Each month, AudioFile Magazine reviewers and editors handpick the best new audiobooks for BookTrib readers. With summer heating up, cool down with some of this month’s top-rated audiobooks!
NEVER FLINCH: Holly Gibney, Book 4 by Stephen King
Read by Jessie Mueller, Stephen King [Afterword] | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Simon & Schuster Audio | 14.75 hrs.]
Jessie Mueller provides a rich, satisfying performance that should please fans of King’s audiobooks, particularly his most recent works. By now, King has fully embraced the detective genre. Private investigator Holly Gibney is back — with her dizzying intellect, ability to think through tough cases, and relatable quirks. Mueller fully embodies the many diverse voices that make up Gibney’s world of the Finders Keepers detective agency.
THE ARTIST AND THE FEAST by Lucy Steeds
Read by Tanya Reynolds | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Hachette Audio | 11 hrs.]
Tanya Reynolds gives this stunning novel a luminous performance. Budding journalist Joseph Adelaide is invited to interview the world-famous, notoriously reclusive painter Edouard Tartuffe. “Tata” lives in isolation in Provence with his niece, Ettie. Ettie caters to him, doing everything from answering his mail to cutting his hair while silently enduring his rages, cruelty, and jealousy. Reynolds deftly presents gorgeous descriptions of the French countryside, deliciously rendering the colorful foods Tata uses as inspiration for his paintings.
SNAP by Susin Nielsen
Read by Carol Schneider | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Harper Audio | 9.75 hrs.]
Carol Schneider performs the many voices in this comic novel with a sure sense of its humor and pathos. She does accents well, shifts smoothly among the many characters, and gives a distinct tone and tempo to the three leads, who meet and bond at an anger management class: children’s author Frances Partridge, whose “snap” occurs at a middle school; auto mechanic Geraint Blevins, who reacts creatively to his unctuous boss having bedded his wife; and the youthful Parker Poplawski, who responds angrily to a TV star’s obscene advances.
THE MADEMOISELLE ALLIANCE by Natasha Lester
Read by Saskia Maarleveld | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 12 hrs.]
In this riveting work of historical fiction, listeners learn about the remarkable exploits of French Resistance leader Marie-Madeleine Fourcade and her intrepid agents who supplied vital information to the Allies during the dark days of WWII. Narrator Saskia Maarleveld tells this story in a hushed voice and conspiratorial tone. The plot moves swiftly, and listeners follow incidents of bravery, cunning, betrayal, heartbreak, and romance. This is a story that deserves to be told, and this audiobook tells it well.
WHERE THE RIVERS MERGE by Mary Alice Monroe
Read by Mary Alice Monroe, Jenna Lamia, Cassandra Campbell | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Harper Audio | 12.5 hrs.]
Octogenarian Eliza Pickney is the matriarch of her vast homestead in the lush South Carolina Low Country, and her plan to preserve the family land in a conservancy disrupts her descendants’ expectation of inheritance. The story unfolds in two timelines: Jenna Lamia charmingly narrates Eliza’s stories from her early life, while Cassandra Campbell superbly portrays Eliza in her late 80s. The final section, beautifully delivered by the author, sheds light on the history behind the story.
BAD NATURE by Ariel Courage
Read by Cia Court | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Macmillan Audio | 9 hrs.]
Narrator Cia Court’s portrayal of a troubled woman’s journey of self-discovery is intriguing and engaging. Heather literally flees from her terminal cancer prognosis with a cross-country road trip and a final confrontation with her absent father over his real and imagined sins. Listeners feel Heather’s anger over learning her fate and her refusal to surrender to despair, and eventually her true humanity and apprehension emerge.
THE OTHER PEOPLE by C.B. Everett
Read by Heather Long, Kaffe Keating | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Simon & Schuster Audio | 10.75 hrs.]
Kaffe Keating and Heather Long give masterful performances of Everett’s debut thriller about 10 strangers who have been kidnapped and brought to a mysterious house. Keating’s and Long’s nimble narration of strangers who range from an arrogant army captain to an ornery, lonely woman and a young, single mom with an infant daughter is full-bodied and keeps listeners invested. Listeners will appreciate Everett’s nod to Agatha Christie’s renowned work AND THEN THERE WERE NONE.
A LITTLE DAYLIGHT LEFT: Poems by Sarah Kay
Read by Sarah Kay | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 2.5 hrs.]
Some of the poems in this collection were recorded at a reading in New York City, where Kay grew up. Her hometown is also one of her subjects. In those recordings, she connects with her audience, and we can hear the joy that she and they share in her very fine readings of her very fine poetry. It’s refreshing to hear a poet enjoying herself even when she is revealing some of her deepest feelings and finding ways to connect with listeners.
LITTLE BOSSES EVERYWHERE: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America by Bridget Read
Read by Nikki Massoud | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Random House Audio | 11 hrs.]
Multilevel marketing companies such as Mary Kay and Amway promise the freedom, security, and status of being your own boss but seldom deliver on those promises. This gripping audiobook reveals the industry’s misleading recruitment practices, financial tricks, and cunning social manipulation. Nikki Massoud narrates with documentary seriousness that resonates with every personal story and shady practice in this extensive history. Her understated performance demonstrates an impressive ability to adjust her vocal attitude to the large and small revelations as they unfold.
ON ISABELLA STREET by Genevieve Graham
Read by Liz Leafloor, Erin Moon | AudioFile Earphones Award
[Simon & Schuster Audio | 15.5 hrs.]
Set in 1967 in Toronto with scenes in Vietnam, this historical novel is performed admirably and authentically with Canadian inflections throughout by Liz Leafloor and Erin Moon. They deliver the voices and styles of both women and men in just the right tones and cadences. This matters in a novel that jumps from war protest to a psych ward and to the jungles of Vietnam. The plot involves the unlikely friendship of two women who live on the same floor in an Isabella Street apartment building.
