Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s weekly New and Notable Audiobooks Post for the Week of March 12th.
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
The Horror of Supervillainy by C. T. Phipps
Narrated by Jeffrey Kafer
Crossroad Press
Gary Karkofsky, a.k.a. Merciless: The Supervillain Without MercyTM, has decided to give up supervillainy and embrace the path of righteousness. Unfortunately, he’s terrible at it, and no one wants him to be their superheroic protector. That all changes when a talking raven arrives with the perfect quest to make his mark: Rescue the president’s daughter from Dracula.
Unfortunately, Gary is being led into a trap. The location of Dracula’s castle is in Satan Swamp, which is where Gary suffered one of the few defeats of his life. There’s also a camp full of superpowered children, the return of alternate reality allies, a pair of psycho killers in love, and the return of an old enemy.
Enjoy the latest installment of the Supervillainy saga!
The Belt: The Complete Trilogy by Gerald M. Kilby
Narrated by Steven Jay Cohen
Outer Planet Media
Commander Scott McNabb and the crew of the science vessel, Hermes, are three years into a five-year-long survey of the asteroid belt when they discover a derelict spaceship in orbit around a binary asteroid. The ship contains an experimental quantum device, lost while en route to a research colony on Europa.
However, once word of the crew’s discovery gets out, they soon realize that ownership of this technology could fundamentally change the balance of power within the colonized worlds, and they now find themselves at the very nexus of a system-wide conflict.
Their fight for survival plays out across the solar system, from the mining outposts of the asteroid belt to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and from the great Martian city of Jezero to an irradiated wasteland on Earth.
This is an epic tale of humanity’s struggle for survival and meaning in a time when artificial intelligence has finally out-paced our own ability to control it.
2034 by Elliot Ackerman, Admiral James Stavridis
Narrated by Emily Woo Zeller, P.J. Ochlan, Vikas Adam, Dion Graham, Feodor Chin
Penguin Audio
From two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034 – and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration.
On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris “Wedge” Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt’s destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America’s faith in its military’s strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand.
So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically outmaneuvering America’s most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters – Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians – as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power.
Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors’ years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the listener a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.
* This audiobook edition includes an exclusive interview with co-author Admiral James Stavridis.
Stillicide by Cynan Jones
Narrated by Shaun Grindell, Zehra Jane Naqvi
Tantor Audio
A powerful climate-crisis story about love and loss that offers a glimpse of a tangible future in which water is commodified and vulnerable to sabotage that is “close to perfect,” “imaginative and far reaching,” and “very human and deadly serious” (The Guardian).
Water is commodified. The water train that serves the city increasingly at risk of sabotage.
As news breaks that construction of a gigantic ice dock will displace more people than first thought, protestors take to the streets and the lives of several individuals begin to interlock. A nurse on the brink of an affair. A boy who follows a stray dog out of the city. A woman who lies dying. And her husband, a marksman: a man forged by his past and fearful of the future, who weighs in his hands the possibility of death against the possibility of life.
From one of the most celebrated writers of his generation, Stillicide is a moving story of love and loss and the will to survive, and a powerful glimpse of the tangible future.
Melody by David Hoffer
Narrated by TJ Clark
Self Published
A melody from the stars can save humanity, but only if Stephen can awaken the alien within….
Childhood therapy cured Stephen Fisher of disturbing visions and the delusion of having come from another world. But when his daughter obsesses over a star in the night sky, he fears that his genetic legacy may have burdened her with the same illness. His sanity is then shattered when he loses his child and the military abducts him claiming that she recorded a song broadcast from another world.
A voice inside Stephen’s head convinces him that he can bring his daughter back to life. What he discovers instead is a stunning truth about himself, his child’s destiny, and fate of the entire human race….
Melody is a riveting and thought-provoking science fiction novel. If you like first contact scenarios and action-filled stories, then you’ll love David Hoffer’s otherworldly adventure.
Scar by Michael Cole
Narrated by Mark Harrietha
Severed Press
Scar is a killing machine. Born from DNA spliced between the extinct Megalodon and modern-day Great White, he has a viciousness that transcends time. His evil is reflected in his eyes, his savagery in his two-inch serrated teeth, his ruthlessness in his trail of death.
After escaping captivity, the killer shark travels to the island community Cross Point, where prey is in abundance. With an insatiable appetite, heightened senses, and skin impervious to bullets, Scar kills everything that crosses his path. His reign of terror puts him at war with the island sheriff Nick Piatt.
With the body count rising, Nick vows to protect his island community from the vicious threat. With the aid of a marine biologist, a rookie deputy, and a bad-tempered fisherman, Nick leads a crusade against Scar, as well as the ruthless scientist who created him.
The Rage Colony by Shanon Hunt
Narrated by Noah Michael Levine, Erin deWard
Narrow Ledge Publishing
They promised purification. They delivered poison. One that hijacks the mind. A curse that will change humanity forever.
Behind the protective walls of the Colony…
Layla grows restless. The Colony is filled with secrets, and James keeps her in the dark. So, when a woman from her youth opens a crack into her past, Layla discovers everything she believed about the Colony has been a lie – even the baby she carries.
Burdened with an unnerving pregnancy and tormented by terrifying hallucinations and blackouts, she sets out to uncover the unspeakable truths inside the Colony’s walls.
Outside, in the poisoned world…
The virus has killed millions and devastated the economy, but investigative reporter Nick Slater is determined to find and expose the illegal biohacking ring that’s snatching young people from the impoverished streets.
When he’s framed for arson and forced into hiding, his only chance of getting the story is to join the unsuspecting victims herded onto buses and swept off into the night.
As Nick risks his life barreling toward the truth and Layla struggles to constrain the invasive life growing inside her…
A new, evolved breed of humans is about to be unveiled.
Her Dark Lies by J. T. Ellison
Narrated by Brittany Pressley
Harlequin Audio
Fast-paced and brilliantly unpredictable, J.T. Ellison’s breathtaking new novel invites you to a wedding none will forget – and some won’t survive.
Jutting from sparkling turquoise waters off the Italian coast, Isle Isola is an idyllic setting for a wedding. In the majestic cliff-top villa owned by the wealthy Compton family, up-and-coming artist Claire Hunter will marry handsome, charming Jack Compton, surrounded by close family, intimate friends…and a host of dark secrets.
From the moment Claire sets foot on the island, something seems amiss. Skeletal remains have just been found. There are other, newer disturbances, too. Menacing texts. A ruined wedding dress. And one troubling shadow hanging over Claire’s otherwise blissful relationship – the strange mystery surrounding Jack’s first wife.
Then a raging storm descends, the power goes out – and the real terror begins….
Everything Is Mine by Ruth Lillegraven, Diane Oatley – translator
Narrated by James Patrick Cronin, Stina Nielsen, Soneela Nankani, Eric G. Dove, Stephen Graybill
Brilliance Publishing
Family secrets, revenge, and righteous fury collide in an international bestselling novel of psychological suspense and intrigue.
Clara and Henrik are married and living in a beautiful inherited villa in Oslo. She is a single-mindedly ambitious child-rights activist at the Ministry of Justice. Having grown up in rural Western Norway, she is also an Oslo outsider. Henrik is a doctor from a well-to-do Oslo family. Though their marriage is under serious strain, they share a devotion to their twin sons and their work. Outwardly, they’re a successful couple both dedicated to saving lives.
Then a Pakistani Norwegian child is admitted to Henrik’s hospital and dies in his care. The boy had clearly been the victim of child abuse. Soon after, a related murder rocks the city. It won’t be the last. The events unearth years of trauma, secrets, and buried resentments at the heart of Clara and Henrik’s fragile marriage.
Little by little, in the wake of these shattering crimes, the veneer of normalcy begins to fall away. But even then, nothing is as it appears.
Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
Narrated by Ione Butler
Harper Audio
In USA Today best-selling author Talia Hibbert’s newest rom-com, the flightiest Brown sister crashes into the life of an uptight B&B owner and has him falling hard – literally.
One of PopSugar’s 42 Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2021 and Oprah Mag’s Most Anticipated Romances of 2021!
Eve Brown is a certified hot mess. No matter how hard she strives to do right, her life always goes horribly wrong. So she’s given up trying. But when her personal brand of chaos ruins an expensive wedding (someone had to liberate those poor doves), her parents draw the line. It’s time for Eve to grow up and prove herself – even though she’s not entirely sure how….
Jacob Wayne is in control. Always. The bed and breakfast owner’s on a mission to dominate the hospitality industry and he expects nothing less than perfection. So when a purple-haired tornado of a woman turns up out of the blue to interview for his open chef position, he tells her the brutal truth: not a chance in hell. Then she hits him with her car – supposedly by accident. Yeah, right.
Now his arm is broken, his B&B is understaffed, and the dangerously unpredictable Eve is fluttering around, trying to help. Before long, she’s infiltrated his work, his kitchen – and his spare bedroom. Jacob hates everything about it. Or rather, he should.
Sunny, chaotic Eve is his natural-born nemesis, but the longer these two enemies spend in close quarters, the more their animosity turns into something else. Like Eve, the heat between them is impossible to ignore…and it’s melting Jacob’s frosty exterior.
Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales
Narrated by Barrie Kreinik
Macmillan Audio
In Sophie Gonzales’ Perfect on Paper, Leah on the Offbeat meets To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before: a bisexual girl who gives anonymous love advice to her classmates is hired by the hot guy to help him get his ex back
Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off.
Darcy Phillips:
• Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes – for a fee.
• Uses her power for good. Most of the time.
• Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham.
• Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else.
• Does not appreciate being blackmailed.
However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89 – out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service – that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach – at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back.
Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she’s not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again.
Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?
A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books
Mindless by Keith C. Blackmore
Narrated by R.C. Bray
Podium Audio
Electric wheels. Axes and leather. And the long road into madness.
After securing the vast government bunker of Whitecap and learning of her affliction, Collie decides to head west to challenge the sinister road clan known as the Leather and kill its leader, the Dog Tongue.
Along for the ride is Gus Berry, who knows full well the very thing that is killing Collie is also keeping her alive. His growing affection for the operator is only matched by his dislike of the one called Milo, the very man who shot her, who Collie insists on bringing along on their mission. Gus won’t allow her to venture alone into the Leather-ruled westlands, yet he also knows that to go with her means to die inside.
Together, the special operator, the reluctant survivalist, and the unleashed prisoner will have to depend on each other as they tread into the unknown. There, they will face an ominous new order. An order bent on creating a medieval empire upon the broken wills and spines of their minions, all the while weaponizing the very thing that destroyed civilization in the first place.
Behind Collie and Gus is a pocket of humanity struggling to survive. Ahead of them, an insane army. And to save their people, Collie and Gus will have to kill the one called the Dog Tongue.
What they intend to do is dangerous. Hopeless. Mindless.
- Disease X by N.J. Croft (Narrated by Joshua Saxon) - December 1, 2023
- A Purrfect Gift by Jae (Narrated by Anastasia Watley) - November 30, 2023
- Wraith King (Wraith Knight #3) by C.T. Phipps (Narrated Narrated by Samuel E. Hoke) - November 28, 2023
