Audiobooks 10/08

If you’ve been rocking with me for a minute, you know that I only just read Practical Magic last year. I was immediately obsessed and saved Hoffman’s The Rules of Magic for this year’s October witch reading, inhaled that, and am now elbow deep in this prequel to both of those reads. Here we go way way back and learn the story of the OG Owens witch Maria, and find out what the deal really is with the Owens curse.

Read by Sutton Foster (Older: A Younger Novel by Pamela Redmond, and she’s also also the star of the Younger TV adaptation!)

This book, yo! What a feat. In 1714 France, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to avoid the arranged marriage and small-town life that await her. That bargain is seemingly the answer to her prayers: she’ll live forever and on her terms—but will henceforth be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Read by Julia Whelan (Educated by Tara Westover, Beach Read by Emily Henry, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid)

In a total departure from Alam’s previous work, this chilling 2020 National Book Award finalist book follows a middle-class white family on vacation in a remote part of Long Island. Their plan to relax and escape both the city and their problems is disrupted when the owners of the rental, an older Black couple, come knocking in the middle of the night after a massive blackout has left the city in the lurch. There’s no cell phone service, no updates, and the two families are forced to navigate the crisis together. But can they trust each other?

Read by Marin Ireland (Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, Anxious People by Fredrik Backman and my latest listen, too!)

Lady Sherlock is my favorite Sherlock! In this fifth book in the Lady Sherlock series, Charlotte Holmes investigates a murder case that implicates Scotland Yard inspector Robert Treadles. I inhaled this book in two days: I’ll take any excuse to read a mystery set in Victorian England, especially when the protagonist is an empowered woman living on her terms and who never, ever turns down a slice of delicious cake.

Read by Kate Reading (A Study in Scarlet Women and the rest of the book in the Lady Sherlock series, The Witching Hour by Anne Rice)

Can I get an amen for fat positive romance?? This is a rom-com set in the world of TV fanfic. April Whittier is a a scientist who writes fan fiction of her favorite show and cosplays in her free time. When she goes on an unexpected date with Marcus, the show’s star and her celebrity crush, she has no idea that he secretly posts fanfiction of his own. 

Read by Isabelle Ruther (Vampire Valentine by Lynsay Sands, Another by Fiona Cole)

This feels like an excellent companion read for Mikki Kendall’s Hood Feminism in its examination of the ways in which modern feminism movements have excluded women of color. “Discussing subjects as varied as The Hunger Games, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the viral BBQ Becky video, and 19th-century lynchings of Mexicans in the American Southwest, Ruby Hamad undertakes a new investigation of gender and race. She shows how the division between innocent White women and racialized, sexualized women of color was created and why this division is crucial to confront.” Time to do some examination.

Read by Mozhan Marnò (The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd, The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali)

I went from never having read Alice Hoffman to fangirling her unapologetically in the course of a year. This book was added to my TBR the very day I finished Practical Magic, but something made me wait to read it until this year and it was such perfect timing.

The Rules of Magic is sandwiched between Magic Lessons and Practical Magic with a setting at the cusp of the 60s in New York. Susanna Owens has three children and it’s clear from the very beginning that they’re very, very unique. There’s headstrong and difficult Franny; shy, beautiful, romantic Jet; and Vincent, a charismatic trouble seeker. Susanna has set down rules for her children from the get-go: “No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And, most importantly, never, ever fall in love.” But when the siblings visit their aunt Isabelle for the summer in in the small Massachusetts town where she lives, they finally begin to understand the truth of who they are and the stock them come from.

I went into the book expecting fall and witchy vibes, and I got all of that in droves. I also got an enchanting, heartbreaking, and inspiring story full of fierce and complicated women, the unshakeable bonds of sisterhood (and siblinghood in general), plus that deep, deep kind of love that follows you even when you try to deny it, and of course: magic. I am diving right into Magic Lessons right away, I just must have more of this story.

As I teased earlier, this one is read by Marin Ireland. She does a phenomenal job at voicing each of the characters. She gave me chills in the quiet moments of sadness and grief, then gave me courage when she embodied the bravery and resilience of the Owens women.