Sponsored by the audiobook edition of The Night Swim by Megan Goldin, read by Bailey Carr, January LaVoy and Samantha Desz.
In Megan Goldin’s new thriller, The Night Swim, a true-crime podcast host covering a controversial trial finds herself drawn deep into a small town’s dark past and a brutal crime that took place years before. The third season of Rachel Krall’s smash podcast has brought her South, to a town torn apart when a local golden boy, an Olympic swimming hopeful, is accused of raping the granddaughter of the police chief. Electrifying and propulsive, The Night Swim asks: What is the price of a reputation? Can a small town ever right the wrongs of its past? And what really happened?
Hola Audiophiles! I am pleased to report that I have finished Araminta Hall’s latest release and did not have to chuck this book at a wall, tempted as I was at the end. It’s a messy book in a great and infuriating way and I’m excited to talk about it!
Ready? Let’s audio.
New Releases – August 13 (publisher descriptions in quotes)
By Force Alone by Lavie Tidhar, read by Ralph Lister – Take Arthurian legend, throw it in the blender, add some kerosene, and light a match, and you’ll maybe arrive at the wild subversiveness of Lavie Tidhar’s latest literary creation. No one, and I do mean no one, is likable in this version: the Knights of the Round Table are all out for themselves, Merlin is a butt face who feeds off conflict, and even the Lady of the Lake is a shady arms dealer. Yeah! You read that right! Woven into lot of violence and humor is a pretty searing critique of Brexit and that’s where this book hooked me. Make sure to read the afterword: it explains how and why Tidhar twisted this venerated story to point out the hypocrisy of nationalism.
Narrator Note: Ralph Lister most recently read Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, I’ve heard lots of good things!
Veritas A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, by Ariel Sabar, read by Robert Petkoff – Dr. Karen King was a venerated scholar and professor at Harvard’s Divinity School. She was THE deal in her field, which is why she made a big ol splash when she stood up at a conference near the Vatican to be all, “Okay so I have in my possession a fragment of papyrus in which Jesus refers to Mary Magdalene as his wife. Discuss!” The discovery was huge because it proved that Mary Magdalene wasn’t “just some prostitute” but Jesus’ literal life partner, shattering the idea of celibacy as a requirement for church leadership and condemning the exclusion of women in those roles. What follows next is a blend of supreme investigative journalism that reads like a detective novel as Ariel Sabar explores how Dr. King was duped against all odds and the scandal that ensued.
Narrator Note: If you loved the audiobook for Hollow Kingdom, then Robert Petkoff is your guy!
Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, read by Inés del Castillo – An adventure with elements of magical realism based in Mexican American cosmology with a sex-positive storyline told from a young woman’s perspective? Oh I’m all over that! It’s been three years since Sia Martinez’ mom was deported thanks to a racist sheriff in her tiny Arizona town. Her mom tried to cross the Sonoran on foot to reunite with her family and went missing along the way, and it’s presumed that she died on that harrowing journey. Sia grieves her mother daily but has a special tradition every new moon wherein she drives into the desert to light candles for her. Imagine her surprise when a giant spaceship crashes in front of her during one of these special rituals, and that spaceship is carrying none other than her very alive mother. (TW sexual and racial trauma, racist language)
Narrator Note: Inés del Castillo is doing a ton of audio work right now, too. You may recognize her from A Taste of Sage by Yaffa S. Santos or Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas.
Latest Listens
Imperfect Women is a ride, yo. At the beginning of the book, we know that the uber wealthy and stunningly gorgeous Nancy has gone missing. It’s not long before she’s found dead, leaving behind a husband, a teenaged daughter and her two best friends: Mary, a wife and mother to three children, and Eleanor, who remains single and whose job at a charity routinely takes her all over the world.
Nancy’s death is very quickly determined to be the result of foul play but the identity of her killer is unclear. As the search for answers ensues and motives for killing Nancy surface left and right, Eleanor and Mary realize they may not have known their friend as well as they thought they did, nor do they really know each other or themselves.
I’ll start off by saying that this thriller is, for me at least, way more about the whydunnit than the whodunnit. I was still going back and forth about the killer until pretty much the end and though I did eventually guess it, the juiciest bits of the book are the ones that dive into the secret lives of women: how a well-polished appearance can obfuscate dark truths and unhappiness, the ways in which women are silenced and gaslit by the very people who are supposed to uplift them, how society claims to venerate motherhood and childrearing yet utterly fails to support women both in the home and in the workspace. It asks that really uncomfortable question: how well can you ever really know a person? Dive into this book and get ready to contemplate lots of moral grey area as you learn more and more unsavory bits about each of the characters’ imperfect lives.
Of course there’s the narration and I give that a thumbs up, too. Helen Keeley very deftly portrayed each character with distinction and tonal variety and just has one of those pleasant English accents my basic self loves so much.
From the Internets
POPSUGAR rounded up celebrity memoir audiobooks narrated by the authors themselves. Several titles are sort of predictable (but still fabulous): Born A Crime, Becoming, Kitchen Confidential (*takes a moment to sob*), but I hope more people will pick up personal faves like Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up and Gabourey Sidibe’s This Is Just My Face.
From The Guardian: why the rise of audiobooks is a story worth telling. (Say it with me now, Audiophiles: “Duh!”)
Libro.fm is killing it with these recent interviews: catch their convo with Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Stephen Graham Jones. Side note: these two wildly talented people have clearly conspired to prevent us from sleeping at night in 2020.
Over at the Riot
Bring on the drama! The family drama, that is.
What’s your audiobook speed? I have never ever been able to listen comfortably at anything above a 1.5 without feeling like I’m listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks (or las ardillitas if you grew up Mexican like me).
A little reinforcement of why audiobooks rock.
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
The Secret Women 
