Even if you've never listened to the podcast on which this gripping production is based, fear not: Fink's audiobook is so effectively scary that it's easy to binge-listen to on its own. Throughout, Jasika Nicole's narration is effectively subtle. Keisha is searching for her wife, Alice, who is presumed dead. Her search requires scouring a landscape of dark highways, empty... Read More

While Mark Griffin's carefully researched story of Rock Hudson's life is not very enjoyable in the usual sense because of its multilayered sadness, Jeremy Arthur's skillful narration makes the biography quite moving. While shedding little new light or additional information, it is still a cut above many other Hudson bios in its refusal to exploit scandal or salaciousness.... Read More

Writer Keise Laymon (HOW TO SLOWLY KILL YOURSELF AND OTHERS IN AMERICA) narrates his memoir of growing up in the South, focusing on his fraught relationship with his mother and its effect on his life. He employs a colloquial, painful tone to declare the revelatory discomforts of their relationship. Yet he intentionally plays with language, utilizing repetition at times. His... Read More

A stellar cast of seven narrators takes turns performing this collection of shorter pieces by science-fiction novelist Jemisin. Each narrator drills down to the core of the story, developing believable accents and highlighting the characters' personalities. Listeners will be impressed with how complete each story feels, almost as if this were a collection of novellas. Jemisin... Read More

Naturalist and bestselling author Sy Montgomery narrates her memoir on animals that have shaped her life and her understanding of the world. She taps the full range of experience: Her stories are engaging and touching, humorous and terribly sad. Montgomery's narration captures her deep sense of wonder and affection for the creatures she studies--from Octavia the octopus to a... Read More

This is an audiobook for people who want to know who was Beyoncé before Beyoncé, or Madonna before Madonna. Josephine Baker led a life that sounds more like that of a character in great literature than a groundbreaking entertainer, civil rights champion, and possible spy. But Baker was all of this and more. She was an international star, and Jones's fictionalized account of her... Read More

Listeners will be slowly drawn into the story of Melmoth the Witness, aided by Jan Cramer's deliberate and eerie narration. Helen Franklin, a briskly voiced woman living in present-day Prague with an eccentric older woman as her roommate, allows herself few pleasures as punishment for a transgression she committed decades ago. When a scholar friend leaves Helen documents he... Read More

Complex. Challenging. Enigmatic. While Burns's Man Booker Prize-winning novel earns those labels honestly, this performance adds another adjective: exceptional. Brid Brennan's portrayal of the unnamed "middle sister" is arresting. Her gorgeously accented voice balances honesty and innocence with toughness and stubbornness. This production keeps the listener in the moment while... Read More

Elizabeth Berg's heartwarming performance of her follow-up to THE STORY OF ARTHUR TRULUV centers on the lives of Lucille, Iris, Monica, Abigail, and a host of well-characterized Mason, Missouri, personalities. Berg envelops listeners with companionable warmth as she recounts the women's search for love, validation, and new beginnings in their small town. Iris, desirous of a... Read More

Nine people seeking escape gather at a health resort for a ten-day retreat, but the fanatical resort director's devotion to "transformation" leads to some surprising turns. Narrator Caroline Lee's animated performance brings listeners along as the story changes perspective; all the guests, plus the resort's three staff members, have point-of-view chapters. Lee is especially... Read More

Julia Whelan masterfully narrates the quiet everyday moments of a new world in which people live like settlers. Her voice rises in tones of shock, urgency, passion, and vulnerability when the new normal is tested by raiders and purity warriors that exist "post Doom." This second book of a trilogy features young Fallon Swift, who is both sheltered and wise beyond her years.... Read More

It's easy to become immersed in this audiobook about a river and its neighbors. At the center of the tale is a young girl who was retrieved from the river, apparently dead. Yet, somehow, she revived and lives, but does not speak. From that beginning, this novel grows into an examination of the lives of the people in the village. Juliet Stevenson is simply an excellent narrator.... Read More