Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s Weekly Showcase of New and Notable Audiobooks for August 11th!
Each week, I handpick audiobooks from various genres that have caught my attention. Dive in and discover your next great listen!
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Hell Divers XII: Heroes by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Narrated by R. C. Bray
Hell Divers #12
Blackstone Publishing
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by R. C. Bray
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nicholas Sansbury Smith throws the Divers into another action-packed adventure in the final installment of the Hell Divers series.
Two final dives. One mission that will determine the fate of humanity—forever.
The Forerunner has decimated the Vanguard Islands in a surprise attack from the Trident warship. King Kade Long—seeing no alternative—accepts a peace deal, committing to a perilous mission with X, the “Immortal,” to activate weather-modification reactors at the poles. But as Kade and X set off, the fragile peace is threatened by Gran Jefe’s one-man guerrilla war against the psychopathic knight, General Jack. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, Michael and his family begin to settle into their new life in the Canary Islands, only to discover that it’s not the sanctuary they believed it was.
Diving into the most inhospitable territory yet, the Hell Divers face horrific monsters bred for a single purpose: to keep them out at any cost. Their only hope of defeating the monsters and restoring the planet is for enemies to unite behind the Immortal and finally work together. But with blood being shed back home, these heroes may have nothing left to save.
In Hell Divers XII: Heroes, beloved characters will confront their fates in a desperate bid to resurrect the world, though not all will live to see the dawn of a new era.
The Empire Wars by Akana Phenix
Narrated by Jesse Vilinsky, January LaVoy
The Empire Wars Series #1
Blackstone Publishing
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Jesse Vilinsky & January LaVoy
The Empire Wars is a powerful YA debut where survival and magic are a deadly mix.
Coa, who was born feral in the North Transatlantic wilds, has just been captured. Now, Coa is subject to public humiliation and execution in a gruesome spectacle known as The Great Hunt.
If participants die in the Great Hunt, their entire family will be executed—in front of everyone. The nationalist regime, known as the Allied Force, will not rest until all foreigners are exterminated. Coa’s best hope of survival might be Princess Ife—born of privilege, but newly married into the authoritarian lineage.
Her riskier choice is an alliance with a gorgeous, cunning fellow participant, marked as a traitor to his militarized nation. Coa entangles herself with the captivating young man, but soon finds he could be her ultimate downfall …
Dark Harvest Rebellion by Christopher Hopper
Narrated by Christopher Hopper, Jennifer Hopper
Adaptives #1
Somnium Publishing
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
People wake up to find themselves in a square room with one wall about to rise.
On the other side?
An alien monster and a fight for survival.
Gabriel Stone, an active duty US Marine, and Chloe Lidell, a resourceful Texas farm girl, are thrust into a deadly game where each round is more perilous than the last.
All they have to do is stay alive.
Joined by a band of misfits—including a lovable service droid named Shit Bot—Gabriel and Chloe must navigate treacherous rounds, form alliances, and uncover a diabolical alien agenda. With every victory, they edge closer to the heart of the mystery…
But survival is not guaranteed, and death is a breath away.
Can Gabriel and Chloe outsmart their captors and save those they love?
With an audio version by husband and wife team Christopher and Jennifer Hopper, dive into your next intergalactic saga, Dark Harvest Rebellion, and join the fight for humanity’s future!
Ghosts by Peter Cawdron
Narrated by Alex Picard
First Contact
Podium Audio
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Peter Cawdron
An alien spacecraft four times the size of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier enters the solar system.
Tensions run hot within the UN, but the alien vessel doesn’t approach Earth. Instead, it sits off at L4, over a hundred million miles from Earth, baffling scientists around the world.
Chris “Crash” Williams leads an international crew to investigate the appearance of this ghost ship, but he quickly learns that the spacecraft isn’t as dead as it seems.
Ghosts is inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama, which won the Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Rendezvous with Rama is a classic that examines a plausible, realistic alien encounter, considering the physics involved and the inevitable politics and religious implications.
First Contact is a series of standalone novels that explore humanity’s first interaction with extraterrestrial life. This series is similar to Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone in that the series is based on a common theme rather than common characters. These books can 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.
Carpathians by Paul Dixon
Narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds
Podium Audio
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
An epic first-contact story on a galactic scale.
Humans have reached the stars. There is no evidence any other species survived its own sentience long enough to do the same. Until now, when the Magellanix deep-space scout Accipiter discovers the Artifact, a million-year-old alien construct resting in a dormant volcano on a faraway world.
Now, TransGalactic has sent the Carpathia to steal it. Two ships, two rival corporations, and a race only one of them can win.
The stakes are greater than they seem. The Artifact is more than just a technological marvel. It holds the key to humanity’s survival, and—perhaps—an understanding of our place in the universe at last.
Can’t Buy Me Love by Georgia Beers
Narrated by Lula Larkin
Bold Strokes Books Inc
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Georgia Beers
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Lula Larkin
London Granger gave up her modeling career for investigative journalism only to discover no one would hire her to write anything important. The only way out of her dead-end job? Investigate something the internet will actually read. That’s how her next assignment becomes “What’s it Really Like to Date a Billionaire?” Her boss hooks her up on a glitzy getaway to St. Kitts as the companion of obscenely wealthy Miranda Northbrooke. Miranda’s only request: when they inevitably run into the ex who dumped her, London must play the role of Miranda’s adoring new girlfriend.
Tennyson Securities protects the rich and famous, and Kayla Tennyson built it from the ground up. She has more money than she can spend, but when you move in the circles she does, sorting through the fakes and finding someone honest and genuine is tough. She’d tried with Miranda Northbrooke, and it ended in disaster.
London isn’t sure what she expected of Miranda’s ex, but it certainly wasn’t icy beauty. And while Kayla would like to write London off as Miranda’s new plaything, she can’t get past how smart and funny she is. London and Kayla are perfect for one another, but if London reveals the ruse, she risks not only the opportunity of her career, but Kayla’s trust as well.
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
Narrated by Emma Galvin, Max Meyers
Macmillan Audio
Check out my reviews of other titles written by Casey McQuiston
This program features special appearances by the author at the beginning of each chapter.
In #1 New York Times bestselling author Casey McQuiston’s latest romantic comedy, two bisexual exes accidentally book the same European food and wine tour and challenge each other to a hookup competition to prove they’re over each other—except they’re definitely not.
Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other’s lives once and for all.
Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but—yeah. It’s in the past.
All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.
It’s not until they board the tour bus that they discover they’ve both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they’re trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It’s fine. There’s nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?
But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can’t have.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
The Great Dating Fake Off by Livy Hart
Narrated by Zura Johnson, James Cavenaugh
Planes, Trains, and All the Feels #2
Tantor Audio
One over-the-top Italian wedding. Two fake couples. And a million hilariously disastrous possibilities…
Nora D’Amato would do almost anything for her best friend. Pretend she’s smitten with him to get his overly invested Italian family off his back? Absolutely. Attend a wedding for said overbearing family? Bring it. Spend the next six days at a posh resort watching the bride and groom’s families hate on each other? Pass the popcorn.
There’s only one tiny little hiccup. Nora’s crush—and the object of some very inappropriate thoughts—is here, too. And looking so delectable that she could spoon him faster than stracciatella gelato in a heat wave.
But Sebastian Rossi isn’t available…officially. He’s here with his fake wedding date. And he owes her big time for keeping an eye on his nonna while he’s away months at a time for work. A week in the Adirondacks is a piece of overly frosted cake. Besides, it’s not as though he can have a real relationship when he’s constantly on the move. Definitely not with the cute bookstore manager he can’t stop thinking about.
And a wedding war zone with two feuding families is not the time or place for flirting or sexy sneak-arounds. Everyone is watching—whether it’s during the pickleball tournament, the angry patriarch showdowns, or even the bull-riding bachelorette party. This wedding is one slipped fauxcade away from catastrophe, and if Nora and Sebastian can’t keep to their own sides of the aisle, they risk exposing the very secrets they’re sworn to protect.
The Guest House by Bonnie Traymore
Narrated by Meghan Kelly
Silicon Valley Series #2
Bonnie Traymore
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
Check out my reviews of other titles narrated by Meghan Kelly
He holds out his business card, and she plucks it from his fingers without touching them. “Hope to see you around, Allie Dawson,” he says. That was over a month ago. It seemed too good to be true, but Allie told herself to ignore the nagging feeling in her gut. That was her first mistake. She saw Laura Foster’s email welcoming her into a cohort of grant recipients, Allie literally jumped for joy. She was headed to Silicon Valley with a chance to bring her innovative product to market. She’s deaf with a cochlear implant, and she’s developed a screen that can clip onto eyeglasses and caption speech in real time.
But she had no idea how tight the rental market would be, or how cutthroat the competition is for everything from housing to venture capital. So, after a futile search to find a short-term apartment she could afford, she rented a guest house from a chummy real estate agent who approached her at a coffee shop.But it’s clear now that she should have trusted her instincts. Because there’s something off about her landlord. And his moody wife. And the cryptic Hungarian guy renting his master suite. Are they after her technology?
She knows what it feels like to see her life flash before her eyes, and she doesn’t need that kind of stress right now.
So why is she still living there? And has she already seen too much?
The Outlier by Elisabeth Eaves
Narrated by Maddalena Valecchi Williams, Ivan Wanis Ruiz, Margarita Valderrama, Richard Clarkin
Random House Canada
An audaciously twisty psychological thriller in which finding the killer is only one of two mysteries its anti-heroine, Cate Winter, tries to unravel. The other: when pushed to extremes, what is she herself capable of?
Cate Winter, at 34, is a wildly successful neuroscientist and entrepreneur who has invented a cure for Alzheimer’s that will improve the lives of millions. On the verge of selling her biotech company for an obscene sum, she is also about to become very rich.
But Cate has a secret that keeps her deeply uneasy about everything she is and does: she grew up at the Cleckley Institute, a treatment facility for the rehabilitation of psychopathic children. And, as far as she knows, she is the institute’s only success: all of her peers have become thwarted, maladjusted or even criminal adults.
Then Cate discovers the existence of another ex-patient and outlier who might prove that her success isn’t a fluke. He has not only stayed out of jail, but he’s made a mark in business and science. Though his identity is confidential, she breaks the rules and drops everything to track him down. And when she finds him, living under an assumed name in Baja California, she is immediately obsessed. Like her, he is driven and brilliant, an innovator willing to do what it takes to perfect a new energy technology that will stop global warming. Here, at last, is her mirror, her ultimate collaborator, the possible answer to the enigma of her nature.
But in the wake of a mysterious death, Cate can’t avoid suspecting him. If he is involved, do his ends justify his means? Ruthless herself, she’s about to find out whether there are any moral lines she won’t cross.
Plot Twist by Carmen Sereno, Beth Fowler – translator
Narrated by Sophie Amoss, Jaime Lincoln Smith
Brilliance Audio
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
In this lighthearted romp through New York City, two clashing authors must blend their differences to prove every story is worth telling and that some genres—like people—work better together.
Siobhan Harris doesn’t think of her minimum-wage life in Manhattan as aspirational, but when her debut novel is published, she becomes an instant bestseller and a romance sensation. With fame comes foes, however, and Siobhan finds herself embroiled in a Twitter feud that’s about to change the course of her career just as it’s beginning.
An established crime novelist, Marcel Black is savvy in the ways of the publishing world but less than an expert on the merits of romance. So when his opinions are publicly challenged by the fresh-faced Siobhan, Marcel doubles down until their heated back-and-forth ends with an influencer’s challenge: to put their genres’ compatibility to the test, Siobhan and Marcel should write a book together.
To leave their mark, this unlikely pair will have to contend with differences in taste, style, and experience…and the building tension between them that’s looking a lot less like enemies’ contention and a lot more like a love connection.
Last Call for Love by Rebekah Crane
Narrated by Kevin Marron, Lauren Ezzo
Brilliance Audio
Whispersync Deal with Kindle Purchase
Kindle Edition Currently Available with Kindle Unlimited
For an American woman on an impromptu summertime trip to an Irish island, life changes in a heartbeat in a refreshing romance by the author of June, Reimagined.
The last thing Chicagoan Maeve Kaminski expects to inherit from her estranged biological father is a pub. Now thousands of miles from home, Maeve is on a remote Irish island and is the new owner of the Moorings. Charming? Yes. Practical? No. The bright side: Maeve is in debt, and off-loading a famous pub for a pretty penny could be the gift she’s been waiting for.
Briggs Murphy is suffering from a broken heart. Literally. Recently diagnosed with the same condition that killed his father, he’s not looking for love. But when Maeve shows up with her color-coordinated datebook and striking blue eyes, he falls hard. Too bad she’s off-limits. According to familial legend, they’re enemies. And for the sake of the island, they better stay that way.
Love was never the plan. But for Briggs and Maeve, it might just save them both. To make it work, they’ll have to rewrite history…before it’s too late.
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