Release Week: 9 June 2026

Release Week: 9 June 2026

Posted on 2026-06-09 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Contrapposto: A Novel by Dave Eggers, read by Dion Graham -- "A sweeping novel about friendship, love, and the lifelong pursuit of art."

• The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones: A Novel by Lex Croucher, read by Ellise Chappell -- "An extraordinary dark academia fantasy about dangerous privilege, corrupted power, and two former best friends caught on opposite sides of the secrets rotting at the heart of Britain’s most prestigious boarding school."

• Cat Love: A Novel by Tomás Q. Morín, read by Kaniehtiio Horn and John Detty -- "The indelible cat heroine of this unexpected tale recalls her life with “the Mustache,” her beloved owner. Trapped in a one-way mirrored box, displayed in a classroom for people who must contemplate her fate as part of their training to become “Emotional Support Humans,” she weaves a self-soothing paean to the poetry, music, and creature comforts she shared with her Mustache—the best products of a society that has gone off the rails in its violence and intolerance."

• Obstetrix by Naomi Kritzer, read by Jennifer Pickens -- "Doctor Liz has just been acquitted for performing the last abortion in North Dakota when she's kidnapped. They're not just any kidnappers, but a fundamentalist cult, deep in the rural west, without respect for law or decency, and in desperate need of an OB/GYN. Guarded, isolated, without access to the outside world, Liz nevertheless is treated with respect as the only doctor on the compound, but she is very aware of what happened to the last obstetrician they kidnapped. She must escape, and bring help to the girls trapped at the compound, if it's the last thing she does."

• Feast by Catherine Kurtz, read by Anushka Chakravarti -- "In nineteenth-century France, a young woman with a magical sense of taste saves a duc from poison, and her new role as poison taster thrusts her into the world of the nobility, where secrets and danger lurk around every corner."

• I'll Take the Fire: A Novel by Leila Slimani, translated by Sam Taylor, read by Lara Sawalha -- "From one of the boldest and most captivating voices in world literature, a sensual and provocative coming-of-age novel about a young Arab woman on a quest for sexual and political freedom."

• The Traveler by Joseph Eckert, read by Ray Porter -- "It’s a day like any other when Scott Treder first jumps forward through time. One moment, he’s on his way to work, fingers drumming the steering wheel. The next, he’s tumbling head-long down the road, his car gone, a dozen panicked voicemails from his wife waiting on his cell."

• We Hexed the Moon: A Novel by Mollyhall Seeley, read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw -- "Bunny meets The Craft in this speculative debut about four best friends who perform a ritual on the moon in a last-ditch attempt to hold onto one another but are forced to reckon with the consequences."

• This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite by Jennifer Saint, read by Lydia Leonard -- "The epic, captivating tale of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who must reconcile her mind and heart when she is drawn against all odds to Ares, the god of war."

• Daughters of the Sun and Moon: A Novel by Lisa See, read by Jennifer Lim -- "The story of three Chinese women whose unexpected friendship helps them survive and, despite the odds, thrive, in the turmoil of post-Civil War Los Angeles."

• Social Animals by Camille Perri, read by Ellen Adair and Mark Bramhall -- "Three women. One dog park. Things are about to get messy."

NON-FICTION WATCH:

• Freedom: Essays by Zinzi Clemmons, read by the author -- "A radically vulnerable and virtuosic inquiry into the pursuit of freedom and the interminable nature of struggle."

• Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America's Future by Fergus M. Bordewich, read by Sean Patrick Hopkins

• Two Ships: Jamestown 1619, Plymouth 1620, and the Struggle for the Soul of America by David S. Reynolds, read by Paul Bellantoni

POETRY WATCH:

• Birds of America: Poems by Chera Hammons, read by the author -- "An evocative, uplifting, and thoughtful collection of poems steeped in the natural world, examining life and healing in the aftermath of trauma."

BACKLIST PICKS:

• Believarexic by J.J. Johnson (2015), read by the author -- Blends fiction and memoir in a powerful package, very happy this has come to audio to accompany the new print edition: "Jennifer can’t go on like this—binging, purging, starving, and all while trying to appear like she’s got it all together. But when she finally confesses her secret to her parents and is hospitalized, her journey is only beginning. As Jennifer progresses through her treatment, she learns to recognize her relationship with food, and friends, and family—and how each is healthy or unhealthy. She has to learn to trust herself and her own instincts, but that’s easier than it sounds. She has to believe—after many years of being a believarexic."

• Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2019), read by David Thorpe -- "Humanity clings to life on a dying Earth in an epic, far-future science fiction novel from an award-winning author. The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity. Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan Advani: rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in the verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will meet with monsters, madmen, mutants. The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?"

SERIES WATCH:

• Inkpot Gods: Alchemical Journeys, Book 4 by Seanan McGuire, read by Amber Benson -- "More than a century has passed since Asphodel Baker refined the process allowing her to imbue alchemically created life with power in a way no one else had ever been able to achieve. More than a century since she built the Impossible City on the ruins of Olympus, forging it from nothing more than imagination and spite, and penned it in plain view, enabling it to be read and cherished and believed by children the world over. And now, so long after her exit from the world, the descendants of her dark alchemy—who exist in a reality that inches ever closer to the hellscape of her imagination—step into a place of birth, of discovery, of horror, to make amends for the sins of the past."

• Fleet of Ghosts: Destroyermen: Corps of Discovery, Book 1 by Taylor Anderson, read by PJ Ochlan -- "An expeditionary force will discover unfamiliar lands, fight deadly foes, and reveal secrets as they explore the mysterious new earth they now call home in this gripping alternate history adventure set in the world of the Destroyermen series."

OMNIBUS WATCH:

• After the End: Volumes 1-4 and After the End: Volumes 5-8 by Ali Hazelwood, Adriana Herrera, Nikki Payne, Nina Saxena, Claire Kent, Elizabeth Stephens, Cate C. Wells, and Sherry Thomas, read by a full cast

A few more on the watch list this week:

• The Newcomers By Pam Troy Narrated by Tanya Eby

• Modern Magic By Beth Williams Narrated by Sarah Kempton

• The Master of Puppets By Molly J. Bragg Narrated by Jennifer Pickens

• It Came from Neverland: A Novel By Cynthia Pelayo Narrated by Ella Lynch and Rory Barnett

• Ghostly Kyoto: 87 Supernatural Tales from Japan By Éric Faure Narrated by Brian Nishii

• The Gilded City of Dreams: A Novel By Luanne G. Smith Narrated by Jess Moran

• The Reimagining of Thornwood House By Jaleigh Johnson Narrated by Isuri Wijesundara

• Bone of My Bone By Johanna van Veen Narrated by Amy Noble

• The Witch’s Stone By Kirsty Ferry Narrated by Karen Cass

• Red Sheet: A Novel By James Ellroy Narrated by Craig Wasson

• The Courage to Commit: Embrace the Radical Power of Sticking with Something by Shawn Johnson and Andrew East, read by the authors

Posted in Release Week