Every month, AudioFile Magazine reviewers and editors select the best new audiobooks for BookTrib’s readers. These award-winning February audiobooks are the perfect way to finish out the winter.
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
Read by Tanis Parenteau | AudioFile Earphones Award
Tanis Parenteau leaps right into narrating a chilling debut horror novel. Mackenzie wakes from a vivid nightmare clutching a crow’s head. Parenteau conveys all of Mackenzie’s anxiety, quickening her pace as recurring nightmares turn more sinister. Mackenzie lives far from her Cree family’s home in northern Alberta and hasn’t returned since her grandmother died, not even for her sister’s funeral. When her fears lead her home, each loving relative comes alive through Parenteau’s textured voice. The suspense mounts as Mackenzie and her family share secrets, racing to discover the deadly source of the nightmares.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
Every Man a King: King Oliver, Book 2 by Walter Mosley
Read by Dion Graham | AudioFile Earphones Award
Narrator Dion Graham excels in this sequel to the Edgar Award winner Down the River Unto the Sea. Family ties draw investigator Joe “King” Oliver into finding out whether someone has framed a white nationalist for a crime he didn’t commit. In a timely and thought-provoking story, Graham ratchets up the tension and pace as King peels layer upon layer of an onion that is rotten to the core. Graham shines as wealthy and violent forces push King to the limit.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions by Greta Thunberg
Read by Amelia Stubberfield, Greta Thunberg, Nicholas Khan, Olivia Forrest | AudioFile Earphones Award
The young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has a voice that rings with passion, palpable emotion, and earnest commitment. She is joined by a talented trio of English narrators who bring skill and understanding to these essays that sound the alarm about the shocking state of our warming planet. The audiobook describes how we’ve arrived at this state, calls out the perpetrators, prescribes what governments on all levels must do, and asks everyone to do their part. This anthology of experts, artists and, especially, the young woman influencing a generation is a clarion call.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
Small World by Laura Zigman
Read by Stacey Glemboski | AudioFile Earphones Award
Narrator Stacey Glemboski gives an extraordinary performance of this immersive family drama. Middle-aged sisters Joyce and Lydia, who are both divorced and childless, decide to live together in Joyce’s Cambridge apartment. Joyce’s defensive, prickly persona is wonderfully captured by Glemboski. She portrays Lydia’s social awkwardness in a light, impulsive tone. Glemboski splendidly depicts the sisters’ struggles with each other and with their fractured pasts. An exceptional performance enhances an honestly told and satisfying family story.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
Hell Bent: Alex Stern, Book 2 by Leigh Bardugo
Read by Lauren Fortgang, Michael David Axtell | AudioFile Earphones Award
Lauren Fortgang and Michael David Axtell return to narrate the second audiobook in the Alex Stern series. Determined to break her mentor, Darlington, out of the underworld, Alex teams up with unexpected allies in a forbidden ritual. The primary narrator, Fortgang voices Alex with overconfidence that masks her dark secrets and gives the demons a gravelly timbre full of believable menace. Axtell voices Darlington with outward poise and inward passion. This fervently delivered audiobook engrosses the listener through every twist and turn, making this sequel nearly impossible to pause.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
Winterland by Rae Meadows
Read by Daphne Kouma | AudioFile Earphones Award
In 1973 Russia, the State chose talented school children to pursue careers in either ballet or gymnastics. Daphne Kouma offers a beautiful performance, meticulously detailing 8-year-old Anya’s experiences. After Anya is chosen, we hear about her stresses, hopes, and dreams, as well as the damage to her body and mental state as she moves up the ranks of competitive gymnastics. Kouma’s credible Russian accents and outstanding character development make this a story filled with heart that listeners won’t soon forget.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater by Peggy Orenstein
Read by Peggy Orenstein | AudioFile Earphones Award
During the Covid lockdown, Peggy Orenstein, notable author and journalist, decided to knit a sweater from scratch — meaning she sheared the wool from the sheep, then washed, carded, spun and dyed it. With no prior experience, she intended to simply appreciate each step and accept the results. But during the process she learned many more things about herself and the human experience. Orenstein narrates her story with honesty and a dry wit, and listening to this inspired storyteller brings you right into the barn with her as she wrestles Martha the sheep into submission. The end result: a sweater of many colors.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
The Levee by William Kent Krueger
Read by JD Jackson, William Kent Krueger | AudioFile Earphones Award
Golden Voice narrator JD Jackson acts out Krueger’s dramatic audio-original novella, which is about the potential breach of a levee holding back torrents of water during the unprecedented flooding of the lower Mississippi River in 1927. Four men — three convicts temporarily released and a man named Quince Mobley — arrive by boat and work tirelessly. Jackson’s deep, gravelly voice pervades the performance. The raging river’s inexorable attacks are reflected in Jackson’s cadence as he adds emotional energy to the exhausting fight between men and the mighty Mississippi.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire
Read by Courtney Patterson | AudioFile Earphones Award
Courtney Patterson is an especially engaging narrator whose pleasingly expressive voice can make almost any topic palpable, including rats, mice and other vermin, though in some places elephants or cats are considered pests. The listener will be surprised to hear how deeply pests are wedded to the human ecosystem and the balance of nature generally. Patterson anchors her performance to the narrative’s lively first-person reporting, treating its loose assembly of chapters as a travelogue. Taking us from one research lab and one ecological site to another, listeners learn of all these snakes, coyotes, pigeons and other bothersome critters.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
The Fireballer by Mark Stevens
Read by Shea Taylor | AudioFile Earphones Award
Frank Ryder can throw a baseball well over 105 mph. But behind every pitch is an emotional weight that comes from a tragic event that happened years earlier. Ryder takes Major League Baseball by storm, but his past haunts him, and much of the league’s ownership turns on him. Shea Taylor is outstanding with every voice. Author Mark Stevens has created a well-written book with an intriguing premise and a fascinating plot that is shaped wonderfully by Taylor’s narration. Great baseball action, great writing, phenomenal narration.
Read the review on AudioFile’s website.
This story appears through BookTrib’s partnership with AudioFile and contains material originating from the AudioFile website.