fan of Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne or Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, you won’t want to miss this!
Ultraxenopia by M.A. Phipps
Narrated by Kassandra Bush
Self Published
Betrayed by family. Tortured by the enemy. Destined to destroy the world.
Wynter Reeves lives by three rules. Don’t stand out. Blend in. Remain invisible. In a world where individuality is dangerous, being forgettable keeps her alive.
So when she begins showing signs of a rare disease, it’s only a matter of time before she draws the unwanted attention of the State’s sinister research facility, the DSD. Apprehended against her will for testing, Wynter becomes the subject of the mysterious Dr. Richter, who is determined to make sense of her condition, no matter the cost.
However, Dr. Richter’s intentions are less than noble, and after months of horrifying experimentation, Wynter jumps at the chance to escape her captors. But freedom isn’t what she expected, and as her symptoms worsen, she must make a choice. One that will determine not only her future, but the fate of the world.
Ultraxenopia is the first book in the Project W. A. R. trilogy.
Dual Memory by Sue Burke
Narrated by André Santana
Dreamscape Media
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Sue Burke
Antonio Moro lost everything to the Leviathan League, ruthless global pirates. Now he’s alone in a city on an Arctic island fighting Freebooters with nothing but lies—and the mistaken idea that he’s a spy.
When things look bleak, he discovers an unusual ally. His new personal assistant program, Par Augustus, is a nascent A. I. He’s also insolent, extroverted, moody, and not quite legal.
Together, they forge an uneasy alliance and create a rebellion from unlikely recruits to defend the island city.
The hitch? No one else can ever know. Especially the humans.
Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini
Narrated by Jennifer Hale
Macmillan Audio
A new blockbuster science fiction adventure from world-wide phenomenon and #1 New York Times bestseller Christopher Paolini, set in the world of New York Times and USA Today bestseller To Sleep in a Sea of Stars.
July 25, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the Anomaly.
On the seemingly uninhabited planet Talos VII: a circular pit, 50 kilometers wide.
Its curve not of nature, but design.
Now, a small team must land and journey on foot across the surface to learn who built the hole and why.
But they all carry the burdens of lives carved out on disparate colonies in the cruel cold of space.
For some the mission is the dream of the lifetime, for others a risk not worth taking, and for one it is a desperate attempt to find meaning in an uncaring universe.
Each step they take toward the mysterious abyss is more punishing than the last.
And the ghosts of their past follow.
The audiobook is read by Jennifer Hale, a prolific and highly acclaimed Canadian American voice actress and singer, who has performed an impressive array of characters for video games, audiobooks, and animated television shows. Hale is renowned for her portrayal of Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series and as Rivet in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA. She made her audiobook debut with Christopher Paolini’s To Sleep in a Sea of Stars.
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.
This program features sound design and special effects to enhance your enjoyment of Fractal Noise. Listen out for the sounds of the anomaly at the center of Talos VII and original music evoking the barren landscape.
The 30-Day Engagement by Waverly Decker
Narrated by Rachanee Lumayno
Self Published
$7.47 Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase – Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Emory needs a win, a promotion, and a date to her ex-fiancée’s Hollywood wedding in this sapphic fake-relationship rom-com.
Emory Jordan has been rising through the ranks of the boys’ club at a venture capital firm in New York, where she’s competing for her dream promotion. When Emory’s estranged ex-girlfriend Mari—who broke off their engagement to pursue her acting ambitions—sends her a wedding invitation, it’s the perfect opening for Emory to pitch a business deal to Mari’s new tech mogul fiancé. More importantly, it’s a chance for Emory to prove to Mari that she has moved on from their breakup. The wrench in her plans: she’s been putting work at the top of her to-do list, and there’s nobody she can ask to be her plus one.
But Emory has a knack for business strategy. Bliss Tully, a struggling florist with a good-vibes-only attitude, accidentally stabs her with a cactus, and Emory sees an opportunity. Bliss is short on trust—her father’s white-collar crimes left her with a deep aversion to the business world—but she’s also short on cash, so she agrees to pose as Emory’s fiancée. The job is only for a month, and pretending should be easy money, right? Mari’s wedding approaches, and Emory and Bliss grow closer, all too aware their engagement is nothing more than a 30 day sham. As far as kissing the bogus bride, though, they both want to say I do….
You are cordially invited to the fakeout in this slow-burn contemporary romance about letting go of the past—and loving your future.
Famous for a Living by Melissa Ferguson
Narrated by Talon David
Thomas Nelson
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Talon David
She’s Insta-famous. He uses a flip phone.
When her business partner is accused of serious financial crimes, superstar influencer Cat Cranwell—an engineered marvel of beauty, energy, and fun—falls from her penthouse perch. Desperate to get away from the online trolls and paparazzi documenting her disgrace, Cat accepts her uncle’s offer to work with him in Kannery National Park, Montana. About as far as possible from life as she’s known it.
Cat’s world shifts from the swirling haze of likes and comments to literal blizzards of frostbite temperatures and waist-deep snow. In place of negotiating brand deals, she finds herself negotiating at the ledge of a frozen lake with her die-hard Polar Bear Plunge coworkers. Instead of padding through the marble kitchen of her Manhattan loft, she’s sharing a tent-sized cabin with a roommate eager to bond like characters in sitcoms. But something curious is also happening in this overwhelming breath of fresh air as she reacquaints with the most honest parts of herself and begins to ask the hard questions. Can Cat love herself with, and without, the world watching?
Then there’s that other tiny problem—she’s falling for Zaiah, the ruggedly handsome park ranger—and he hates anything remotely connected to social media, quite possibly her included.
Written with bestselling author Melissa Ferguson’s signature wit and charm, this laugh-out-loud romantic comedy of opposites attract is full of hilarious romp and a romance that will melt listeners’ hearts.
Summer Reading by Jenn McKinlay
Narrated by Kelsey Navarro Foster
Penguin Audio
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Kelsey Navarro Foster
When a woman who’d rather do anything than read meets a swoon-worthy bookworm, sparks fly, making for one hot-summer fling in New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay’s new rom-com.
For Samantha Gale, a summer on Martha’s Vineyard at her family’s tiny cottage was supposed to be about resurrecting her career as a chef, until she’s tasked with chaperoning her half-brother, Tyler. The teenage brainiac is spending his summer at the local library in a robotics competition, and there’s no place Sam, who has dyslexia, likes less than the library. And because the universe hates her, the library’s interim director turns out to be the hot-reader guy whose book she accidentally destroyed on the ferry ride to the island.
Bennett Reynolds is on a quest to find his father, whose identity he’s never known. He’s taken the temporary job on the island to research the summer his mother spent there when she got pregnant with him. Ben tells himself he isn’t interested in a relationship right now. Yet as soon as Sam knocks his book into the ocean, he can’t stop thinking about her.
An irresistible attraction blossoms when Ben inspires Sam to create the cookbook she’s always dreamed about and she jumps all in on helping him find his father, and soon they realize their summer fling may heat up into a happily ever after.
Demonic by Jeff Strand
Narrated by Joe Hempel
Self Published
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Jeff Strand
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Joe Hempel
From the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Pressure and Autumn Bleeds into Winter, comes a new novel of unrelenting terror.
Corey is falling in love with his co-worker Quinn. This is a problem. Not only because Quinn is married, but because her husband is a serial killer known as the Toledo Trasher, who has been forcing her to participate in his savage crimes.
With nothing but Quinn’s best interests in mind, Corey shows up at their home with a gun in his pocket and a knife in his hand.
Unfortunately, there are some very dark forces at work, and Corey makes Quinn’s situation worse than he could have ever imagined. And now things are about to get really, really bloody…
With his trademark frenetic pacing and pitch-black humor, Demonic is Jeff Strand at his devilish best.
BuyMort: Grand Opening: How I Became the Accidental Warlord of Arizona by Damien Hanson, Joseph Phelps
Narrated by Wayne Mitchell
Podium Audio
$7.47 Whispersync Deal with Kindle PurchaseKindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Some predicted that the AI singularity would result in robots destroying the world. None of them ever understood that it was the sales algorithms they had to be afraid of.
After the arrival of the multiversal monopoly BuyMort, life got brutal. All systems were through BuyMort. All currency was through BuyMort. All sales were through BuyMort. You could resist, you could compete, but it didn’t really matter because in the end you used BuyMort—or you perished. BuyMort be praised.
But not everyone’s happy with the new system. Some, even, want to see it destroyed.
It’s quick. It’s convenient. And it will help people kill you and your family as readily as it will help them sell you knickknacks for a quick mortie. Because BuyMort doesn’t care about anything except the bottom line.
Enter Tyson Dawes, a no-cares slacker with a traumatic past, two wrinkled bucks in his wallet, and a crap job caretaking a crap campground in the desert sands of Arizona. He had a deal with the world. He didn’t change it, and it didn’t change him. Seemed simple enough. He liked it, anyway.
BuyMort changed all that the moment it let loose a torrent of alien entrepreneurs upon his planet, intent on selling everything that hadn’t been tagged through the system and classified as his private property.
When a man has little, he cherishes it. When that little is lost, he’ll do whatever it takes and change into whatever he needs to be able to get that little bit back.
Only the Dead by Jack Carr
Narrated by Ray Porter
Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Check out my reviews of other titles Narrated by Ray Porter
In 1980, a freshman congressman was gunned down in Rhode Island, sending shockwaves through Washington that are still reverberating over four decades later.
Now, with the world on the brink of war and a weakened United States facing rampant inflation, political division, and shocking assassinations, a secret cabal of global elites is ready to assume control. And with the world’s most dangerous man locked in solitary confinement, the conspirators believe the final obstacle to complete domination has been eliminated. They’re wrong.
From the firms of Wall Street to the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and Moscow, secrets from the past have the uncanny ability to rise to the surface in the present.
With the odds stacked against him, James Reece is on a mission generations in the making. Unfortunately for his enemies, the former SEAL is not concerned with odds. He is on the warpath. And when James Reece picks up his tomahawk and sniper rifle, no one is out of range.
- Muted (Silence Jones #10 by Erik Carter (Narrated by Gary Bennett) - December 4, 2023
- New and Notable Audiobook Releases for the Week of December 3rd on Brian’s Book Blog - December 3, 2023
- Disease X by N.J. Croft (Narrated by Joshua Saxon) - December 1, 2023
