Welcome to the December 2017 Audio Book of the Month Poll!
Here are all our Audio Reviews from the previous month, in no particular order. Please vote for your favorites. As with all of our Polls, you can vote for as many as you want, but you only get one visit, so make it count!
The top two will go through to the Audio of the Year Poll!
POLL SCHEDULE:
This poll will remain open until at least 6PM, Amsterdam time next Friday. The actual closing time will vary depending on blog staff schedules…
Tinsel Fish by Harper Fox (Author) and Tim Gilbert (Narrator)
Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Tinsel Fish
SERIES: The Tyack & Frayne Mysteries
AUTHOR: Harper Fox
NARRATOR: Tim Gilbert
PUBLISHER: Audible Studios
RELEASE DATE: December 4, 2017
LENGTH: 3 hours 44 minutes
BLURB:
Christmas in a Cornish seaside town, bright lights, and a hot new romance to ward off the winter storms…what could be finer? But Gideon and Lee’s first festive season together is shockingly interrupted when Lee tries to rid a client’s home of a malevolent presence. The ritual goes wrong, and in its aftermath Lee is strangely altered.
As well as dealing with the changes in his lover, Gideon has a sinister thread to follow, linking the haunted house with disappearances among the homeless people of Falmouth. Can love withstand what looks like a case of possession?
As the darkest night of the year comes down, Gideon finds himself locked in a battle to restore his lover’s soul. Read more
A Kind of Home by Lane Hayes (Author) and Seth Clayton (Narrator)
Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: A Kind of Home
SERIES: A Kind of
AUTHOR: Lane Hayes
NARRATOR: Seth Clayton
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
RELEASE DATE: December 4, 2017
LENGTH: 8 hours 56 minutes
BLURB:
Isaac Dalton is the guitarist for Spiral, arguably the biggest rock band in the world. The band’s meteoric rise to superstardom has its perks, but fame and fortune aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Nonstop touring and performing exhaust him, and when an overzealous fan makes it imperative that Isaac travel with a clingy bodyguard, he is ready for a break from the madness. More so when his newly single first crush shows up on his doorstep. The man is strictly off-limits. He’s a memory from a place Isaac would rather leave behind. And he’s straight.
Fun-loving former athlete slash construction worker Adam McBride desperately needs a new beginning. And New York City is the perfect place to start over and think about how to rebuild his life. A short stint as roommates with his brother’s best friend from high school seems like a mutually beneficial arrangement. However, when friendship gives way to fierce attraction, both men find themselves in unchartered and possibly dangerous territory. Isaac has to decide if he’s willing to take the ultimate risk for a kind of love and a kind of home he never dreamed possible. Read more
The Charlatan’s Conquest (Phantom Fixers #1) by Vivien Dean (Author) & Simon Ferrar (Narrator)
Reviewed by Tori (Vicki)
TITLE: The Charlatan’s Conquest
SERIES: Phantom Fixers #1
AUTHOR: Vivien Dean
NARRATOR: Simon Ferrar
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 4 hours, 48 minutes
RELEASE DATE: November 21st, 2017
BLURB:
A Phantom Fixers Story
With love and ghosts, the challenge is figuring out what’s real.
Software engineer Cruz Guthrie needs money for his sister’s cancer treatments. He needs it so badly he’s willing to stand in for a ghost hunter friend and investigate a millionaire’s supposed specters. It should be an easy gig—after all, nobody thinks the haunting is real.
Neurological researcher Brody Weber is furious that Cruz would take advantage of Brody’s father. But his mind changes when spirits manifest—and he realizes Cruz genuinely wants to help. When they learn the paranormal activity centers on Brody, Cruz is willing to fight to free Brody from the entities determined to make his life miserable. With a little help from friends and family—both living and dead—they must figure out why Brody is attracting spirits and how to banish them. Only then can they pursue a future together. Read more
Locked in Silence by Sloane Kennedy (Author) and Michael Pauley (Narrator)
Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Locked in Silence
SERIES: Pelican Bay #1
AUTHOR: Sloane Kennedy
NARRATOR: Michael Pauley
PUBLISHER: Sloane Kennedy
RELEASE DATE: December 1, 2017
LENGTH: 8 hours 55 minutes
BLURB:
I’ve spent years hoping someone would finally hear me. It’s easier not to try anymore….
10 years after leaving his small Minnesota hometown in his rear view mirror for what Nolan Grainger was sure would be the last time, life has decided to throw the talented musician a curveball and send him back to the town he lived in but was never really home.
At 28, Nolan has traveled the world as a successful concert violinist with some of the best symphonies in the country. But success breeds envy, and when Nolan’s benefactor and lover decides Nolan has flown high enough, he cruelly clips Nolan’s wings. The betrayal and ensuing scandal leaves the violinist’s career in shambles and with barely enough money to start fresh somewhere beyond his vindictive ex’s powerful reach. But just as he’s ready to get his life back on track, Nolan gets the call he’s been dreading.
After a stroke leaves his father a partial invalid, duty-bound Nolan returns to Pelican Bay and a life he’s spent years trying to forget. When he’s forced to use the last of his own money to keep from losing the family home, desperation has him turning to the one man he’d hoped never to see again….
Even if I could speak, there wouldn’t be anyone there to listen…. Read more
Insight by Santino Hassell (Author) & Greg Boudreaux (Narrator)
REVIEWED by BRIANNA
TITLE: Insight
SERIES: The Community #1
AUTHOR: Santino Hassell
NARRATOR: Greg Boudreaux
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 8 hrs and 58 mins
RELEASE DATE: December 5, 2017
BLURB:
Growing up the outcast in an infamous family of psychics, Nate Black never learned how to control his empath abilities. Then after five years without contact, his estranged twin turns up dead in New York City. The claim of suicide doesn’t ring true, especially when a mysterious vision tells Nate it was murder. Now his long-hated gift is his only tool to investigate.
Hitching from his tiny Texas town, Nate is picked up by Trent, a gorgeous engineer who thrives on sarcasm and skepticism. The heat that sparks between them is instant and intense, and Nate ends up trusting Trent with his secrets – something he’s never done before. But once they arrive in the city, the secrets multiply when Nate discovers an underground supernatural community, more missing psychics, and frightening information about his own talent. Nate is left questioning his connection with Trent. Are their feelings real, or are they being propelled by abilities Nate didn’t realize he had?
His fear of his power grows, but Nate must overcome it to find his brother’s killer and trust himself with Trent’s heart. Read more
Once Upon a Haunted Moor by Harper Fox (Author) and Tim Gilbert (Narrator)
Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Once Upon a Haunted Moor
SERIES: The Tyack & Frayne Mysteries #1
AUTHOR: Harper Fox
NARRATOR: Tim Gilbert
PUBLISHER: Audible Studios
RELEASE DATE: December 4, 2017
LENGTH: 2 hours 57 minutes
BLURB:
Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. It’s not life in the fast lane, but he takes it very seriously, and his first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he’s gutted – he’s a level-headed copper who doesn’t believe in such things, and he can’t help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl.
But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee’s insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon’s heart. Son of a Methodist minister, raised in a tiny Cornish village, Gideon has hidden his sexuality for years. It’s cost him one lover, and he can’t believe it when this green-eyed newcomer stirs up old feelings and starts to exert a powerful force of attraction.
Gideon and Lee begin to work together on the case. But there are malignant forces at work in the sleepy little village of Dark, and not only human ones – Gideon is starting to wonder, against all common sense, if there might be some truth in the terrifying legend of the Bodmin Beast after all. As a misty Halloween night consumes the moor, Gideon must race against time to save not only the lost child but the man who’s begun to restore his faith in his own heart. Read more
Freckles by Amy Lane (Author) & Nick J. Russo (Narrator)
Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Freckles
AUTHOR: Amy Lane
NARRATOR: Nick J. Russo
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 4 hours 42 minutes
RELEASE DATE:
BLURB:
Carter Embree has always hoped to be rescued from his productive, tragically boring, and (slightly) ethically compromised life. But when an urchin at a grocery store shoves a bundle of fluff into his hands, Carter goes from rescuee to rescuer—and he needs a little help. Sandy Corrigan, the vet tech who helps ease Carter into the world of dog ownership, first assumes that Carter is a crazy-pants client who just needs to relax. But as Sandy gets a glimpse into the funny, kind, sexy man under Carter’s mild-mannered exterior, he sees that with a little care and feeding, Carter might be Super-Pet Owner—and decent boyfriend material to boot. But Carter needs to see himself as a hero first. As he says good-bye to his pristine house and hello to carpet treatments and dog walkers, he finds that there really is more to himself than a researching drudge without a backbone. A Carter Embree can rate a Sandy Corrigan. He can be supportive, he can be a hero, he can be a man who stands up for his principles! He can be the owner of a small dog. Read more
Texas Christmas (Texas #5) by RJ Scott (Author) & Sean Crisden (Narrator)
Review by Alexander
TITLE: Texas Christmas
SERIES: Texas #5
AUTHOR: RJ Scott
NARRATOR: Sean Crisden
PUBLISHER: Love Lane Books Limited
LENGTH: 4 hrs and 22 mins
RELEASE DATE: November 28, 2017
BLURB:
Six men with lives linked to the Double D…. Danger comes to the Double D from Liam’s past and threatens everything Jack and Riley hold dear. Centering on Jack and Riley and their parents, lovers, and friends.
Jack makes a decision that will affect the ranch, and Riley realizes peace comes at a price. Eli and Robbie have their home on Double D land. Their love is rooted in the Texas soil and they weather as many storms as can be thrown at them. And Liam, a young man with a head full of dreams and sleep full of nightmares, finds that all things are possible when Marcus decides to interrupt his solitary existence. Read more
Detective Fox and the Christmas Caper by Isobel Starling (Author) & Gary Furlong (Narrator)
Reviewed by Roberta
TITLE: Detective Fox and the Christmas Caper
SERIES: Dick and the Sidekick, Book 1
NARRATOR: Gary Furlong
AUTHOR: Isobel Starling
PUBLISHER: Isobel Starling
LENGTH: 3 hrs and 56 mins
RELEASE DATE: Nov 20, 2017
BLURB:
Every good Dick needs a sidekick….
Actor Tom Lewis’ world came crashing down when a honey trap and tabloid exposé outed him and put pay to his flourishing career. The housewives’ favorite was most well-known for his role as Detective Fox in the quaint British series, Malmesbury Murders. But after the media speculation about his sexuality, the show is in hiatus, and Tom hasn’t worked six months.
Now things are getting serious; money is running out, and Tom needs a job desperately. So when his agent offers him a seasonal acting job, he reluctantly agrees… and takes on the role of Santa for a top London department store. This decision changes Tom’s luck.
When Tom overhears two unidentified store workers discussing a job to get a little Christmas bonus, he realizes the job is of the illegal sort. Now, Tom could call the police, but then again, wouldn’t it be great for his flagging career if Detective Fox saved the day?
So Fox is on the case, and as every good Dick needs a sidekick, Tom decides a sexy young elf named Eli Mason will fit the role, in more ways than one. Read more