Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s Weekly Showcase of New and Notable Audiobooks for December 3rd 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!
Authors, narrators, producers, and publishers — if your audiobook is featured here, it’s a top contender for review.
Spot your work? Submit your book for review by clicking the button below.
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
The Editors by Stephen Harrison
Narrated by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Tim Lounibos
Audible Studios
“With the pace of a thriller and the heart of a drama” (Taylor Lorenz), The Editors is unnervingly familiar to anyone who has googled, scrolled, or browsed online in the past decade.
Aim for Neutrality. We Need Better Sources. Anonymity is Fundamental. Keep Developing.
The editors know these principles. The editors follow them every day—usually. The editors may not be recognized on the street, but they craft the information that is seen on nearly every internet search. Through Infopendium, a global, crowd-sourced internet encyclopedia, the editors influence the world.
Freelance journalist Morgan Wentworth, recently laid off from PopFeed News, attends the Global Infopendium Conference in New York expecting a straightforward story to help pay the rent. But the so-called “pendium people” are full of surprises. PhDs rub shoulders with high school students, all quoting the project’s rules and regulations like a second language. Sure, millions of people see the facts curated by these editors, but who really cares about the free encyclopedia?
When a hacker attacks the conference and posts a cryptic message, it becomes clear that somebody does. And Morgan decides to find out who. But the path through an online information war is far from clear. Foreign governments, billionaires, and a global virus threaten to sway the truth on Infopendium.
And far from Morgan’s sight, in places as different as Beijing and Kansas, some of the editors have plans of their own …
I Think We’ve Been Here Before by Suzy Krause
Narrated by Erin Moon
Brilliance Audio
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
With the end of the world predicted, reality bends in an unexpectedly quirky novel about human connection and the meaning of life and death by the bestselling author of Sorry I Missed You.
Marlen and Hilda Jorgensen’s family has received two significant pieces of news: one, Marlen has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Two, a cosmic blast is set to render humanity extinct within a matter of months. It seems the coming Christmas on their Saskatchewan farm could be their last.
Preparing for the inevitable, they navigate the time they have left together. Marlen and Hilda have channeled their energy into improbably prophetic works of art. Hilda’s elderly father receives a longed-for visitor from his past. Hilda’s teenaged nephew goes missing, and his mother refuses to believe the world is ending. All the while, Hilda’s daughter struggles to find her way home from Berlin with the help of an oddly familiar stranger. For everyone, there’s an unsettling feeling that this unprecedented reality is something they remember.
As the planet holds its collective breath to see what happens next amid chaos, denial, acceptance, and hope, this one family determines to live every moment as if it’s their last. Because, well, it just might be.
The Portal by Brandon Q. Morris, Tim L. Rey
Narrated by Kim Ramirez, Gary Tiedemann
Portal to Xibalbá #1
Podium Audio
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Gary Tiedemann
Tyler’s wealth bought him adventures…
…but this time he was in over his head.
Could the legendary underworld be found?
After years of hard work, Tyler built his IT Security company into a massive success. He trusted his people and now it was time to enjoy the fruits of that labor. Everything was perfect until an unexpected discovery. Should they go through the Maya portal?
Adriana’s small diving instruction shop is popular enough with the tourists for her to scrape out a living, but it’s not the life she expected. When she got the call, it seemed impossible. Wasn’t Xibalbá a myth?
In a fantastic world of danger and possibility, two people want to discover the truth, but for entirely different reasons.
Have they opened Pandora’s box?
Ballistic by Travis S. Taylor
Narrated by Rich Miller
Tantor Media
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Rich Miller
A Russian ICBM site is attacked just north of the Ukraine boarder. The nuclear warheads are missing! A Special Operations and Intelligence Community Task Force is rapidly put together to respond, but where it should deploy is unclear. A fire ravages a cosmonaut training facility in which five spacesuits disappear. And the Task Force finds a cache of detailed schematics of highly complex rocketry systems. The Task Force reaches out to Dr. Amy Sue Harrington of the Missiles and Space Intelligence Center in Huntsville, Alabama. To Dr. Harrington, it all adds up to the unthinkable: someone—someone extremely well funded—is taking aim at the International Space Station.
But Colonel Vladimir Lytokov and his team of mercenaries aren’t planning to bring the ISS crashing to Earth. They’re taking the fight to orbit, boarding the station and hijacking it. As the ISS traces its path across the heavens, Lytokov rains down destruction from above, effectively holding the entire globe hostage.
Not for the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher
Narrated by Kat Griffiths, Olivia Dowd
Macmillan Audio
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
From New York Times bestselling author Lex Croucher comes a queer historical YA romance, with all the swoons, laughs, and heart-pounding moments you’d expect from a story about the granddaughter of Robin Hood and the girl she’s accidentally kidnapped.
‘You aren’t merry,’ Clem said to her captor. ‘And you aren’t all men. So there’s been some marketing confusion somewhere along the line.’
Mariel, a newly blooded and perpetually grumpy captain of the Merry Men, is desperate to live up to the legacy of her grandfather, the legendary Robin Hood. Clem, a too-perky backwoods healer known for her new-fangled cures, just wants to help people.
When Mariel’s ramshackle band of bandits kidnap Clem as retribution for her guardian helping the Sheriff of Nottingham, all seems to be going (sort of) to plan … until Jack Hartley, Mariel’s father and Commander of the Merry Men, is captured in a deadly ambush. Determined to prove herself, Mariel sets out to get him back–with her annoyingly cheerful kidnappee in tow.
But the wood is at war. Many believe the Merry Men are no longer on the right side of history. Watching Clem tend the party’s wounds and crack relentlessly terrible jokes, Mariel begins to doubt the noble cause to which she has devoted her life. As the two of them grow closer, forced by circumstances to share a single horse and bed, one thing is clear. They must prepare to fight for their lives and for those of everyone they’ve sworn to protect.
Lex Croucher’s Not for the Faint of Heart is a thrilling adventure full of hijinks, found family, and romance destined to change the lives of the inhabitants of the Greenwood Forest forever.
A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books.
The Goldilocks Genome by Elizabeth Reed Aden
Narrated by Amanda Carlin
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
When San Francisco–based FDA epidemiologist Dr. Carrie Hediger uncovers a rash of unexplained deaths while investigating the suspiciously convenient death of her best friend, she becomes determined to find answers—even if it leads her to a murderer, and even if confronting authority, using her wiles, and bending the rules to get justice risks her future in the FDA. To unravel the puzzle, Carrie assembles a team: some talented post-doctoral fellows, a quirky pharmacologist, an unctuous chemist, and a skeptical FBI agent that she can’t help her attraction for.
Together, they follow the data through the twists and turns, eventually uncovering that the Goldilocks effect in prescription drugs—the premise that people are inclined to seek “just the right amount” of something—is central to understanding these mysterious deaths. Through the twists and turns, Carrie and her team enter a race to uncover the truth . . . and catch a killer. Grounded in real data analysis techniques, real science and pharmacology, and actual current psychiatric practices, The Goldilocks Genome is simultaneously a taut, race-against-time thriller and a condemnation of the psychiatric industry’s failure to implement genetic-based “personalized medicine”—a problem that persists to this day.
The Vein by Steph Nelson
Narrated by Susan Marlowe
Dark Matter INK
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
An abandoned mine. A mummified corpse. A simmering evil.
When a shriveled body turns up in an old silver mine, failed detective Syl Dixon gets pulled into the investigation. But the strange case is even more sinister than she imagined. And the dying town of Pate, Idaho is full of secrets that don’t want to be uncovered. People go missing all the time. Strange howls echo from the woods. Eerie portraits hang like shrines outside homes. But nobody-including the local sheriff-seems to care. The deeper Syl digs, the more she realizes she’s facing a malicious darkness that has plagued Pate for over a century. Can Syl rid the town of this evil before it swallows everything in its path, including her?
The Unfinished Line by Jen Lyon
Narrated by Abby Craden
Doss About Publishing
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Jen Lyon
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Abby Craden
Jen Lyon, award-winning author of The Senator’s Wife, brings another intricately woven world of nuanced characters, solidifying herself as a skilled storyteller of women’s fiction.
When Kameryn Kingsbury lands one of the most coveted roles in cinema history, she’s certain it’s the most monumental thing that’s ever happened to her—until a twist of fate introduces her to Dillon Sinclair.
Dillon is unlike anyone Kam has ever met: bold, certain of herself, and fiercely driven by an ambition that has skyrocketed her to the top of her career. A famed British triathlete who remains on a quest to secure the one accolade she’s yet to achieve: an Olympic gold medal.
The connection between the two women is intense and unexpected, challenging Kam’s understanding of herself as she’s drawn into a relationship with Dillon. From the Hawaiian islands to the Santa Monica Pier, to the tropical paradise of the Keys, and the tranquil coast of Wales, a love story begins to unfold.
But when Dillon’s turbulent past collides with Kam’s overnight fame, the challenges escalate and the pressure of the relationship is heightened.
The Unfinished Line unravels a heartachingly beautiful story set amidst the arduous world of elite sports and the unrelenting limelight of Hollywood. Dillon and Kam’s journey explores the power of love, the sacrifices made to achieve success, and the dangers of reaching for perfection.
Content warning: This book contains topics and themes some listeners may find difficult, including struggles with mental health, discussions of suicide, and references to past sexual trauma.
Pleasure Workers by Annette Mori
Narrated by Desarae Holland
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Annette Mori
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Desarae Holland
Alex Cortez is accomplished at two things, fixing broken equipment and pleasuring women. She is happily doing both at the Ranch in Nevada until she involves herself in a domestic dispute between one of her clients and her abusive husband. Now Alex finds herself on the run…again. Danna Nichols, newly widowed, feels lost and alone. When her good friend Lindy invites her to check out the newly established Trophy Wives Club, it awakens dormant feelings and desires. Danna challenges herself to find out who she really is and what she wants in life and love.
The first time she sees Alex, there is an attraction she can’t define, wants to explore, and can’t resist. The two form a bond under unlikely circumstances. Will the challenges of their social status tear them apart before they can enjoy the pleasures of their new love?
Substitute for Love by Karin Kallmaker
Narrated by Angela Dawe
Tantor Media
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Karin Kallmaker
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Angela Dawe
A deep kiss and a single rule. Like most women in dead-end relationships, Holly Markham was used to finding substitutes for love. But throwing herself into the arms of a leather-clad stranger was never on her list.
When Holly’s best friend Tori takes her to a dance for lesbians only, she realizes that Tori is gently trying to push her out of the closet. While it was true that Holly had been trying to come to terms with her growing attraction toward women, no one expected Holly to take one look at the mysterious Reyna and fall hopelessly in lust.
Unable to resist the purely physical appeal of Reyna’s sensuous demands, Holly quickly succumbs to Reyna’s delicious seduction. After a night of delirious passion, Reyna gives Holly a long kiss and single rule: Call whenever you want me to make love to you. There can be nothing else. Although sexually fulfilled for the first time in her life, Holly soon realizes that pleasure without emotion is no substitute for love—a love she knows she and Reyna could share.
Knowing too well the high cost of living in shadows and denial, Holly risks everything and sets out to pierce the deep shroud of mystery surrounding the woman she has come to love.
Under Loch and Key by Lana Ferguson
Narrated by Samantha Summers, Flint Park
Penguin Audio
A woman discovers that not all monsters are her enemy—the opposite, in fact—in this new paranormal romance by Lana Ferguson, author of The Fake Mate.
Keyanna “Key” MacKay is used to secrets. Raised by a single father who never divulged his past, it’s only after his death that she finds herself thrust into the world he’d always refused to speak of. With just a childhood bedtime story about a monster that saved her father’s life and the name of her estranged grandmother to go off of, Key has no idea what she’ll find in Scotland. But repeating her father’s mistakes and being rescued by a gorgeous, angry Scotsman—who thinks she’s an idiot—is definitely the last thing she expects.
Lachlan Greer has his own secrets to keep, especially from the bonnie lass he pulls to safety from the slippery shore—a lass with captivating eyes and the last name he’s been taught not to trust. He’s looking for answers as well, and Key’s presence on the grounds they both now occupy presents a real problem. It’s even more troublesome when he gets a front row seat to the lukewarm welcome Key receives from her family; the strange powers she begins to develop; and the fierce determination she brings to every obstacle in her path. Things he shouldn’t care about, and someone he definitely doesn’t find wildly attractive.
When their secrets collide, it becomes clear that Lachlan could hold the answers Keyanna is after—and that she might also be the key to uncovering his. Up against time, mystery, and a centuries old curse, they’ll quickly discover that magic might not only be in fairy tales, and that love can be a real loch-mess.
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.
