Sponsored by Size Zero by Abigail Mangin.
Condom dresses and space helmets have debuted on fashion runways. A dead body becomes the trend when a coat made of human skin saunters down fashion’s biggest stage. The body is identified as Annabelle Leigh, the teenager who famously disappeared over a decade ago from her boyfriend’s New York City mansion. This new evidence casts suspicion back on the former boyfriend, Cecil LeClaire. Now a monk, he is forced to return to his dark and absurd childhood home to clear his name. He teams up with Ava Germaine, a renegade ex-model. And together, they investigate the depraved and lawless modeling industry behind Cecil’s family fortune.
Hola Audiophiles! Portland finally got that rain we were promised and it’s been glorious to breathe clean air again. Fall is my absolute favorite and I’m digging the atmospheric weather! I am relishing the soothing sounds of rain coming in through my window.
Before we dive into new releases and such, I have to take a moment to honor Breonna Taylor. The news of that terrible decision should not have surprised me, but I really did hope this time might be different. If you’re looking for ways to help, here’s a link to the Louisville Community Bail Fund.
Ready? Let’s audio.
New Releases – Week of September 22 (publisher descriptions in quotes)
And Now She’s Gone by Rachel Howzell Hall, read by Je Nie Fleming (mystery/thriller) – “Isabel Lincoln is gone. But is she missing? It’s up to Grayson Sykes to find her. Although she is reluctant to track down a woman who may not want to be found, Gray’s search for Isabel Lincoln becomes more complicated and dangerous with every new revelation about the woman’s secrets and the truth she’s hidden from her friends and family.” I’ve waited far too long to read Rachel Howzell Hall, going to have to remedy that very soon!
Narrator Note: Didn’t I *just* say that Je Nie Fleming is a narrator I want to get to know more after reading and loving The Boyfriend Project? The universe is listening. That sample sounds so good!
The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix, read by Marisa Calin (YA mystery/thriller) – I only just read my first Garth nix this year (Sabriel, it was so good!) and immediately placed this new book on my TBR when I was done. In an alternate 1983 London, Susan Arkshaw is searching for father, a man she’s never met. She thinks a local crime boss might have the answers she needs, but before she can get any info out of him, she’s turned to dust by a young left-handed bookseller named Merlin. That’s right, the booksellers of London don’t just sell books: they’re also magical beings who protect the Old World magic ways! Booksellers Merlin and Vivien happen to be looking for the person responsible for their mother’s murder, and it turns out their search overlaps with Susan’s.
Narrator Note: Marisa Calin’s audiobooks include Daughter of the Siren Queen by Tricia Levenseller, The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe, and the Shadow Chronicles series by Paula Brackston.
Miss Meteor by Anna-Marie McLemore and Tehlor Kay Mejia, read by Kyla Garcia, Almarie Guerra (YA science fiction/fantasy) – Lita Perez wants to enter the Miss Meteor beauty pageant and her ex-best friend Chicky Quintanilla wants to help her, and not just because there’s never been a winner who looks like either of them in the pageant’s history. “So to pull off the unlikeliest underdog story in pageant history, Lita and Chicky are going to have to forget the past and imagine a future where girls like them are more than enough – they are everything.”
Narrator Note: Kyla Garcia and Almarie Guerra sound like the perfect combo for this book. Kyla is no stranger to Tehlor Kay Mejia’s work as she read both of the books in the We Set the Dark on Fire series, and we love Almarie Guerra from books like Zoraida Cordova’s Labyrinth Lost.
The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi, read by Laurie Catherine Winkel and P.J. Ochlan (YA fantasy) – Yesss the band is getting back together! The follow-up to The Gilded Wolves is here to take us right back into Chokshi’s dark and glamorous imagining of 19th century Europe. Séverin and his motley crew might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but that win came with a terrible price. “Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long-lost artifact rumored to grant its possessor the power of God. Their hunt lures them far from Paris and into the icy heart of Russia where crystalline ice animals stalk forgotten mansions, broken goddesses carry deadly secrets, and a string of unsolved murders makes the crew question whether an ancient myth is a myth after all.” I want it, I want it now.
Narrator Note: Laurie Catherine Winkel and P.J. Ochlan are back reprise their roles! I know I poked fun at some of the accent work in The Gilded Wolves, but you know what, it’s 2020. Bring on the silly. I love the silly. I’ll take aaaall the silly.
Latest Listens
No new listens this week, mostly because all the books I’ve listened to lately don’t come out for at least another month! So instead I’ll do a backlist bump and recommend a favorite from a couple of years ago: Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood.
When Patricia Lockwood was 30 years old, a crushing amount of medical debt forced her and her husband to move back in with her parents. Living with your parents as a married couple might be interesting enough for the average person, but Lockwood’s case is unique: her dad is a Catholic priest, a role he took on after getting married and having kids thanks to a super obscure loophole. I don’t know quite how to describe this man to you: he’s quirky and loud and kind of a scene-stealer, a man whose convictions are at once comically admirable and maddening in their rigidity.
All this talk of religion might put some of you off, but I encourage you to keep going. Lockwood reflects on her complicated relationship with her family, reflections on father and early life in the church, and her decision to leave the community with thoughtful reflection and care. Then on the next page, she’s poking fun at the whole experience with some of the most hilarious writing I’ve read in years. She narrates the book herself and thank sweet baby cheeses for that: I can’t imagine anyone else reading the parts of her parents just so. I hear her take on her Southern mom’s voice in my head every time I talk about this memoir and it is gold.
Warning: there is discussion of Lockwood’s sexual assault in the book (her poem “Rape Joke” went viral in 2013 and is many people’s introduction to her writing). Her experience isn’t documented in graphic detail, but the discussion she has with her parents about the assault is heartbreaking and cracked me wide open.
From the Internets
at Audiofile: Turning to Historical Mystery Audiobooks to Help Us Keep Perspective in These Historic Times
at Audiobooks.com: 5 Fall Activities to Pair with Audiobooks (Is 2020 the year I finally learn how to knit?!?)
Over at the Riot
Six Audiobooks Written and Read by Latinx Authors
Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with with all things audiobook or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the In The Club newsletter and catch me once a month on the All the Books podcast.
Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa