Audiobooks 02/25/21

On the banks of the Ganges sits India’s holy city of Banaras, the place where pilgrims come to be released from the cycle of reincarnation by purifying fire. Pramesh has lived quite contently in Banaras for ten years managing a death hostel, shepherding the dying who who come to the holy city in search of a good death. But one day a lifeless form of a man is pulled from the river, a man with an uncanny resemblance to Pramesh. It turns out it’s his estranged cousin Sagar, and his presence casts a shadow over the life Pramesh and his wife Shobha have built for their family. (fiction)

Read by Manish Dongardive (Mumbai Noir by Altaf Tyrewala) – I’m unfamiliar with Manish’s work, but that sample sold me in seconds! Soothing, smooth, very “tell me more.”

Toriiiii! I met Tori Telfer (and her mom) when I was still a bookseller in San Diego during an event for her first book, Lady Killers and I’m jazzed to hear about this next effort. This is a look at some of history’s notorious but often forgotten female con artists and the crimes they dared to commit. (nonfiction, true crime)

Read by Jaime Lamchick (Crooked Magic by Eva Chase) – Jaime is another narrator I’m not familiar with, but the sample feels like she’s the perfect person to read this book. Her reading gives me equal parts “this subject is fascinating” and “can you believe women get looked over even in the subject of crime?” Yessss.

Check this: in the far future nearly a thousand years removed from Earth, humanity survives inside of giant space animals called Zenzee. Cool cool cool. Humanity has also just about driven their giant space friends to extinction with this exploitation. Even better! The good news is that thanks to careful oversight by new minted ruler Doka Kaleigh and sacrifice by all of its crew, life inside the Parados I is now on the brink of utopia. But Doka’s rivals feel threatened by that success; “when a cataclysmic event on another Zenzee world forces Doka and his people to accept thousands of refugees, a culture clash erupts, revealing secrets from the past that could endanger their future.” The stakes are even greater for Doka, and that much stickier; he’s fallen for the one woman he is forbidden to love—his wife. (science fiction)

Read by Staci Mitchell (Colonize This! edited by Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman) and James Fouhey (The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert)

I said I was going to buy this one in print because look at that cover! I love me some Shayna Small though and I’m impatient, so I listened to it instead. Shayna (and Namima Forna) did not do me wrong!

It’s the day of the ritual blood ceremony that will determine if 16-year-old Deka be allowed to remain in her village and she really needs her blood to run red. But of course, her blood runs a brilliant gold, the color of the impure. In an instant, the village and family she’s known all her life want nothing to do with her, and she’s subjected to a fate worse than death. She wakes up some time later, dazed and confused in a room with a mysterious woman who makes her an offer: she can stay in the village and submit to her fate, or she can join an army of girls like her and go fight for the emperor. Seeing no other viable option, she follows the woman to join that army. The further she gets into the empire’s mission to eradicate a legion of demons knows as Deathshrieks, it becomes clear that none of what she’s taken for truth in her life is what it seems.

I loved everything about this conflicted heroine marching into battle armed with abilities she knows not the full power of, a young woman who though soft and tender is also as fierce as her blood is gold. Her origins are as much a secret to her as they are to us, and that slow revelation is just pure wow; it’s so satisfying to watch her question authority and trust her intuition, and of course embrace the power she was always taught to fear and despise. Then there’s the pure joy of the friendship she develops with the band of young women alongside her on the battle field, women with physical and emotional scars who ride as hard for Deka as she does for them. There is so much power and Black girl magic vibrating through this whole narrative, it gives me chills. I remember when there were little to no Black and brown girl heroines in YA fantasy (or you know, lit at large). Spending this time with (and rooting for) Deka was really special.

And if I haven’t sold it to you hard enough, here’s this amazing pitch: an African-inspired world that “basically imagines what would happen if the Dora Milaje from Black Panther were stuck in The Handmaid’s Tale and decided they weren’t going to take it anymore.” YES.

Shayna Small (The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson) delivers another solid performance here, giving us the full range of accent work in her repertoire. Small delivers all of them richly and passionately, bringing to life each of the characters’ distinct personalities. The audiobook clocks in at just under 13 hours, but it felt like half that. Go get it!