Take a Break from Reality: 9 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Audiobooks to Listen to This August

We’re enjoying the last lazy days of summer by catching up on sequels to our favorite classics like Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah and Robert Jordan’s The Great Hunt. Also on our August listen-list are exciting new releases like Courtney Gould’s debut thriller, The Dead and the Dark, and Charlie Jane Anders’ practical guide to storytelling, Never Say You Can’t Survive.

You can purchase the audiobooks here.

• THE DEAD AND THE DARK by Courtney Gould | read by Soneela Nankani

 

Courtney Gould’s thrilling YA debut The Dead and the Dark is about the things that lurk in dark corners, the parts of you that can’t remain hidden, and about finding home in places—and people—you didn’t expect.

 

The Dark has been waiting—and it won’t stay hidden any longer.

Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn’t normal, and all fingers point to TV’s most popular ghost hunters who have just come to town.

Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV’s ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite before. But the moment she and her dads arrive, she starts to get the feeling that there’s more than ghosts plaguing this small town. Ashley Barton’s boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and she’s felt his ghost following her ever since. Although everyone shuns the Ortiz-Woodleys, the mysterious Logan may be the only person who can help Ashley get some answers.

When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who—or what—is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for. As the danger intensifies, they realize that their growing feelings for each other could be a light in the darkness

• FORESTBORN by Elayne Audrey Becker | read by Sofia Zervudachi

 

A young, orphaned shapeshifter in a world that fears magic must risk everything if she hopes to save her only friend in Elayne Audrey Becker’s Forestborn, first in a new fantasy series with a timeless feel.

TO BE BORN OF THE FOREST IS A GIFT AND A CURSE.

Rora is a shifter, as magical as all those born in the wilderness—and as feared. She uses her abilities to spy for the king, traveling under different guises and listening for signs of trouble.

When a magical illness surfaces across the kingdom, Rora uncovers a devastating truth: Finley, the young prince and her best friend, has caught it, too. His only hope is stardust, the rarest of magical elements, found deep in the wilderness where Rora grew up—and to which she swore never to return.

But for her only friend, Rora will face her past and brave the dark, magical wood, journeying with her brother and the obstinate, older prince who insists on coming. Together, they must survive sentient forests and creatures unknown, battling an ever-changing landscape while escaping human pursuers who want them dead. With illness gripping the kingdom and war on the horizon, Finley’s is not the only life that hangs in the balance

• THE LAST LEGACY by Adrienne Young | read by Suzy Jackson

 

New York Times bestselling author Adrienne Young returns with The Last Legacy, a captivating standalone about family and blood ties, reinventing yourself, and controlling your own destiny.

When a letter from her uncle Henrick arrives on Bryn Roth’s eighteenth birthday, summoning her back to Bastian, Bryn is eager to prove herself and finally take her place in her long-lost family.

Henrik has plans for Bryn, but she must win everyone’s trust if she wants to hold any power in the delicate architecture of the family. It doesn’t take long for her to see that the Roths are entangled in shadows. Despite their growing influence in upscale Bastian, their hands are still in the kind of dirty business that got Bryn’s parents killed years ago. With a forbidden romance to contend with and dangerous work ahead, the cost of being accepted into the Roths may be more than Bryn can pay.

• THE EXILED FLEET by J. S. Dewes | read by Andrew Eiden and Nicol Zanzarella

 

S. Dewes continues her fast paced, science fiction action adventure with The Exiled Fleet, where The Expanse meets The Black Company—the survivors of The Last Watch refuse to die.

The Sentinels narrowly escaped the collapsing edge of the Divide.

They have mustered a few other surviving Sentinels, but with no engines they have no way to leave the edge of the universe before they starve.

Adequin Rake has gathered a team to find the materials they’ll need to get everyone out.

To do that they’re going to need new allies and evade a ruthless enemy. Some of them will not survive.

 

• CAZADORA by Romina Garber | read by Sol Madariaga

 

In Cazadora, Romina Garber weaves together Argentine folklore and what it means to be illegal in a timely, intimate, and emotionally powerful narrative.

Werewolves. Witches. Romance. Resistance.

Enter a world straight out of Argentine folklore…

Following the events of Lobizona, Manu and her friends cross the mystical border into Kerana—a cursed realm in Argentina—searching for allies and a hiding place. As they chase down leads about the Coven—a mythical resistance manada that might not even exist—the Cazadores chase down leads about Manu, setting up traps to capture and arrest her.

Just as it seems the Cazadores have Manu and her friends cornered, the Coven answers their call for help. As Manu catches her breath among these non-conforming Septimus, she discovers they need a revolution as much as she does.

But is she the right one to lead them? After all, hybrids aren’t just outlawed. They’re feared and reviled. What happens when the Coven learns of Manu’s dual heritage? Will they still protect her? Or will they betray her?

And after running this far, for this long—how much farther can Manu go before her feet get tired, and she stops to take a stand?

• A HEART DIVIDED by Jin Yong | translated by Gigi Chang and Shelly Bryant | read by Daniel York Loh

 

A Heart Divided is the next in the high stakes, tension-filled epic Legends of the Condor Heroes series, where kung fu is magic, kingdoms vie for power and the battle to become the ultimate kung fu master unfolds.

China: 1200 A.D.

In the fourth and final volume of Legends of the Condor Heroes, Guo Jing is at last forced to make a choice between loyalty to the land of his birth and keeping faith with Genghis Khan, who has been like a father to him. When it comes to matters of the heart, trouble waters stir there as well when Guo Jin’s love for Lotus Huang is tested when he becomes convinced that her father has murdered someone dear to him.

As the Mongol armies descend on China, Jin Yong brings this most beloved of his novels to a thrilling conclusion, complete with vast battles, stirring heroism, heartbreak, triumph and loss.

• NEVER SAY YOU CAN’T SURVIVE by Charlie Jane Anders | read by the author

 

From Charlie Jane Anders, the award-winning author of novels such as All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night, this is one of the most practical guides to storytelling that you will ever hear.

The world is on fire.

So tell your story.

Things are scary right now. We’re all being swept along by a tidal wave of history, and it’s easy to feel helpless. But we’re not helpless: we have minds, and imaginations, and the ability to visualize other worlds and valiant struggles. And writing can be an act of resistance that reminds us that other futures and other ways of living are possible.

Full of memoir, personal anecdote, and insight about how to flourish during the present emergency, Never Say You Can’t Survive is the perfect manual for creativity in unprecedented times.

• THE GREAT HUNT by Robert Jordan | Read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer

 

Soon to be an original series starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine!

Robert Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time®, continues as Rand al’Thor and his companions set out to retrieve a powerful magical artifact from The Dark One’s Shadowspawn in The Great Hunt.

For centuries, gleemen have told the tales of The Great Hunt of the Horn. So many tales about each of the Hunters, and so many Hunters to tell of…

Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages.

And it is stolen.

In pursuit of the thieves, Rand al’Thor is determined to keep the Horn out of the grasp of The Dark One. But he has also learned that he is The Dragon Reborn—the Champion of Light destined to stand against the Shadow time and again. It is a duty and a destiny that requires Rand to uncover and master magical capabilities he never imagined he possessed.

Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The last six books in series were all instant #1 New York Times bestsellers, and The Eye of the World was named one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.The Wheel of Time®

• DUNE MESSIAH by Frank Herbert | read by Scott Brick, Katherine Kellgren, Euan Morton, and Simon Vance

 

The bestselling science fiction series of all time continues! Frank Herbert’s second installment explores new developments on the desert planet Arrakis, with its intricate social order and its strange threatening environment. Dune Messiah picks up the story of the man known as Maud’dib, heir to a power unimaginable, bringing to fruition an ambition of unparalleled scale: the centuries-old scheme to create a superbeing who reigns not in the heavens but among men. But the question is: Do all paths of glory lead to the grave?

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You can purchase all of the audiobooks here.

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

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