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.

©2017 N. K. Jemisin (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

After You Left

By: Carol Mason

Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden

Directed by: Ryan Burke

You want to know what the worst thing is? It’s not the embarrassment, or the looks on people’s faces when I tell them what happened. It isn’t the pain of him not being there – loneliness is manageable.

The worst thing is not knowing why.

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.

As Alice delves into the mystery of why Justin left her, the questions are obvious. But the answers may lie in the most unlikely of places…

©2017 Carol Mason (P)2017 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

The Hate U Give

By: Angie Thomas

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Directed by: Ryan Burke

Every now and then a book comes along that speaks to your soul. Angie Thomas’ debut novel, The Hate U Give, is one such book. Each editor here has listened, and the feeling afterwards is unanimous – this is one of the best performances we’ve ever encountered. Thomas’ message is both timely and transcendent. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this book is important, necessary, fearless, and, quite simply, stunning.

Narrator Bahni Turpin manages to give voice to such a broad and rich cast of characters, each with their own authentic perspective, demonstrating the power of performance to bring new depth to a complex social issue.

Eight starred reviews ∙ William C. Morris Award Winner ∙ National Book Award Longlist ∙ Printz Honor Book ∙ Coretta Scott King Honor Book ∙ Number-One New York Times Best Seller!

“Absolutely riveting!” (Jason Reynolds)

“Stunning.” (John Green)

“This story is necessary. This story is important.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

“Heartbreakingly topical.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

“A marvel of verisimilitude.” (Booklist, starred review)

“A powerful, in-your-face novel.” (The Horn Book, starred review)

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does – or does not – say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

And don’t miss On the Come Up, Angie Thomas’s powerful follow-up to The Hate U Give.

©2017 Angela Thomas (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

What is an Odyssey you ask?

This annual award is given to the producer of the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults, available in English in the United States. The selection committee also selects honor titles. The Odyssey Award is jointly given and administered by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), divisions of ALA, and is sponsored by Booklist.

The selection committee consists of nine members: four members appointed by ALSC; four members appointed by YALSA; a chair, whose appointment alternates between ALSC and YALSA divisions; and a consultant from the staff of Booklist magazine who works with audiobooks. The consultant may participate fully in all book discussions but may not participate in voting.

What is an Audie you ask?

The Audie Awards® is the premier awards program in the United States recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. Publishers and rights holders enter titles in various categories for recognition of achievement. Finalists are selected, and then one winner is awarded in each category at the Audies Gala.

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.

In My Darling Detective, Howard Norman delivers a fond nod to classic noir, as Jacob’s understanding of the man he has always assumed to be his father unravels against the darker truth of Robert Emil, a Halifax police officer suspected but never convicted of murdering two Jewish residents during the shocking upswing of anti-Semitism in 1945. The denouement, involving a dire shootout and an emergency delivery – the second Rigolet to be born in the Halifax Free Library – is Norman at his provocative, uncannily moving best.

©2017 Howard Norman (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

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’.

Sobriety regained, there are painterly descriptions of people and places, unforgettable musings about childhood and family, art and religion, friendships and fatherhood and, most movingly, the connections between his cooking, dyslexia and his missing brother.

Full of raw and unvarnished truths, exquisitely written throughout, Pour Me is about lost time and self-discovery. Lacerating, unflinching, uplifting, it is a classic about drunken abandon.

Read by Dougray Scott.

2016, PEN Ackerley Prize, Short-listed

©2015 A. A. Gill (P)2017 Orion Publishing Group

What is the PEN Ackerly Prize you ask?

Offering a genuine shortlist of just three titles, the Ackerley Prize—now called the TLS Ackerley Prize—is focused, as you may recall, on memoir and autobiography.

the Ackerley Prize was established in 1982 in memory of JAR Ackerley (1896–1967), an author and longtime literary editor of The Listener magazine.

The honor is given annually to a literary autobiography by British author for a work published in the United Kingdom in the previous year.

The name change—to the TLS Ackerley Prize—reflects a new feature: The award now is to be given in partnership with the Times Literary Supplement and has been renamed the TLS Ackerley Prize, something announced in an event on Wednesday evening (June 25).

Until 2023, the program was known as the PEN Ackerley Prize. Presumably, the Times Literary Supplement connection provides viability lost after the English PEN association.

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.

Some sins scar your soul so deeply, you’ll never be the same.

But this devil in disguise might just be the angel he needs to forgive himself.

©2018 JA Huss & Johnathan McClain; 2018 Oh My Audiobooks (P)2018 Oh My Audiobooks

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.

©2018 Nancy Balbirer (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.