Mass Effect: Initiation

By: N. K. Jemisin, Mac Walters

Narrated by: Fryda Wolff

Directed by: Ryan Burke

Lieutenant Cora Harper joined the Systems Alliance to develop and enhance her powerful biotic talents. She was assigned to the asari commando unit Talein’s Daughters, where she honed her abilities to become a skilled and deadly huntress.

Returning to Earth, Cora finds herself a stranger among other humans, and joins the Andromeda Initiative as Alec Ryder’s second-in-command. The mission will send 100,000 colonists on a one-way, 600-year-long journey into the unknown. When essential – and dangerous – tech is stolen, Cora is assigned to recover it before it can be used against the Initiative, and end the mission before it can begin.

After You Left

By: Carol Mason

Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden

Directed by: Ryan Burke

When Justin walks out on Alice on their honeymoon, with no explanation apart from a cryptic note, Alice is left alone and bewildered, her life in pieces.

Then she meets Evelyn, a visitor to the gallery where she works. It’s a seemingly chance encounter, but Alice gradually learns that Evelyn has motives, and a heartbreaking story, of her own. And that story has haunting parallels with Alice’s life.

My Darling Detective

By: Howard Norman

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

Directed by: Ryan Burke

Jacob Rigolet – a soon-to-be former assistant to a wealthy art collector – looks up from his seat at an auction to see his mother, the former head librarian at the Halifax Free Library, walking almost casually up the aisle. Before a stunned audience, she flings an open jar of black ink at master photographer Robert Capa’s Death on a Leipzig Balcony. What’s more, Jacob’s police detective fiancée, Martha Crauchet, is assigned to the ensuing interrogation.

Pour Me

By: A. A. Gill

Narrated by: Dougray Scott

Directed by: Ryan Burke

A. A. Gill’s memoir begins in the dark of a dormitory with six strangers. He is an alcoholic, dying in the last-chance saloon – driven to dry out, not out of a desire to change but mainly through weariness. He tells the truth – as far as he can remember it – about drinking and about what it is like to be drunk.

Pour Me is about the blackouts, the collapse, the despair: ‘Pockets were a constant source of surprise – a lamb chop, a votive candle, earrings, notes written on paper and ripped from books’ and even, once, a pigeon. ‘Morning pockets,’ he says, ‘were like tiny crime scenes.’ He recalls the lost days, lost friends, failed marriages…. But there was also ‘an optimum inebriation, a time when it was all golden, when the drink and the pleasure made sense and were brilliant’.

Sin with Me

By: Johnathan McClain, JA Huss

Narrated by: Tad Branson, Ava Erickson

Directed by: Ryan Burke

Two broken people in a city fueled by sin.

Maddie isn’t looking to be saved. She knows the only person you can count on is yourself. Her moral compass might not point true north these days – but at least she’s still standing.

The military taught Tyler about loyalty. Being there for your brothers is the only thing that matters – but when it mattered most, he wasn’t. She’s got a ticket straight to hell. He’s already been there and back. She needs to win. He just needs to stop fighting.

A Marriage in Dog Years

By: Nancy Balbirer

Narrated by: Nancy Balbirer

Directed by: Ryan Burke

When Nancy Balbirer learns her beloved eleven-year-old beagle has kidney failure, she’s devastated. She and her husband had gotten Ira as a puppy – a wedding gift to each other, and their first foray into “parenthood.” Now, her dog is terminal, her marriage is on life support, and Nancy is desperate to save them both (whether they want it or not). In a single year, she loses her two best friends, but Nancy’s life is about to take yet another unexpected turn.

With humor and heart, Nancy Balbirer shares her story of relationships, loss, and canine friendship in this illuminating memoir about the lengths people will go to keep love alive…and the power of finally letting go.