Take a Break from Reality: 10 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Audiobooks to Listen to this September
Happy September! This month’s listen-list includes some of the fall’s most exciting new releases. Fans of horror will be interested in Lee Mandelo’s Southern Gothic, Summer Sons, while those looking for a quirky romance should check out Under The Whispering Door, the next audiobook from TJ Klune, author of The House in the Cerulean Sea. No matter what you’re in the mood for, there is an audiobook ready to take you on your next adventure.
You can purchase the audiobooks here.
• UNDER THE WHISPERING DOOR by TJ Klune | read by Kirt Graves
Under the Whispering Door is a contemporary fantasy with TJ Klune’s signature “quirk and charm” (PW) about a ghost who refuses to cross over and the ferryman he falls in love with.
When a reaper comes to collect Wallace Price from his own funeral, Wallace suspects he really might be dead.
Instead of leading him directly to the afterlife, the reaper takes him to a small village. On the outskirts, off the path through the woods, tucked between mountains, is a particular tea shop, run by a man named Hugo. Hugo is the tea shop’s owner to locals and the ferryman to souls who need to cross over.
But Wallace isn’t ready to abandon the life he barely lived. With Hugo’s help he finally starts to learn about all the things he missed in life.
When the Manager, a curious and powerful being, arrives at the tea shop and gives Wallace one week to cross over, Wallace sets about living a lifetime in seven days.
By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, this absorbing tale of grief and hope is told with TJ Klune’s signature warmth, humor, and extraordinary empathy.
• ONCE UPON A BROKEN HEART by Stephanie Garber | read by Rebecca Soler
Once Upon a Broken Heart marks the launch of a new series about love, curses, and the lengths that people will go to for happily ever after from Stephanie Garber, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Caraval
For as long as she can remember, Evangeline Fox has believed in true love and happy endings … until she learns that the love of her life will marry another.
Desperate to stop the wedding and to heal her wounded heart, Evangeline strikes a deal with the charismatic, but wicked, Prince of Hearts. In exchange for his help, he asks for three kisses, to be given at the time and place of his choosing.
But after Evangeline’s first promised kiss, she learns that bargaining with an immortal is a dangerous game—and that the Prince of Hearts wants far more from her than she’d pledged. He has plans for Evangeline, plans that will either end in the greatest happily ever after, or the most exquisite tragedy …
• MORDEW by Alex Pheby | read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
Alex Pheby’s Mordew launches an astonishingly inventive epic fantasy trilogy.
God is dead, his corpse hidden in the catacombs beneath Mordew.
In the slums of the sea-battered city, a young boy called Nathan Treeves lives with his parents, eking out a meagre existence by picking treasures from the Living Mud and the half-formed, short-lived creatures it spawns. Until one day his desperate mother sells him to the mysterious Master of Mordew.
The Master derives his magical power from feeding on the corpse of God. But Nathan, despite his fear and lowly station, has his own strength—and it is greater than the Master has ever known. Great enough to destroy everything the Master has built. If only Nathan can discover how to use it.
So it is that the Master begins to scheme against him—and Nathan has to fight his way through the betrayals, secrets, and vendettas of the city where God was murdered, and darkness reigns.
Propulsive, compulsively readable, full of unforgettable characters and a talking dog who wants to be a
philosopher, Mordew is an epic fantasy strange, new, and terrifyingly alive.
• THE HOLLOW HEART by Marie Rutkoski | read by Justine Eyre
Intrigue, romance, and magic abound in The Hollow Heart, the heart-stopping conclusion to Marie Rutkoski’s Forgotten Gods duology.
At the end of The Midnight Lie, Nirrim offered up her heart to the God of Thieves in order to restore her people’s memories of their city’s history. The Half Kith who once lived imprisoned behind the city’s wall now realize that many among them are powerful. Meanwhile, the person Nirrim once loved most, Sid, has returned to her home country of Herran, where she must navigate the politics of being a rogue princess who has finally agreed to do her duty.
In the Herrani court, rumors begin to grow of a new threat rising across the sea, of magic unleashed on the world, and of a cruel, black-haired queen who can push false memories into your mind, so that you believe your dearest friends to be your enemies.
Sid doesn’t know that this queen is Nirrim, who seeks her revenge against a world that has wronged her. Can Sid save Nirrim from herself? Does Nirrim even want to be saved? As blood is shed and war begins, Sid and Nirrim find that it might not matter what they want … for the gods have their own plans.
• SOME FARAWAY PLACE by Lauren Shippen | read by Alanna Fox and Charlie Ian
Some Faraway Place, the third Bright Sessions novel from creator Lauren Shippen, features Rose, who has her humdrum life flipped upside down when she starts to travel into dreams.
Rose Atkinson’s mother can see the future. Her father can move things he doesn’t touch. Her brother Aaron can read minds. And Rose, well, she makes a mean spaghetti bolognese.
Everyone else in her family is Atypical, which means they manifested an ability that defies the limits of the human experience. At nineteen, well past the average age of manifestation, Rose is stuck defending her decision not to go to college and instead working in the kitchen of a local restaurant, hoping to gain the experience she needs to become a chef.
When a rollerblading accident sends her to the hospital, she meets a girl she can’t forget and she starts to feel like maybe her life isn’t quite so small. But when she starts falling asleep mid-conversation, she thinks, then again maybe I’m doomed to never have good things.
Rose should be happy to learn that she’s Atypical after all—that diving into dreams makes her a part of her family in the way she always wanted. But the more time she spends in the dreamworld, the more complicated her ability becomes. Trying to balance her work, her power, and a girlfriend who doesn’t know about Atypicals, Rose seeks help. But she soon discovers that being Atypical comes with dangers she never could have imagined. Even her carefully constructed dreamworld isn’t safe.
This is the story of Atypical Rose, who discovers that your dreams coming true isn’t always a good thing.
• DUNE: THE LADY OF CALADAN by Brian Herbert & Keven J. Anderson | read by Scott Brick
From Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Dune: The Lady of Caladan is a brand new novel in the internationally bestselling Dune series.
Lady Jessica, mother of Paul, and consort to Leto Atredies. The choices she made shaped an empire, but first the Lady of Caladan must reckon with her own betrayal of the Bene Gesserit. She has already betrayed her ancient order, but now she must decide if her loyalty to the Sisterhood is more important than the love of her own family.
Meanwhile, events in the greater empire are accelerating beyond the control of even the Reverend Mother, and Lady Jessica’s family is on a collision course with destiny.
• INTO THE DYING LIGHT by Katy Rose Pool | Read by Todd Boyce
In the jaw-dropping conclusion to the Age of Darkness trilogy, hearts will shatter, cities will fall, and a god will rise.
Following the destruction of the City of Mercy, an ancient god has been resurrected and sealed inside Beru’s body. Both are at the mercy of the Prophet Pallas, who wields the god’s powers to subjugate the Six Prophetic Cities. But every day, the god grows stronger, threatening to break free and sow untold destruction.
Meanwhile, far away from Pallas Athos, Anton learns to harness his full powers as a Prophet. Armed with the truth about how the original Prophets killed the god, Anton leads Jude, Hassan, and Ephyra on a desperate quest to the edge of the world. With time running out, the group’s tenuous alliance is beset by mounting danger, tumultuous romance, and most of all by a secret that Anton is hiding: a way to destroy the god at the price of an unbearable sacrifice. But the cost of keeping that secret might be their lives—and the lives of everyone in the Six Prophetic Cities.
The Age of Darkness trilogy is perfect for fans of Throne of Glass, Children of Blood and Bone, and An Ember in the Ashes.
• LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS by Ryka Aoki | read by Cindy Kay
Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in Ryka Aoki’s Light From Uncommon Stars, a defiantly joyful adventure set in California’s San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.
Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.
When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate.
But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.
As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.
• SUMMER SONS by Lee Mandelo | read by Will Damron
Lee Mandelo’s debut Summer Sons is a sweltering, queer Southern Gothic that crosses Appalachian street racing with academic intrigue, all haunted by a hungry ghost.
Andrew and Eddie did everything together, best friends bonded more deeply than brothers, until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program at Vanderbilt. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom that hungers for him.
As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers the lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. Whirling between the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days and the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble, letting in the phantom that hungers to possess him.
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Check out the other amazing books you can listen to from our series with Macmillan Audio!
- 10 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Audiobooks To Listen to This April
- 10 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Audiobooks To Listen to This May
- 10 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Audiobooks To Listen to This June
- 10 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Audiobooks To Listen to This July
- 10 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Audiobooks To Listen to This August
- Of Galaxies, Sprinkles, and Glazes: Lessons from the Donut King and Science Fiction’s Golden Age
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