Release Week: 16 December 2025

Release Week: 16 December 2025

Posted on 2025-12-16 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

Congrats!

PICKS:

* Slayers of Old by Jim C. Hines, read by Nancy Wu, Paul Bellantoni, and Courtney Patterson for Brilliance Audio -- "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Golden Girls in this humorous contemporary standalone fantasy about a group of former Chosen Ones coming out of retirement to save the world one last time."

* The Curse of the Cole Women by Marielle Thompson, read by Carrie Coello for Tantor -- "The Cole women are cursed. Each generation will birth a daughter, lose their love, and, as surely as the tide beats against the rocky shore, take her own life by giving herself to the sea. For generations, the Cole women have lived as outcasts, maintaining a lighthouse on a small island off the coast of New Hampshire. Ever since their ancestor was accused of witchcraft and cast into the sea hundreds of years prior, the islanders have ostracized the Coles, distrusting their rumored magic and their control of the lighthouse."

* The Northern: A Novel by Jacob McArthur Mooney, read by Peter Outerbridge for ECW Press -- "It is the summer of 1952 and three men—well, one man and two boys—are on a spiritual and commercial mission. Dispatched from Minnesota to Western Ontario, they have been hired by an upstart Mormon baseball card company to find licensees for their products among the young men filing out Korean War-era rosters in the Northern League, at the bottom-most rung of professional baseball. What the Northern has for them, and the secrets and deceptions they have for each other, will drive their two weeks in Canada into ever-growing chaos."

* Other Evolutions: A Novel by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia, read by Raffa Virago for ECW Press -- "Alma Alt, the sheltered youngest daughter of an interfaith, interracial Jewish-Mexican couple, rarely ventures far from her home on a wealthy tree-lined street in Ottawa, where nothing ever happens. The one time she did, striking out to visit her older sister, Marnie, in Montreal, things ended in disaster as she found out that beautiful, blonde Marnie had been lying about their family’s background, trying to pass herself off as white. The unintended fallout from that betrayal leads to a devastating accident, one that claims Alma’s arm and someone’s life. Alma is now stuck in a holding pattern, unable to move past the grief, trauma, and injury she suffered that night, all while the bonds that hold her family together crumble, the guilt and resentment between the sisters simmering beneath the surface. But Alma’s life is turned upside down by an encounter just steps from home with an impossible person, the boy she watched die."

BACKLIST WATCH:

* The Simulacra Philip K. Dick Recorded Books

* Now Wait For Last Year Philip K. Dick Recorded Books

TIE-IN WATCH:

* Halo: Edge Of Dawn Kelly Gay Simon & Schuster Audio / Halo Books

MOST MISSING:

* Skull X Bones edited by David B. Coe and Joshua Palmatier (Zombies Need Brains) -- "Authors Steven Harper, Alex Bledsoe, Alan Smale, E.J. Delaney, Violette Malan, Adam Stemple, Nemo Herndon, Alena Van Arendonk, Gloria Wickman, R.S. Belcher, Jennifer Brozek, R.M. Olson, Misty Massey, and C.C. Finlay immerse us in the worlds of privateers, buccaneers, corsairs, marauders, and pirates. So strap on a blade or flintlock or laser and keep a keen eye on the horizon. Because dead men DO tell tales, and here there be monsters of the deep."

* The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Seventeen edited by Ellen Datlow (Night Shade) -- "Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night."

(in progress)

Songs and Stories of Ulster Marty Cullen BBC Audio

The Amber Owl: Heartwood, Book 1 Juliet Mariller Bolinda

Testimony of Mute Things Lois McMaster Bujold Blackstone Publishing

The Web Beneath the Waves Samanth Subramanian Random House Audio

The Fall of Affirmative Action Justin Driver Random House Audio

Death's Acre Bill Bass Penguin Audio

The Global Forest Diana Beresford-Kroeger Penguin Audio

The End of Ordinary Edward Ashton Harper

No True Way: All-New Tales of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey. read by a full cast for Stonehenge

Posted in Release Week