Here are this week’s (Week of May 26th) new and notable audiobooks featuring Post-Apocalyptic, Sci-Fi, Thrillers, and more from Brian’s Book Blog.
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Retreat Series by Craig DiLouie, Stephen Knight, and Joe McKinney
Narrated by R.C. Bray
Blue Heron Audio
Audiobook one: Pandemic
The first episode in the acclaimed apocalyptic military thriller series by Craig DiLouie, Joe McKinney, and Stephen Knight!
As a new disease turns people into sadistic, laughing killers, in Boston, a battalion of light infantry struggles to maintain order. As the number of infected grows, the battalion loses control, and the soldiers find themselves fighting for their lives against the very people they once swore an oath to protect. During the ensuing collapse, the lost battalion learns the Army is still holding out in Florida, which has been cleared of the Infected. Harry Lee, its commander, decides the only hope for his men is to get there. But first they must cross more than a thousand miles of America that has been turned into a war zone, fighting a fearless, implacable, and merciless enemy.
Audiobook two: Slaughterhouse
With laughter, comes death….
Emerging from the smoking ruins of Boston, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Lee leads the First Battalion, 55th Infantry Regiment on a perilous trek to its besieged home post of Fort Drum. Along the way, the unit must battle through the legions of diseased killers lying in wait, evading clever ambushes and fighting through terrifying attacks. Lee struggles to hold the battalion together while epitomizing its motto, “Bounding Forward.”
Audiobook three: Die Laughing
The City of Brotherly Love is currently under the protection of General Anthony Bell, commander of the famed 56th Stryker Brigade, the Independence Brigade. But in a world gone mad, nothing is as it seems. And when Bell has Lee arrested and put up on charges, it’s up to Lee’s right-hand man, Major Chris Walker, to pick up the pieces. Can he snatch Lee from the hangman’s noose, and can he guide his troops and his civilian charges through the gathering horde of maniacal killers? Or will they all die laughing?
The Case of the Antiquities Collector by Owen Parr
Narrated by Fred Filbrich
Self Published
Two New York City private detectives find themselves going up against ISIS.
Retired NYPD homicide detective Joey Mancuso and his half brother, Father Dominic O’Brian, are hired to find a Greenwich, Connecticut, young lady abducted from her dorm at the University of Miami. Working from their investigative offices located inside Captain O’Brian’s Irish Pub & Cigar Bar, located in the Financial District of Manhattan, the brothers are about to find out there is more to this than a simple abduction.
Was the young lady abducted as a kidnap for ransom demand? Is she being sold into the lucrative sex slave market?
Soon, Mancuso and O’Brian find some clues leading back to Gavi Drucker’s abduction. Her father, Aaron Drucker, is a multi-millionaire and a Greenwich, Connecticut, socialite. His top-tier accounting firm, located in Midtown Manhattan, caters to clients worldwide, some of whom would like to keep their financial dealings private – very private.
As the brothers begin to uncover more clues to find Gavi, things take an unexpected turn for the worst. Their investigation interferes with those of federal agencies, namely the FBI, DOJ, and DHS. A potential black market of 5,000-year-old Syrian and Iranian antiquities financing the terrorist group ISIS is being investigated by these agencies. Anyone with any knowledge could become a victim of these ruthless killers, including Joey Mancuso and all those around him.
Mancuso, looking beyond the obvious in his usual Sherlock Holmes style and living up to his New York press-christened moniker of “The Last Advocate of the Victim”, plows on disregarding attempts on his life.
MEM: A Novel by Bethany C. Morrow
Narrated by Soneela Nankani
Blackstone Audio
MEM is a rare novel, a small book carrying very big ideas, the kind of story that stays with you long after you’ve finished listening to it. Set in the glittering art deco world of a century ago, MEM makes one slight alteration to history: a scientist in Montreal discovers a method allowing people to have their memories extracted from their minds, whole and complete.
The Mems exist as mirror-images of their source-zombie-like creatures destined to experience that singular memory over and over, until they expire in the cavernous Vault where they are kept. And then there is Dolores Extract #1, the first Mem capable of creating her own memories. An ageless beauty shrouded in mystery, she is allowed to live on her own, and create her own existence, until one day she is summoned back to the Vault. What happens next is a gorgeously rendered, heart-breaking novel in the vein of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.
Debut novelist Bethany Morrow has created an allegory for our own time, exploring profound questions of ownership and how they relate to identity, memory, and history, all in the shadows of Montreal’s now forgotten slave trade.
Terminal Rage by A.M. Khalifa
Narrated by Scott Brick
Mavenhill Books
A suspected terrorist with a deadly score to settle cons the US government to do his job for him.
When a mysterious man besieges an office tower in Manhattan, he threatens to execute his hostages and unleash terror if his demands are not met. He informs the authorities he will only communicate with Alexander Blackwell, a former FBI hostage negotiator whose stellar career had ended abruptly a few years before.
The FBI tracks Blackwell down on a tiny Caribbean island, and he reluctantly agrees to negotiate with the suspect. As the clock ticks quickly to the deadline, Blackwell soon realizes the only way to save the hostages and prevent catastrophe is to figure out who this enigmatic hostage taker really is and why he asked for him by name.
But what he discovers is a chilling global conspiracy at the highest levels of government that threatens to destroy his life all over again.
Terminal Rage is an explosive novel set in the post-9/11 world, where terrorism is no longer defined by who the terrorists are, but by the sophistication and impunity by which they operate.
Mission One by Samuel Best
Narrated by Nathan Hawkins
Self Published
Titan. Sixth moon of Saturn. A gleaming jewel of natural resources, ripe for harvesting by the first private space company to stake a claim.
Diamond Aerospace launches a ship with an experimental engine that will get a crew to Titan in five months. Their mission is to lay the groundwork for a permanent orbital research station, one that will be the future base of operations for activity on that distant moon.
Shortly after launch, a devastating malfunction forces the crew to make a choice: continue to Titan, or go back home. As the truth about their mission unravels, one thing is clear: someone on Earth knew about the system flaw and covered it up.
Between the critical situation in space and the corporate politics on Earth, humanity’s first voyage beyond Mars quickly turns into a relentless struggle for survival. Yet surviving the journey isn’t the crew’s only concern. Even if they make it to Titan, they will face another problem. Something is already there.
Paradox Slaughter by Jake Bible
Narrated by Andrew B. Wehrlen
Self Published
Robbed of his chits and betrayed by one of his oldest contacts, Roak is now on a rampage across the galaxy to hunt the duplicitous scumbag down and exact some serious payback. Bishop is on the run, and Roak is right behind him.
System by system, planet by planet, contact by contact, Roak leaves no rock unturned and no lead unchecked. He beats answers out of those that dare help Bishop. He kills those that refuse to answer. Roak is waging war on the criminal grapevine, and no one is safe from his wrath.
But Roak soon finds out that while he is the galaxy’s preeminent bounty hunter, it is now his turn to be hunted. And the hunter coming for him is a force from his past that he may not be able to escape!
Season of Storms (The Witcher Saga) by Andrzej Sapkowski
Narrated by Peter Kenny
Hachette Audio
Enter the world of The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski, New York Times best-selling author and winner of the world fantasy award for lifetime achievement.
Geralt of Rivia is a Witcher, one of the few capable of hunting the monsters that prey on humanity. A mutant who is tasked with killing unnatural beings. He uses magical signs, potions, and the pride of every Witcher – two swords, steel, and silver.
But a contract has gone wrong, and Geralt finds himself without his signature weapons. Now he needs them back, because sorcerers are scheming, and across the world clouds are gathering.
The season of storms is coming…
Translated from original Polish by David French.
Aftermath: Book 0 by J.S. Donovan
Narrated by Elisabeth Lagelee
Self Published
In a flash, an EMP blast disables North America’s entire east coast. Separated from her husband and daughter, thirty-nine-year-old psychologist Naomi Baxter finds herself trapped on the streets of Philadelphia. The brutal February cold gnaws at her skin as she strives to reunite with her family. Having a keen understanding of the human condition, Naomi knows that she must find her daughter before anarchy consumes the city.
Mother of Invention: A Novel by Caeli Wolfson Widger
Narrated by Christina Traister
Brilliance Audio
What will a mother sacrifice to have it all?
Meet Silicon Valley executive Tessa Callahan, a woman passionate about the power of technology to transform women’s lives. Her company’s latest invention, the Seahorse Solution, includes a breakthrough procedure that safely accelerates human pregnancy from nine months to nine weeks, along with other major upgrades to a woman’s experience of early maternity.
The inaugural human trial of Seahorse will change the future of motherhood – and it’s Tessa’s job to monitor the first volunteer mothers-to-be. She’ll be their advocate and confidante. She’ll allay their doubts and soothe their anxieties. But when Tessa discovers disturbing truths behind the transformative technology she’s championed, her own fear begins to rock her faith in the Seahorse Solution. With each new secret Tessa uncovers, she realizes that the endgame is too inconceivable to imagine.
Caeli Wolfson Widger’s bold and timely novel examines the fraught sacrifices that women make to succeed in both career and family against a backdrop of technological innovation. It’s a story of friendship, risk, betrayal, and redemption – and an unnerving interrogation of a future in which women can engineer their lives as never before.
The Ferrymen by Ramona Finn
Narrated by Stacey Glemboski
Relay Publishing
Torn in two directions, Glade must make one fateful choice – for herself and the future of humanity.
Glade Io is a rebel. Having fled with her younger sisters to live among the Ferrymen, she knows there is no going back now. She is committed to the cause of overthrowing the brutal Authority, and she trains her new comrades in the art of combating Datapoints like herself – those tasked with the Ferrymen’s destruction.
Meanwhile Ferryman leader Kupier longs to travel the stars with Glade, free from constant war, but to do that, he believes they must strike The Authority at its heart: the ancestral homeworld of Earth.
Glade is hesitant; she hopes taking out the Datapoints living on the Station will be enough. But when the time comes, Glade faces the specter of killing her former friends in cold blood and her former mentor Dahn Enceladus tells her that The Authority has eyes and ears within the rebel stronghold. Now Glade faces a dilemma: sabotage The Authority from within, or return to fight alongside the Ferrymen, possibly putting her sisters’ lives in danger.
- The Mayor’s Mission (Home to Milford College #2) by Piper Huguley (Narrated by Shamaan Casey) - September 18, 2023
- New and Notable Audiobook Releases for the Week of September 17th on Brian’s Book Blog - September 18, 2023
- Trust in Truth by Emily Banting (Narrated by Lulu Russell) - September 15, 2023
