Audiobooks 12/24

This is the second book in the YA fantasy Camelot Rising series, which reimagines, as you may have guessed, Arthurian legend. In The Guinevere Deception, we first meet Guinevere, except she isn’t who we think she is: she’s a changeling come to Camelot to protect the kingdom, her real name and true identity a secret even to herself (not a spoiler). The Camelot Betrayal finds Guinevere trying to find her place in her adopted kingdom as she grapples with the price of progress and her own search for meaning. All the familiar characters make an appearance, but with all sorts of magical twists and unexpected romance. I feel like not enough people talk about this series and I can’t wait to dive back into this world!

Read by Elizabeth Knowelden (The Book of Dreams by Nina George, The Apprentice Witch by James Nicol, The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Jenny Bayliss)

This is a book I’m reading with Book Riot staff and one whose message I hope to internalize and put into practice more in 2021. Reshma Saujani is the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code and starts off by telling us about the time she quit her stable and lucrative career for a disastrous run for political office. She not only lost, she lost hard. That moment acted as a turning point in Saujani’s life and an epiphany: women are taught to chase perfection since childhood, and that pattern ends up holding us back in adulthood. Through a combo of personal anecdotes and some in-your-face statistics and studies, Saujani challenges readers, especially women, to embrace imperfection and live a bolder life.

Read by the author

I am high-key obsessed with spy stories and I love Bahni Turpin, so this audiobooks is kind of a no brainer for me. The fact that it comes highly recommended by several Rioters only made the decision that much easier! Marie is a young Black woman working as an FBI agent in the 1980s. She’s in a career rut when she’s approached by the CIA to spy on the president of Burkina Faso; she has her reservations, but figures she may be able to leverage some information of her own if she takes the gig. But as any spy novel aficionado worth their salt knows, that spy life is hashtag complicated: she finds herself sympathizing with her target and thus questioning her loyalties.

Read by Bahni Turpin (The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron, Dread Nation and Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead…all of the things!)

I’ve been in the mood for a cozy mystery set during the holidays, and it just so happens that the second book in the Gethsemane Brown series takes place over Christmas. Gethsemane Brown is a Black American classical musician who expatriated to an Irish village for a job when she was down on her luck in Murder in G Major. Then as one does, she made friends with a snarky ghost who helped her solve a string of murders and led a school orchestra to victory in a major competition. Now our whisky-drinking, music-playing sleuth in preparing for a little rest over the Christmas break—or not! Her ghost buddy has disappeared, her landlord’s wants to sell her cottage to a skeezy hotel developer, and the brother-in-law who’s shown up to visit unexpectedly has been accused of stealing a valuable antique. It’s up to Gethsemane to go undercover and solve the case.

Read by Helen Duff who also read most of the books in this series as well as a ton of work by Lisa Jewell (Then She Was Gone, I Found You, The Family Upstairs)