Let’s face it, not all of us are “outdoor people, ” which is even more evident as the temperatures rise and rise and RISE.
So, take a break, crank up the air conditioning, and escape into a cool, new listen with us! This month, our incredible audiobook lineup is jam-packed and spans all genres—from gripping thrillers and heartwarming romances to epic fantasies and thought-provoking non-fiction. No matter which pool of stories you want to dive into, we’ve got you covered like SPF 500… without the weird coconut smell.
Read on as we explore the top audiobook releases of August, each one more refreshing than the last!
Love FREE audiobooks? We do too.
Enter this month’s sweepstakes for your chance to win!
Dark Restraint
Written by Katee Robert, narrated by Zara Hampton-Brown and Alex Moorcock
OUT NOW!
A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Ariadne and her Minotaur.
Ariadne Vitalis is in trouble. She’s betrayed her father—and his dangerous benefactor—and now she’s left to rely on Olympus’ questionable mercy. But in this city, mercy comes with a price. For Ariadne, that means a sham marriage to Dionysus. She has no choice but to agree, even if there’s only one man she’s ever wanted—a man she fears just as much as she desires.
The Minotaur never had any illusions about Minos’s plans. He was willing to get his hands dirty as long as the old man kept his word—at the end of their bloody work, the Minotaur would be given Ariadne as a reward. She’s meant for him, and he intends to have her, no matter the cost.
Dark Restraint is the latest installment in New York Times bestselling author Katee Robert’s Dark Olympus series.
The Murders in Great Diddling
Written by Kate Robards and narrated by Beth Hicks, Leanne Woodward & Graham Halstead
Releases August 8!
The best stories are the ones we didn’t know needed to be told.
The small, rundown village of Great Diddling is full of stories―author Berit Gardner can feel it. The way the villagers avoid outsiders, the furtive stares and whispers in the presence of newcomers… Berit can sense the edge of a story waiting to be unraveled, and she’s just the person to do it. In fact, with a book deadline looming over her and no manuscript (not even the idea for a manuscript, truth be told), Berit doesn’t just want this story. She needs it.
Then, while attending a village tea party, Berit becomes part of the action herself. An explosion in the library of the village’s grand manor kills a local man, and the resulting investigation and influx of outsiders sends the quiet, rundown community into chaos.
Uplifting, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny, The Murders in Great Diddling by New York Times bestselling author Katarina Bivald is a celebration of the life-changing magic of books and the people who love them.
The House on Cold Creek Lane
Written by Liz Alterman, narrated by Emily Ellet & Gail Shalan
OUT NOW!
An unflinching examination of motherhood and the dark side of domesticity set against a suburban backdrop that’s anything but blissful. This twisty tale invites readers to a slow motion unravelling that culminates in a devastating finale!
Who was I? What had I become?
Breathe, I commanded. You’re doing this for your family.
When Laurel and Rob West move into their new home in New Jersey, it seems too good to be true. But Laurel can’t shake off her old feelings of anxiety. The neighbour who pays far too much attention to the Wests’ two young children… Rob watching her every miss step… and there’s something people aren’t telling her about this house…
Clash of Kingdoms
Written by Penelope Barsetti, narrated by Ramona Master & Michael Ferraiuolo
Releases August 20!
I had the chance to leave these lands and avoid the war—but I chose to stay.
I chose to stay because if I don’t keep Harlow safe, she’ll die. The demons are a foe too powerful, invulnerable to Huntley’s fire-breathing dragons, a fiend so untouchable that HeartHolme and the other kingdoms stand no chance.
I tried so hard to fight it, restrained my emotions from the first time we were together, but the inevitable has come to pass. I’ve fallen hard for this woman—a human. I’ve chosen to risk my immortality for her even though she wouldn’t forsake her humanity for me. When this war is over, we’ll go our separate ways… and never see each other again.
Clash of Kingdoms is the latest installment in New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Penelope Barsetti’s Dirty Blood series.
A Small Town in Germany
Written by John le Carré, narrated by Ralph Lister
Releases August 20!
“A Small Town in Germany is an exciting, compulsively readable and brilliantly plotted novel. Le Carré has shown once more that he can write this kind of book better than anyone else around—and he has done so without repeating himself.”
— The New York Times Book Review
A “political ghost story,” as author John le Carré himself put it, A Small Town in Germany marks the first of his works taking place outside the realm of George Smiley’s Circus.
In the late 1960s, in the town of Bonn, capital of West Germany, a British Embassy officer by the name of Leo Harting goes missing—and forty-three confidential-or-higher files with him.
Dispatched from the British Foreign Office to investigate, Alan Turner arrives in Bonn to find riots, protests, and a tenuous balance of power. As if there isn’t enough pressure, the embassy’s head of Chancery, Rawley Bradfield, makes it clear he has no intentions of making Turner’s investigation an easy one.
Other John le Carré titles releasing this month: A Perfect Spy & Smiley’s People
Learn more about the George Smiley series >
The Enemy
Written by Sarah Adams, narrated by Connie Shabshab & Will Damron
OUT NOW!
From the New York Times bestselling author of Practice Makes Perfect and The Cheat Sheet comes an expanded edition of The Enemy—a laugh-out-loud romance about rekindling old flames, with a never-before-seen chapter.
Enemies should never get a second chance. But this one might…
It’s been twelve years since June Broaden has seen her high school enemy (and secret crush), Ryan Henderson. That’s a long time to hold a grudge over some petty feud, but the sharp memory of him dangling a kiss at graduation, then pulling away at the last second, has fueled many angry fantasies since. Now’s her chance to get even.
Let’s be honest, our actual vacation plans are a little bit… meh?
But that’s why audiobooks were invented, right?! Pack your TBR with stories filled to bursting with action, intrigue, and locations you can’t exactly stamp on your passport.
Well, at least not YET anyway…
Get ready for some seriously action-packed adventures in our latest audiobooks releasing this August!
Love FREE audiobooks? We do too.
Enter this month’s sweepstakes for your chance to win!
Full Speed to a Crash Landing
Written by Beth Revis, narrated by Dara Rosenberg & David Bendena
OUT NOW!
A high octane sexy space heist from New York Times-bestselling author Beth Revis, the first in a novella trilogy.
Ada Lamarr may have gotten to the spaceship wreck first, but looter’s rights won’t get her far when she’s got a hole in the side of her ship and her spacesuit is almost out of air. Fortunately for her, help arrives in the form of a government salvage crew—and while they reluctantly rescue her from certain death, they are not pleased to have an unexpected passenger along on their classified mission.
But Ada doesn’t care—all that matters to her is enjoying their fine food and sweet, sweet oxygen—until Rian White, the government agent in charge, starts to suspect that there’s more to Ada than meets the eye.
Full Speed to a Crash Landing kicks off the Chaotic Orbits series, a trilogy full of sexy space pirates and intergalactic romantic tension.
The Fortunate Fall
Written by Cameron Reed & Joe Walton (Intro), narrated by Frankie Corzo
Releases August 13!
On its first publication in 1996, The Fortunate Fall was hailed as a sci-fi novel of a wired future on par with the debuts of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Now it returns to print, in advance of forthcoming new work by the same author. It is one of the great underground classics of the last several decades in science fiction.
Maya Andreyeva is a “camera,” a reporter with virtual-reality-broadcasting equipment implanted in her brain. What she sees, millions see; what she feels, millions share.
And what Maya is seeing is the cover-up of a massacre. As she probes into the covert political power plays of a radically strange near-future Russia, she comes upon secrets that have been hidden from the world… and memories that AI-controlled thought police have forced her to hide from herself. Because in a world where no thought or desire is safe, the price of survival is betrayal—of your lover, your ideals, and yourself.
This new Tor Essentials edition of The Fortunate Fall includes a new introduction by Jo Walton, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards.
Final Crucible
Written by Anthony J. Melchiorri, narrated by Paul Heitsch
Releases August 13!
The enemy took everything from Fin. And he wants it back.
First, they stole his dog. Then they destroy his ship. And after a violent space station attack, they devastate his home in the stars.
Unidentified enemy forces execute a spectacularly violent assault within the Union on a Ranger Corps-affiliated space station. Fearful of a mole in their ranks, the Ranger Corps locks down all nearby space stations and planetary systems as they seek to flush out the traitor.
Complicating the matter, the enemy liberated a cadre of the galaxy’s most dangerous outlaws from the Rangers’ Protected Species Division prisons. And with the prisoners, they kidnapped many of Fin’s allies, including stalwart friend Warrox.
Final Crucible continues Anthony J. Melchiorri’s Sunken Spaceship series – a rollicking sci-fi adventure. Perfect for fans of JN Chaney, MR Forbes, and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!
But wait! There’s more…
Check out these other science fiction, fantasy, and litRPG series continuing this month!
