You won’t find listens this fresh at the farmers market! We’ve gathered together some of the biggest, most standout debuts from these past Autumnal months for you, hand-picked from the audiobook patch.
Listen on to find your new favorite author for this season (or maybe forever).
Clarissa Ward is a world-renowned conflict reporter. In this strange age of crisis where there really is no front line, she has moved from one hot zone to the next. She has seen and documented the violent remaking of the world at close range. With her deep empathy, Ward finds a way to tell the hardest stories. On All Fronts is the riveting account, in Ward’s own voice, about her singular career and of journalism in this age of extremism.
One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. Soon afterward, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow. Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth—and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny. Now on the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Longlist!
Jo’s job is blackmailing the most lecherous men in Los Angeles. Eager to prove herself to her coworker Lou and their boss, known only as the Lady Upstairs, Jo takes on bigger and riskier jobs. When one of her targets is murdered, both the Lady Upstairs and the LAPD have Jo in their sights. But Jo soon learns that Lou and the Lady have secrets of their own, and that no woman is safe when there is a life-changing payout on the line.
Twelve-year-old Clara lives on an island that visitors call exotic. She loves eating ripe mangos off the ground, running outside in the rain with her Papa during rainy season, and going to her secret hideout. The only thing out of the ordinary for Clara is that something happened to her memory that made her forget everything that happened last summer after a hurricane hit.
After Andrea’s brother disappeared, everything changed. So when she discovers a magical dream world called Reverie in the woods near her home, Andrea jumps at the chance to escape her pain and go inside. But the cost of admission is high: Andrea must give up a memory in order to enter. And she knows exactly which memory she’d like to give up.
Ali Greenleaf and Blythe Jensen never talked before, until a party when Ali makes her move on Sean Nessel, her longtime crush. But Sean pushes Ali farther than she wants to go. When she resists–he rapes her. When Sean tells Blythe it was a misunderstanding, she decides to help him make things right. Blythe befriends Ali, sharing her own dark secrets. Despite the betrayal at the heart of their relationship, they see each other, in a way no one ever has before.
When Ada leaves home for her freshman year at a Historically Black College, it’s the first time she’s ever been so far from her family. As she stumbles deeper into the world of dance and explores her sexuality, she also begins to wrestle with her past. Ultimately, Ada discovers she needs to brush off the destiny others have chosen for her and claim full ownership of her body and her future in this gripping story written and read by author Candice Iloh. A Finalist for the National Book Award!
Brilliant and driven Norah Kapadia has just landed the medical residency of her dreams. But after a disastrous first day, she’s ready to quit. Enter chief resident Ethan Cantor. He’s everything Norah aspires to be. And as he morphs from Norah’s mentor to something more, it seems her luck is finally changing. But when a fatal medical mistake is made, pulling Norah into a cover-up, she must decide how far she’s willing to go to protect the secret.
From debut author Asha Lemmie, a sweeping, heartrending coming-of-age story about a young woman’s quest for acceptance in post-World War II Japan. Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling audiobook about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to be free.