Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s Weekly Showcase of New and Notable Audiobooks for December 17th 2024!
Each week, I handpick audiobooks from various genres that have caught my attention. Dive in and discover your next great listen!
Spot an audiobook I missed or one you’re particularly excited about? Share in the comments below!
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Worth the Wait by Kenna White
Narrated by Abby Craden
Tantor Media
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Kenna White
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Abby Craden
In the wake of the pandemic, Val Nardi’s dreams hang by a thread. Putting her own aspirations aside, she decides to help her brother and goes to work in his restaurant. But the sacrifice she’s made means her dreams might be forever out of reach.
Then everything changes when she crosses paths with the enigmatic and successful software engineer, Dr. Susan Castle.
As Val fights to save her family’s business and rebuild her life, Susan’s intriguing presence is something she can’t ignore. Despite the odds stacked against them—the attraction between them is undeniable.
With Val’s determination and Susan’s support, they embark on a journey of self-discovery and love. But can they overcome their differences and take a chance on happiness? One kiss could change everything. But is it worth the wait?
Novel Problems by Elizabeth Luly
Narrated by Abby Craden
Sapphire Springs #2
Tantor Media
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Abby Craden
A feel-good sapphic small-town summer romance featuring a bestselling fantasy author and a warm-hearted cafe-bookstore owner!
Hannah Taylor has some novel problems. The bestselling fantasy author, who writes under a pen name, is suffering from writer’s block after her long-term relationship collapses. With the deadline for her next novel fast approaching, Hannah flees Manhattan for Sapphire Springs, New York, planning to hide away until she finishes her book. But when she’s forced to visit the local cafe-bookstore, she accidentally finds herself with a new job and one very attractive new boss. Distractions she definitely doesn’t need with her looming deadline . . . or does she?
George O’Grady worked hard to turn Novel Gossip into the cafe-bookstore of her dreams, but staff shortages are putting the normally unflappable lesbian under pressure. Hannah’s appearance is a godsend. Although it would be easier if her new employee was less distractingly lovely, because George has a strict rule against dating employees.
Over the course of the summer, Hannah and George grow closer. But can the two book lovers overcome their novel problems to write their own happy ending?
Contains mature themes.
It’s Always Been You by Melissa Tereze
Narrated by K. A. Walsh
GPC Publishing
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Regret is a heavy burden to bear. And twice as hard to let go….
Aoife Brennan could blame karma for her lack of a love life. Payback for the once-in-a-lifetime love that she let slip through her fingers ten years ago. In reality, it’s The Albert, the bistro-by-day, bar-by-night success, that keeps her too busy to think about her aching, empty heart. Most of the time.
But then, the face of the woman who walks into The Albert reignites the spark that died all those years ago. Elizabeth Elliott—the woman who broke Aoife’s heart and left it in a pile of worthless pieces.
Ten years ago, Liz knew she should have dropped everything—including her husband—to follow her heart when Aoife begged her to run away together. In fact, after Liz made the choice to let Aoife go, to say her life imploded would be an understatement.
They try to pretend they can navigate this new normal—and even dance around the shimmering hope of a fresh start. But Liz has a daughter now, and an ex who figures heavily in the girl’s life. With baggage like this, recapturing what they once had could be an impossible dream…
Gaze by Kris Bryant
Narrated by Lula Larkin
BOLD STROKES BOOKS INC
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Kris Bryant
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Lula Larkin
When Lucinda “Lucky” Chance lands the client of a lifetime, she promises to give it her all. Little does Lucky know that the woman she’s been flirting with from her window all summer long is the client, Brianna Jameson. Not only does Lucky have to prove she can do the job, but she’s desperate to impress the gorgeous woman who has occupied her thoughts.
Brianna Jameson is bored with her stagnant life. Her friends are busy raising kids and walking away from promising careers. Not Bri. She’s worked too hard to throw it away on something as fleeting as love. But work and romance collide as Lucky stirs up feelings Bri would rather avoid. When Lucky gets fired for all the wrong reasons, Bri reaches out to support her for all the right ones.
Love at first sight is for dreamers, but the more time they spend together, the more they realize the chemistry of a gaze can make anything possible.
A Very Snowed In New Year by Kayley Loring
Narrated by Erin Mallon, Jason Clarke, Connor Crais
The Very Holiday Series #6
Self Published
What’s the actual last thing you’d ever want your celebrity crush to see you doing when you finally come face-to-excruciatingly-handsome-face with him? Singing and dancing around by yourself to “Dreams” by The Cranberries while drinking straight from a bottle of champagne? While you’re wearing some wedding gown you just found in a closet? Yeah. Me too.
And yet, here we are.
At a mountain cabin I was sent to by the awfully pretty actress/pretty awful human I work for to get things ready for her romantic New Year’s Eve getaway with him. That’s not even the worst thing about the way I meet Holden Archer. The actress has been paying me to have textual relations with him, pretending to be her—and she doesn’t even like him!
Is it terrible that a snowstorm prevents us from leaving and the actress from getting here? Neither Holden nor I think so. Because it turns out our connection goes back a lot further than those texts. And just like in all my favorite romantic comedies, it’s what got us here that is the most amazing part of the story.
Will my lack of experience cause me to freeze up when we go from inbox to in person? Or will a dreamy movie star melt my inhibitions and make all my secret New Year wishes come true?
*This is DUET NARRATION*
The Anatomy of Courage by Peter Cawdron
Narrated by Tim Fannon
First Contact
Podium Audio
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Peter Cawdron
Dr. Christopher Walters has been assigned to a medical evac team serving on the front line of the war against the alien invaders known as the Novo.
As part of the Dog Food Squad, his role is to provide battlefield triage to wounded soldiers in no man’s land. Life expectancy at the front is so low no one uses their real names, and he teams up with Hawk, Mouse, Leech, Lavender, and William Sunday to save those he can from the brutal reality of war. The Novos, though, are not what they seem. Inconsistencies leave Doc questioning the war and wondering what the price will be for peace…
First Contact is a series of standalone novels that explore humanity’s first interaction with extraterrestrial life. This series is similar to Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone in that the series is based on a common theme rather than common characters. This allows these books to be listened to in any order. Technically, they’re all first as they all deal with how we might initially respond to contact with aliens, exploring the social, political, religious, and scientific aspects of First Contact.
Contains a special note from the author.
The Fast Track by Tom Draycott
Narrated by John Maddaloni, Alexa Brown
The Dance of Truth and Lies #1
Self Published
You’re about to enter a post-truth world. A world dominated by artificial intelligence.
A cruel exam separates members of the Establishment from the Plebeians. A pass ensures an easy life, and a failure… well, let’s not talk about that now.
Stephen ‘Mac’ Mackenzie, Yoshiko Williams, and Dinesa ‘Ditz’ Agrawal score one hundred percent and are sent to Cambridge to learn the art and science of being a ‘Tech’, one of the secret few responsible for maintaining progress and stability. Yoshiko is keen to escape and visit her beloved Uncle; Dinesa wants to help her brother, and Mac is about to learn the realities of power.
Find yourself in this fast-paced point-of-view novel and feel yourself being pulled in.
Salt by Liz Shipton
Narrated by Neva Nevarre
Thalassic #1
Tantor Media
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
My name is Bird Howsley, and I’m a beautiful disaster. Okay, “beautiful” is probably being generous. But the “disaster” part is right. In a brutal dystopian waterworld, where survival depends on skill and smarts, I’m pretty much always one bad decision away from watching my life go completely down the drain.
Luckily, I have a lifeline: my cute, level-headed sailing teacher, Sargo Paz. Did I say cute? I didn’t mean cute. He’s just a friend. I definitely don’t have weird sex dreams about him.
Anyway, three days ago, I got a message from a guy who’s been dead for ten years. That’s odd, right? I came up with a plan to go find him, but it went pretty badly sideways, and Sargo and I ended up in the crosshairs of a very sketchy underground organization that now wants us dead.
We didn’t know what else to do except flee into the Salt. Now we’re stuck together on Sargo’s tiny sailboat, facing down pirates and harrowing seas, and things are getting, um—tense between us.
Oh, and did I mention I’ve been blacking out? Like . . . a lot?
Contains mature themes.
Permadeath by Miguel H. Villarreal
Narrated by Michael Kramer
Self Published
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Michael Kramer
Be careful what games you play. Some of them play with you.
Marcus is running out of money, and his streaming career is going nowhere. The chance to win a million dollars by competing in a mysterious, online battle royale first-person shooter seems like the perfect lifeline. Besides, he’s got nothing to lose. Right?
When players dying in the game begin to disappear in real life, Marcus realizes he’s caught in the most dangerous rabbit hole, conceived by the wickedest of minds.
Stuck in this gruesome online deathmatch, Marcus must play at the top of his game, conquering virtual and real-life dangers, while unraveling the jaw-dropping truth behind it all.
A grittier Ready Player One, mixed with Hunger Games for the online generation. If you enjoy being at the edge of your seat and having your ears glued to a book that won’t let you stop listening, this fast-paced, heart-pumping suspense thriller will suck you right in. Buckle up. Make it tight.
The Book Censor’s Library by Bothayna Al-Essa, Ranya Abdelrahman – translator, Sawad Hussain – translator
Narrated by Cindy Kay
Tantor Audio
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Cindy Kay
FINALIST, National Book Award for Translated Literature, 2024
A perilous and fantastical satire of banned books, secret archives, and the looming eye of an all-powerful government.
The new book censor hasn’t slept soundly in weeks. By day he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publish-allusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams, and pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture.
Reckoning with the global threat to free speech and the bleak future it all but guarantees, Bothayna Al-Essa marries the steely dystopia of Orwell’s 1984 with the madcap absurdity of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The Book Censor’s Library is a warning call and a love letter to stories and the delicious act of losing oneself in them.
Lonely No More by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Narrated by Full Cast
Audiama
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
The incredible eight-part full-cast audio drama written and created by Sebastian Baczkiewicz and directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
It’s just a message, right?
Daubed on walls, trending on socials, appearing in every language in every country all over the world and always reading the same. Nobody knows where it originated only that it can’t be ignored. And then – in the blink of an eye –everything changes.
Activated alien DNA, long buried within each and every one of us, transforms the majority of the human race. Cities are abandoned. Civilisation discarded. Suddenly, we’re not humans anymore, we’re…Lonely No More.
Or most of us are..
For those still unactivated and “lonely”, it’s now about learning to survive in the ruins of an unwanted and terrifyingworld. See, the apocalypse isn’t coming, it’s already here.
LONELY NO MORE is an Audiama production recorded at BBC Cymru Wales
Executive Producer: Francis Hellyer
Producers: Ed Perkins and Mali Harries
Sound design and original music: Jon Nicholls
Studio engineer: Cathy Robinson
Production co-ordinator: Mair Roberts
Narrators: Gavi Singh Chera, Olivia Vinall, Matthew Gravelle, Gareth Pierce, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Gwyneth Keyworth, Joe Thomas, Patrick Kennedy, Joe Sims, Bhasker Patel, Edita SllamnikuIestyn Jones, Nay Murphy, Leo Wan, Claire Cage, Michael Bertenshaw, Eiry Thomas, Saskia West, Kimberley Nixon, Luke Newberry, Matthew Tennyson, Sid Sagar, Jonathan McGuinness, James Wilson.
Not My First (Space?) Rodeo: A Sci-Fi LitRPG Adventure by M. Talon
Narrated by Gary Tiedemann
A Sci-Fi LitRPG Adventure: Not My First (Space?) Rodeo #1
Podium Audio
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Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Gary Tiedemann
Transported to an alien world, a young soldier and his family are forced into servitude and must fight for survival, in this action-packed SF adventure.
Shad Williams joined the army to fight for his country, not to fight aliens. But when he’s abducted through a portal along with his terminally ill grandfather and kid sister, that’s exactly what he finds himself doing.
Now, deep below the surface of the planet Ganymede, they find themselves with other equally confused groups of humans drafted into serving under extraterrestrials battling for control over the Reality Engine, an advanced supercomputer capable of producing miraculous resources and technologies. Forced to undertake quests to survive, Shad’s family encounters odd pairings of monstrous creatures and dangerous people ripped from Earthly mythology, history, and pop culture. With every victory, they level up superhuman skills and magical abilities beyond imagination. Classified as a Gunslinger, Shad’s quick reflexes and dead-shot accuracy make him a warrior without peer.
But as Shad’s family makes their way through voodoo zombies, dinosaurs, and Al Capone’s gangsters on one deadly mission after another, their real enemy continues to exploit them. To save his loved ones—and all of humanity—Shad must band with his fellow kidnapped Earthlings to take the fight to their alien captors and seize the Reality Engine for themselves . . .
The first volume of the hit sci-fi LitRPG series—with over 500,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!
Raw Deal by Erik Carter
Narrated by Gary Bennett
Ty Draker #2
Aethon Audio
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Erik Carter
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Gary Bennett
STAND YOUR GROUND.
OR PAY THE PRICE.
Ty Draker has never been one to back down from a fight, but going undercover in a brutal, no-holds-barred fighting tournament—his best lead in the hunt for a home-grown terrorist planning another attack—is something he hadn’t expected. Assuming a new identity, he must adapt quickly to survive.
Meanwhile, the fallout from the deadly encounter in Ventura, California, still haunts him, and the shadowy forces tailing him are as relentless as ever, with answers slipping further out of reach. Together with his handler, Beau, Draker is chasing down a lead on one of the people involved with those forces.
Now, caught between ruthless opponents in and out of the ring and his search for a terrorist, Draker must rely on his wits and instincts. The clock is ticking, and every step could bring him closer to the truth—or closer to his own downfall.
If you like action heroes with the steely resolve of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, the calculating will of Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X, and the raw power of Mark Greaney’s Gray Man, then you’ll love Ty Draker, a new thriller series by Erik Carter, bestselling author of the Silence Jones Series.
Merry Weihnachten by E. J. Noyes
Narrated by Abby Craden
Audible Studios
Check out my reviews of other titles written by E. J. Noyes
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Abby Craden
Evangeline Phillips isn’t exactly a Grinch, but being estranged from her parents means Christmas is just another day for her. But when Evie meets her new neighbor—her hot, kind, and blessed-with-the-sexiest-accent-Evie-has-ever-heard neighbor—she thinks it might be just the thing to help her get past the holiday season.
Annika Mayer isn’t really running away. But when there’s a job opening in the United States, it seems like the perfect time to leave Germany and start fresh, even if it’s only temporary. It’s just a pity that she’s missing out on the most important holiday: Christmas with her family. Fortunately, Annika’s cute new neighbor is exactly the distraction she needs.
As their friendship and flirtation builds, Evie and Annika decide on an American-German Christmas mesh-up—they’ll share their Christmas traditions and make it through the season together. And as they plan their “Merry Weihnachten,” that flirtation starts to build into something more. But with so much standing between them and forever, Evie and Annika realize they might not get their gift-wrapped happy ending after all.
Stealing Liberty by Jennifer Froelich
Narrated by Laurie Lane
Stealing Liberty #1
Self Published
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
When Reed is sent to a secret reeducation center for teens in the middle of the Dirt, he doesn’t expect friendship — not with Xoey, the fragile girl who arrives with him. Not with Adam, the brooding boy who has been here longer than anyone. But especially not with Riley, a girl he knew in the Sand who has every reason to hate him.
But then Reed and his friends stumble across a stash of hidden books in tunnels under the school. They learn a different perspective about the last days of America and the second civil war that ended with the formation of the United Democratic Republic.
Starved, enslaved, and tortured by their sadistic school director, the group of friends find hope in each other, and risk everything in a desperate plot to steal back their liberty before it’s too late.
I’ve loved reading since I was little when my dad would read me Dr. Suess books. Fast-forward a little and I noticed that he was always reading on his lunch breaks at work, and I wondered why.Then, I found a book that took me to another place and time, to another feeling,another sense of “being”.It was the first book that I ever fell in love with, and I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.
