Audiobook

Soulless by Gail Carriger

November 19, 2019 Leave a Comment

10 hrs 48 mins | Hachette Audio | Paranormal | 10/1/2009

So, lol this book has been on my TBR shelf forever! It was in one of my early In My Mailbox’s nearly 8 years agoand I finally got around to reading it this year for book club.

Soulless is set in a steampunk Victorian London where supernaturals–werewolves, vampires and ghosts–live alongside humans. 26-year-old half-Italian spinster Alexia Tarrabotti isn’t a supernatural but she isn’t quite human either. She’s a preternatural–a rare person born with no soul and the ability to turn supernaturals human with just a touch. When supernaturals starting going missing Alexia decides to some investigation, much to the chagrin of Lord Maccon–the surly local werewolf Alpha and de facto head of the Bureau of Unnatural Registry (B.U.R).

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Ordinary Girls by Blair Thornburgh

August 23, 2019 Leave a Comment

368 pages | Contemporary YA | Harper Teen | Release Date: 06/04/2019

This book is made for every teenager who loves Jane Austen and the Brontë Sisters. Ordinary Girls is a send-up of Sense and Sensibility (you know….that Austen book our blog is named after and neither of us have read). It tells the story of the two totally opposite Blatchley sisters and their mother as they trt to save their old Victorian house.

Fifteen-year-old Plum Blatchtly is the most sensible of the group, she’s a dreamy introvert who often finds herself taking charge in her unconventional family and develops a sweet romance with the roguish boy from down the street. As a character, you can tell she idolizes the women of Austen’s time and her speech and cadence reflect that.

The Blatchley women are quirky, free-spirited and not above a humorous situation. From furniture-less dinner parties, broken water pipes and small fires they endure quite a year. Ordinary Girls is a well-meaning and earnest YA novel made for fans of the Jane Austen aesthetic.

Check out the audiobook review at AudioFile Magazine

You’d Be Mine by Erin Hahn

August 18, 2019 Leave a Comment

Unrated | 304 pages | Contemporary/Romance | Macmillian | Release Date: 4/2/2019

I’ve seen this book recommended as Nashville meets A Star Is Born which I don’t think is fair because this book was so much better than A Star is Born. Like, this book was what I wanted A Star Is Born to be. I will say music is my pop culture blind spot. I’m not a music person but I’m fascinated by media about music.

Annie Mathers’ is a bright, talented and humble country girl raised by two country music icons whose lives came to a tragic end six years ago. Now she’s is ready to head out on her own and tour with the bad boy of country music; Clay Coolidge. Clay and Annie become a sensation on tour with enough chemistry and talent to sell out stadiums.

What the world doesn’t know is that Clay Coolidge’s swaggering party frat boy persona is just an act that Jefferson Daniels wears to cover the pain of losing his brother and grandfather. The more Jefferson embraces “Clay” the more he sinks into depression and alcoholism and when Annie and her band join his tour for the summer, they pull him out of his siloed world and remind him what it is to be young, talented and free.

The characters in this book all have a lot of fun together, they form a bond only performers (and theater kids) can understand. Clay and Annie’s bands both have fiddlers who have an instant spark and passionate summer romance.

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Timekeeper by Tara Sim

July 9, 2019 Leave a Comment

8 hours 48 minutes | Fantasy | Skypony Press | Release Date: 11/8/2016

In Sim’s Victorian London clock towers do more than just tell time…they keep it moving. Danny Hart is London’s youngest clock mechanic and his job is to repair England’s many clock towers. But when Danny falls in love with the spirit of the Enfield clock tower their forbidden relationship could stop time forever.

Oh, and they solve a crime.

I kept hearing Eric Smith talk about this book on the Hey YA podcast so when I saw it at the library I decided to pick it up. This is such a unique genre-bending story. It’s got a steampunk setting with fantasy elements and some mystery beats. I will say, the rules about clock spirits and how they work and who can see them does fall apart if you look too hard. I’m a little afraid Sim will have to break her own rules to continue telling more stories in the series.

The audiobook is narrated by Gary Furlong (whose name kept making me think of the character in Veep) who gives a great performance and I highly rec this on audio. Furlong has this great arsenal of British male accents, although he only has about one female voice in him. I see he does some romances so I’ll have to check those out.

Even though Danny is 17-years-old I think this is a great YA for younger readers. It has interesting themes and questions without being too dark. Sims’ world is also inclusive. The clock spirit, Colton, is a boy and Danny being gay is part of his story but not the whole story. I do kind of side-eye the half Indian character who is constantly described as fair and blonde.

We Set The Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

June 29, 2019 Leave a Comment

9 hours 54 minutes| Dystopian YA | Harper Audio | Release Date: 2/26/2019

On the island of Medio, young women are trained to take up positions as sister wives to the island’s highest ranking men. 17-year-old Daniella Vargas is paired with her bully Carmen and the two are married to Mateo Garcia–a boy being groomed to become president of their island country.

Dani’s life looks picture perfect but she has a secret. She’s an illegal immigrant and was bought over from the wrong side of Medio’s border as a child. This secret makes her vulnerable to the resistance group La Voz, who begin blackmailing her for information to help their cause. As Dani embarks on this new life full of discovery and danger she begins to understand her own privilege and that there is more to life than what she ever imagined–including her feelings for her sister wife, Carmen.

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Book Review : The Care and Feeding of Ravenous Girls by Annisa Gray

June 18, 2019 Leave a Comment

304 pages | Berkeley | Adult Fiction | Release Date: 02/19/2019

I like a book with a really long title. Just throwing that out there.

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls is this blend of African-American, Women’s and Literary fiction that I’m starting to find myself drawn to more.

This is a very human story of the Butler siblings who are brought together after their seemingly perfect elder sister, Althea, and her husband Proctor are convicted of a crime that shakes up their small lakeside town.

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