Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s weekly New and Notable Audiobooks Post for the Week of November 14th.
Comment below on any I missed or what you’re excited about!
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Time to Hunt by Simon Gervais
Narrated by Bon Shaw
Brilliance Publishing
My review of book one
My review of book two
In the latest addition to the acclaimed Pierce Hunt series, Hunt races across Europe to stop an ever-changing threat to national security before it’s too late to save his country or his friends.
When the CIA calls on former Army Ranger Pierce Hunt to find a missing operative and friend, the last thing he wants to do is leave the peace of home and family behind. But there’s more to this mission than meets the eye, and Hunt knows he has no choice but to risk everything to save his friend and protect his country.
Hunt’s target is Jorge Ramirez, who allegedly has information that poses a threat to the national security of the United States. As Hunt tracks Ramirez in Switzerland, he learns that someone close to his operation has betrayed the CIA. His team is attacked, and not everyone makes it out alive.
Facing betrayal on an international scale, Hunt doesn’t know who to trust. The rules of engagement have changed, and the body count is rising. Will he find out the truth in time, or will this be Hunt’s final mission?
Anonymous by Elizabeth Breck
Narrated by Rebecca Gibel
Dreamscape Media, LLC
Madison Kelly, a San Diego private investigator, arrives home to a note stabbed to her front door: Stop investigating me, or I will hunt you down and kill you. The only problem? Madison hasn’t been investigating anyone – she’s been taking time off to figure out what to do with her life. But how does she prove a negative? The only way to remove the threat is to do exactly what Anonymous, the note writer, is telling her not to do: investigate to see who left it. Could this have something to do with the true-crime podcast she’s been tweeting about and the missing girls?
The girls went missing two years apart, after a night at the clubs in San Diego’s famed Gaslamp Quarter, and Madison had been probing the internet for clues. She discovers that someone has been one step ahead of her, monitoring her tweets to prevent her from getting too close. Soon Madison’s investigation brings up more questions than answers: are the disappearances connected? Are the girls dead or did they just walk away from their lives? And who is Anonymous, the person who will stop at nothing to keep Madison from learning the truth?
As she closes in, so does Anonymous. Set against a backdrop of surfer culture and coffee houses in San Diego, Anonymous follows Madison as she confronts the reality of the girls’ disappearance in a terrifying climax where the hunter becomes the hunted – and Madison is running for her life.
Beyond Kuiper by Matthew Medney, John Connelly
Narrated by Kyle Perrin, Dylan Sprouse, George C. Romero
Podium Audio
Welcome to the Kuiperverse, a riveting, hard science fiction universe cocreated and written by Matthew Medney (Heavy Metal Magazine CEO, NYU adjunct professor) and John Connelly (Lockheed Martin aerospace engineer).
Starring the vocal talents of Kyle Perrin, Dylan Sprouse, and George C. Romero.
Beyond Kuiper is brought to the audio medium as an immersive sound designed and scored audiobook. Includes 21 original tracks (written and produced by Kyle Perrin and Matthew Medney) that are available alongside the Codex as bonus chapters.
The Galactic Star Alliance has been alive and well for millions of Earth years. Hundreds of thousands of worlds and trillions of beings move across the many home worlds of the Alliance. This revelation invites many questions: How is faster-than-light speed travel possible, and could cohesive, interstellar civilizations exist without it? Is it conceivable to govern a coalition not of different countries but of different species?
There are some who believe it is out there. Not as science-fantasy but as science.
We introduce Bernard William Hubert. World-renowned astrophysicist and lead scientist of the seminal company of exploration, Outer Limits. While on loan to CERN, a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions leaves Bernard as the sole survivor. While the scientific community and world look to him for answers, he simply states the unthinkable: “It has to be aliens.” Inconceivable to the world, the Hubert family is investigated, and his family’s name tarnished.
Disgraced and shunned, Bernard claws his way back into the equation with his new company, C.O.R.E., as they work tirelessly to design an engine capable of interstellar travel.
Follow Bernard on his road to redemption and discovery in this ensemble cast of futurism, space travel, and the fate of our species. As for the title, from where would our judges watch us?
The Galactic Star Alliance awaits your exploration.
The Ghalian Code by Scott Baron
Narrated by Eric Bryan Moore
Self Published
My review of the first two books.
Some might say there is no honor among assassins.
That might be true of many, but not the Ghalian.
A debt had been called in, and the code dictated it must be repaid, even if the timing did happen to be incredibly poor. But once the dangerous endeavor was undertaken and the wheels set in motion, what at first seemed to be a mere task of honor soon revealed itself to have far greater repercussions than expected.
The quest would be a harrowing effort for even the most skilled members of the order of assassins, and their success or failure could very well shift the balance of power in the entire galaxy.
The Push by Claire McGowan
Narrated by Justine Eyre
Brilliance Publishing
From the bestselling author of What You Did comes a stunning psychological thriller. One party. Thirteen people. By 3.02 p.m., one of them will be dead.
The party should have been perfect: six couples from the same baby group, six newborns, a luxurious house. But not everything has gone to plan, and while some are here to celebrate, others have sorrows to drown. When someone falls from the balcony of the house, the secrets and conflicts within the group begin to spill out….
DS Alison Hegarty, herself struggling with infertility, is called in to investigate. She’s convinced the fall was not an accident, and finds the new parents have a lot to hide. Wealthy Ed and Monica show off their newborn while their teenage daughter is kept under virtual house arrest. Hazel and Cathy conceived their longed-for baby via an anonymous sperm donor – or so Hazel thinks. Anita and Jeremy planned to adopt from America, but there’s no sign of the child. Kelly, whose violent boyfriend disrupted previous group sessions, came to the party even though she lost her baby. And then there’s Jax, who’s been experiencing strange incidents for months – almost like someone’s out to get her. Is it just a difficult pregnancy? Or could it be payback for something she did in the past?
It’s a nightmare of a case, and as events get even darker it begins to look impossible. Only one thing is clear: they all have something to hide. And for one of them, it’s murder.
Marauder by Clive Cussler, Boyd Morrison
Narrated by Scott Brick
Penguin Audio
It is up to Juan Cabrillo and the crew of his ship, the Oregon, to stop a terrorist plot to release a deadly chemical weapon across the globe in the explosive new novel in Clive Cussler’s number-one New York Times best-selling series.
While interrupting an attack on a Kuwaiti oil tanker, Juan Cabrillo and his team discover something even more dangerous: A ruthless billionaire’s dying wish has allowed a paralyzing chemical to end up in the hands of a terrorist group. When an Oregon crew member falls victim to the poison, Juan Cabrillo will stop at nothing to find an antidote before it is too late. He and his team must connect an ancient mystery with a cunning modern enemy in order to save millions of innocent lives, including their own.
One Life by Megan Rapinoe, Emma Brockes
Narrated by Megan Rapinoe
Penguin Audio
Megan Rapinoe, Olympic gold medalist and two-time Women’s World Cup champion, has become a galvanizing force for social change; here, she urges all of us to take up the mantle, with actions big and small, to continue the fight for justice and equality.
Raised in a conservative small town in Northern California, the youngest of six, Megan Rapinoe was four years old when she kicked her first soccer ball. Her parents encouraged her love for the game, but taught her that winning was much less important than how she lived her life. From childhood on, Rapinoe always did what she could to stand up for what was right – even if it meant going up against people who disagreed.
In One Life, Rapinoe reflects on the choices she has made, her victories and her failures, and embarks on a thoughtful and candid discussion of her personal journey into social justice. After the 2011 World Cup, discouraged by how few athletes were willing to discuss their sexuality, Rapinoe decided to come out publicly as gay and use her platform to advocate for marriage equality. Recognizing the power she had to bring attention to critical issues, in 2016 she took a knee during the national anthem in solidarity with former NFL player Colin Kaepernick to protest racial injustice and police brutality – the first high-profile white athlete to do so. The backlash was immediate, but it couldn’t compare to the overwhelming support. Rapinoe becaame a force of change, both on and off the field.
Using anecdotes from her own life and career as an Olympic gold medalist and two-time women’s World Cup champion, from suing the US Soccer Federation over gender discrimination to her widely publicized refusal to visit the White House, Rapinoe discusses the obligation we all have to speak up, and the impact each of us can have on our communities. Deeply personal and inspiring, One Life reveals that real, concrete change lies within all of us, and asks: If we all have the same resource – this one precious life, made up of the decisions we make every day – what are you going to do?
A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey
Narrated by Frankie Corzo
Simon & Schuster Audio
“A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow is an absolute delight. Cozier than a hand-knit gray cardigan and richer than Abuela’s pastelito recipe, Namey takes you from Miami to Winchester, and leaves your heart belonging to both.” (Rachael Lippincott, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Five Feet Apart)
Love & Gelato meets Don’t Date Rosa Santos in this charming, heartfelt story following a Miami girl who unexpectedly finds love – and herself – in a small English town.
For Lila Reyes, a summer in England was never part of the plan. The plan was 1) take over her abuela’s role as head baker at their panadería, 2) move in with her best friend after graduation, and 3) live happily ever after with her boyfriend. But then the Trifecta happened, and everything – including Lila herself – fell apart.
Worried about Lila’s mental health, her parents make a new plan for her: Spend three months with family friends in Winchester, England, to relax and reset. But with the lack of sun, a grumpy inn cook, and a small town lacking Miami flavor (both in food and otherwise), what would be a dream trip for some feels more like a nightmare to Lila…until she meets Orion Maxwell.
A teashop clerk with troubles of his own, Orion is determined to help Lila out of her funk, and appoints himself as her personal tour guide. From Winchester’s drama-filled music scene to the sweeping English countryside, it isn’t long before Lila is not only charmed by Orion, but England itself. Soon a new future is beginning to form in Lila’s mind – one that would mean leaving everything she ever planned behind.
The Kingdom by Jo Nesbo, Robert Ferguson – Translator
Narrated by Euan Morton
Random House Audio
“I read The Kingdom and couldn’t put it down…. Suspenseful…. Original…. This one is special in every way.” (Stephen King)
Roy and Carl have spent their whole lives running from the darkness in their past, but when Carl finally returns to make peace with it, the two brothers are inexorably drawn into a reckoning with their own demons.
Roy has never left the quiet mountain town he grew up in, unlike his little brother Carl who couldn’t wait to get out and escape his troubled past. Just like everyone else in town, Roy believed Carl was gone for good. But Carl has big plans for his hometown. And when he returns with a mysterious new wife and a business opportunity that seems too good to be true, simmering tensions begin to surface and unexplained deaths in the town’s past come under new scrutiny. Soon powerful players set their sights on taking the brothers down by exposing their role in the town’s sordid history.
But Roy and Carl are survivors, and no strangers to violence. Roy has always protected his younger brother. As the body count rises, though, Roy’s loyalty to family is tested. And then Roy finds himself inextricably drawn to Carl’s wife, Shannon, an attraction that will have devastating consequences. Roy’s world is coming apart and soon there will be no turning back. He’ll be forced to choose between his own flesh and blood and a future he had never dared to believe possible.
Deadland Drifter: Publisher’s Pack by J.N. Chaney, Ellie Clarke
Narrated by Scott Aiello
Podium Audio
Contains books one and two of the Deadland Drifter series.
Deadland Drifter, book one
When a dental appointment goes sideways, former Union operative Jack Burner wakes to find himself drugged and imprisoned, and he’s given a choice: assassinate an admiral or be killed himself.
With no other option, Jack reluctantly accepts the mission, only to find himself being trailed by a mysterious blonde woman who may or may not want him dead. As if dealing with a terrorist group wasn’t enough.
With the fate of the admiral and thousands of lives hanging in the balance, Jack stands in the middle of an event that could ignite a war on the edge of the Deadlands and Union Space. Despite his exceptional abilities, training, and tenacity, even Jack has little to no chance of preventing this particular powder keg from exploding. He’s going to need a miracle.
Deadland Wanderer, book two
A mysterious message beckons Jack to a clandestine “meet”, but something is off. The code is identical to one his team used back in his Union days.
When no one shows, he and Sara find themselves drawn into an investigation to uncover who sent the message…and why.
It isn’t long before they find a trafficking ring that snatches women from shelters and wipes their memories, all with the hope of selling them to the rich and powerful as “wives”. But this is bigger than just a gang of criminals. There’s an organization that stretches across both sides of the law with connections to elected officials at the very top.
Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur
Narrated by Lauren Sweet
HarperCollins Publishers
“I was hooked from the very first page!” (Christina Lauren, New York Times best-selling author of In a Holidaze)
An Indie Next and Library Reads pick plus one of the Best Romances of November according to Shondaland, Amazon, and PopSugar!
With nods to Bridget Jones and Pride & Prejudice, this debut is a delightful #ownvoices queer rom-com about a free-spirited social media astrologer who agrees to fake a relationship with an uptight actuary until New Year’s Eve – with results not even the stars could predict!
After a disastrous blind date, Darcy Lowell is desperate to stop her well-meaning brother from playing matchmaker ever again. Love – and the inevitable heartbreak – is the last thing she wants. So she fibs and says her latest set up was a success. Darcy doesn’t expect her lie to bite her in the ass.
Elle Jones, one of the astrologers behind the popular Twitter account Oh My Stars, dreams of finding her soul mate. But she knows it is most assuredly not Darcy…a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud, who is way too analytical, punctual, and skeptical for someone as free-spirited as Elle.
When Darcy’s brother – and Elle’s new business partner – expresses how happy he is that they hit it off, Elle is baffled. Was Darcy on the same date? Because…awkward.
Darcy begs Elle to play along and she agrees to pretend they’re dating. But with a few conditions: Darcy must help Elle navigate her own overbearing family during the holidays and their arrangement expires on New Year’s Eve. The last thing they expect is to develop real feelings during a faux relationship. But maybe opposites can attract when true love is written in the stars?
“Everything I want from a rom-com: fun, whimsical, sexy.” (Talia Hibbert, USA Today best-selling author of Get a Life, Chloe Brown)
The Love Factor by Quinn Ivins
Narrated by Lori Prince
Tantor Audio
Molly Cook is almost 30, with dismal career prospects, and has given up on saving the world. It might be the 90s, and everything’s shoulder pads, Doc Martens, and The X-Files, but people won’t budge on gay rights. Molly decides to give a PhD a whirl but finds herself more interested in campus politics…and her strict and sexy statistics professor.
Professor Carmen Vaughn is stuck in small-town Maryland with smarmy blowhards for colleagues and ungrateful students who can’t handle her high standards. She has no intention of coming out, least of all to Molly, a troublemaking grad student who can’t stop picking fights with the conservative faculty.
But when Molly discovers evidence implicating a homophobic colleague in a scandal, Carmen can’t ignore it – even if the subject hits too close to home. As the two women work together to make their case, they grow closer than Carmen ever imagined. But she absolutely refuses to get involved with a student.
The thing is, as the chemistry builds between them, Molly isn’t sure she wants to be a grad student anymore…if she ever did.
Contains mature themes.
One-Night Stand-In by T. Gephart
Narrated by Kelsey Navarro, Teddy Hamilton
Dreamscape Media, LLC
Sarah Madison loved working at Baldwin & Blake.
While she looked and, for the most part, acted conservatively, she was a gladiator in the boardroom. The fast-paced, energetic work environment not only fed her need for corporate blood but enabled her to prove that women can have it all.
And after months of paying her dues, she was finally offered the promotion she’d been vying for. Which was great, except for the fact she had to share it with a new guy they brought in especially for the role.
Kyle Drake was smart, experienced, and probably just as good, if not better, in negotiations. And if she wasn’t careful, he could prove that he could do the job without her. Add in good-looking and an incredibly sexy smooth talker, and everyone in the office either wanted to be him or sleep with him. Which Sarah could have totally ignored if he hadn’t been the stranger she’d married in Vegas during a fake ceremony six months earlier.
He was supposed to be her one-night stand, a stand-in for a ceremony that wasn’t even legally binding. They were never even going to see each other again. Hell, she apparently hadn’t even known his real last name at the time. It was the only time she’d ever done something completely reckless and spontaneous.
It figured that one time would come back and bite her where it hurt.
Only When It’s Us by Chloe Liese
Narrated by CJ Bloom, Nelson Hobbs
Tantor Audio
Prepare for an emotional roller coaster brimming with laughter, tears, and slow-burn sexiness in this new-adult romance that tackles the vulnerability of love with humor and heart.
Ryder: Ever since she sat next to me in class and gave me death eyes, Willa Sutter’s been on my shit list. Why she hates me, I don’t know. What I do know is that Willa is the kind of chaos I don’t need in my tidy life. She’s the next generation of women’s soccer. Wild hair, wilder eyes. Bee-stung lips that should be illegal. And a temper that makes the devil seem friendly. She’s a thorn in my side, a menacing, cantankerous pain-in-the-ass who’s turned our business mathematics course into a goddamn gladiator arena. I’ll leave this war zone unscathed, coming out on top…. And if I have my way with that crazy-haired, ball-busting hellion, that will be in more than one sense of the word.
Willa: Rather than give me the lecture notes I missed like every other instructor I’ve had, my asshole professor tells me to get them from the silent, surly, flannel-wearing mountain man sitting next to me in class. Well, I tried. And what did I get from Ryder Bergman? Ignored. What a complete lumbersexual neanderthal. Mangy beard and mangier hair. Frayed ball cap that hides his eyes. And a stubborn refusal to acknowledge my existence. I’ve battled men before, but with Ryder, it’s war. I’ll get those notes and crack that Sasquatch nut if it’s the last thing I do, then I’ll have him at my mercy. Victory will have never tasted so sweet.
Out of Her Mind by T. R. Ragan
Narrated by Jennica Damon
Brilliance Publishing
A string of copycat crimes leads a reporter down a terrifying path in a heart-stopping thriller by New York Times best-selling author T. R. Ragan.
Crime reporter Sawyer Brooks still grieves for the family she and her two sisters never had. Raised in a house of horrors, they continue to fight through the trauma – releasing their rage by seeking justice for those who are just as vulnerable as they were.
When a little girl’s bones are unearthed in Sacramento’s Land Park and 12-year-old Riley Addison disappears, solving these cases becomes an obsession for Sawyer – one that puts her job at risk. Yet she can’t turn back, and the deeper Sawyer’s investigation goes, the darker it gets. A psychopath is on the loose and has been trolling Sacramento for years – hiding in plain sight behind a motherly façade.
The more Sawyer persists, the closer she gets to a disturbing place reminiscent of her own terrorized childhood. With time running out, Sawyer will risk anything to save Riley from the dark. But the killer will do anything to keep her there.
Silenced Girls by Roger Stelljes
Narrated by Kate Handford
Bookouture, an imprint of Storyfire Ltd.
Agent Tori Hunter takes in the body of the beautiful young woman curled up in the trunk of the car. Knowing what she will find, Tori gently lifts the bottom of the victim’s blouse. Decorating her back are two small dots an inch apart. Just like the others.
Guilt has kept FBI Agent Tori Hunter away from her home in Manchester Bay, Minnesota, for 20 years, ever since her twin sister disappeared on the Fourth of July, when the girls should have been together. But when she receives an anonymous newspaper clipping about another missing girl, Genevieve, Tori is dragged back to the past. Just like Tori’s sister, Genevieve vanished without a trace, her empty car abandoned on a lonely lakeside road as Independence Day fireworks lit up the sky overhead.
Returning to Minnesota lake country, Tori finds Genevieve’s distraught parents desperate for answers. How could their beautiful, popular daughter be snatched so near her own home? Under pressure to make an arrest, the police have no time for Tori’s theories. Besides, they already have a suspect for Genevieve’s abductor: a local man seen flirting with her the night she disappeared.
When the suspect is found dead in his isolated cabin, his apparent suicide confirms his guilt to police. But Tori’s instincts tell her otherwise. Digging into cold cases, she discovers four women over the past 20 years who were found murdered in their cars late at night. Each had two puncture marks on her back. And when another missing young woman is found bound and strangled in the trunk of her own car, the tell-tale dots prove Tori’s suspicions tragically right. A dangerous killer is still out there….
Can Tori stop him before Genevieve meets the same fate? And if her twin’s kidnapper is pulling the strings, will Tori be the next to disappear?
An absolutely addictive mystery thriller. Perfect for fans of Kendra Elliot, Robert Dugoni, and Tess Gerritsen.
Exodus by M.R. Forbes
Narrated by Adam Verner
Quirky Algorithms
Leave Earth or die.
Two years of war against vicious alien invaders have put us on the verge of extinction. Our only hope for survival rests inside a massive hangar hidden within the Rocky Mountains. Christened Pioneer, she’s the largest starship ever constructed and the apex of our technological know-how – an interstellar behemoth with an entire city nestled in her titanic hold.
Under the command of Captain Tyson Grant, she’s ready to embark on a long journey across the galaxy in search of a new home.
While Tyson already knows space is a dangerous and unforgiving place, he’s about to learn that the greatest threats may be the ones you take with you.
And some terrors are impossible to escape.
If you like Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, or The Expanse, you’ll love Exodus, the first novel of a gripping new space opera epic from million-copy best seller M.R. Forbes. For more information on this and other books by M.R. Forbes, please visit mrforbes.com/books. Nearly every title is either already available on Audible or scheduled to be released in audiobook format. Thank you for listening!
The Cul-de-Sac War by Melissa Ferguson
Narrated by Kate Rudd
Thomas Nelson
All’s fair in love and prank wars.
Bree Leake doesn’t want to be tied down. She’s had more jobs than she can count, and she plans to move as soon as the curtains fall on her less-than-minor stage role at the Barter – the oldest live-performance theater in the US. But just when it’s time to move on again, Bree’s parents make her an offer: Hold steady for one full year, and they will give her the one thing she’s always wanted – her grandmother’s house. Her dreams are coming true…until life at the theater throws her some curveballs.
And then there’s Chip McBride – her handsome and infuriating next-door neighbor.
Chip just might be the only person whose stubborn streak can match Bree’s. She would move heaven and earth to have him off her cul-de-sac and out of her life, but according to the bargain she’s struck, she can’t move out of her house and away from the man who’s making her life miserable. So begins Bree’s obsessive new mission: to drive Chip out of the neighborhood – and fast.
Bree isn’t the only one who’s a tad competitive, and Chip is more than willing to fight fire with fire. But as their pranks escalate, the line between love and hate starts to blur – and their heated rivalry threatens to take a hilarious, heartwarming, and romantic new turn.
Never Have You Ever by Elizabeth Hayley
Narrated by Samantha Martin, Eric London
Brilliance Publishing
Who is this guy?
Sophia Mason’s junior year of college isn’t exactly off to the best start. The semester has just begun, and the president of her sorority has already ousted her from the house. With nowhere else to turn, she ends up at her brother’s apartment – only to find it inhabited instead by a handsome stranger.
On paper, Drew Nolan doesn’t have much going for him as an uneducated bartender from a sketchy family. But when a spoiled rich kid asks Drew to take over his life so he can travel around Europe instead of attend classes, Drew sees the opportunity to get the college education he’s always dreamed of.
Forced into a cover-up under the same roof, Sophia and Drew forge an unlikely friendship. As the two grow closer, lines blur and boundaries stretch, and they find comfort in living the lie they’ve adopted. But reality comes knocking all too soon, and Sophia and Drew will have to weigh what’s worth fighting for and what should never ever have been.
- 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
