A Must-listen Young Adult Novel and New Releases!

There are few series that I highly anticipated where I will literally drop everything and immediately start reading. But Lee’s last book in the Montague Siblings series definitely qualifies. I really enjoyed A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and A Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, but I didn’t think I’d become that attached to the characters. Then the pandemic hit and the third book was delayed a couple of times. I found myself revisiting the first two books, finding peace in their comforting familiarity.

By the time A Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks hit the shelves, I knew I needed a copy ASAP. I downloaded the audiobook and started on one last adventure with the Mantague’s. So back I fell into 1700s England, complete with fantastical plot twists and the siblings’ neverending shenanigans. 

I don’t want to go into too many details as to avoid *spoilers*, but I will say I’ve really appreciated the disability representation in the series. Adrian, the focus of the last book in the series, experiences what we would now call generalized anxiety disorder and OCD. We listen to Adrian describe his spiraling thoughts, which always seem on the edge of being out of control. His mind repeats the same thoughts over and over again. While this might seem too repetitive to some listeners, I found that it effectively communicated what it’s like to live with those conditions.

Of course, narrator Christian Coulson brilliantly performs the audio edition. Coulson narrated the first book as well, and I loved hearing his familiar voice telling the Montagues’ story again. He manages to capture the perfect amount of refined mischief that embodies the siblings’ collective brand of adventures.

Narrated by Christian Coulson (Dark Rise by C. S. Pacat and To Hold the Bridge by Garth Nix)

It all started with Jade City, the Nebula nominated novel about a crime family desperate to control Jade, which gives certain people incredible power. The story continued with Jade War, and now, the third book in the series, Jade Legacy. This much-anticipated conclusion to the Green Bone Saga ties together the complex storylines of characters readers have spent thousands of pages with over the course of the series.

Narrated by Andrew Kishino (We Are Not Free by Traci Chee and Wildwood Whispers by Willa Reece)

There’s nothing like a master at work, and Ann Patchett’s writing is a gift. This collection of essays cover a wide range of topics, including Patchett’s friendship with a woman named Sooki who ended up social distancing with Patchett and her husband due to the pandemic. Patchett reads her essays, making this audio edition quite the treat.

Narrated by Ann Patchett (This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett)

Daina Gabaldon fans rejoiced as the next installment of her Outlander series hit bookshelves just in time for the holiday season. This novel continues the time-traveling saga of a woman from the 1940s stumbling upon a gate into the past, sending her back to Scotland in the 1700s. In the first novel, love, political machinations, and war loom constantly on the horizon for Claire, but her new love interest, Jamie, immediately catches her eye. Complications abound, though, because in her own modern time, she’s already married.

Narrated by Davina Porter (The Miniaturist by Jess Burton and The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry)

Award-winning author Darcie Little Badger returns with her latest novel, A Snake Falls to Earth. Nina, a Lipan Apache girl, has always believed there was more out there than she’s always been told. As the world around her is wracked by a catastrophe, she must figure out how to help her family and her community to survive.

Narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett and Kinsale Hueston (The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones and Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse)