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Mystery & SuspenseAudioThriller

The Eden Test

Review by Maya Fleischmann

Narrator Carlotta Brentan performs an engrossing story of marital mind games in the audiobook of Adam Sternbergh’s taut thriller The Eden Test (10.5 hours). Daisy, an actor with questionable intentions, wants to save her marriage, so she surprises her husband, Craig, with a couple’s retreat. But the Eden Test isn’t just a getaway; it’s a marriage therapy program that promises “Seven Days, Seven Questions, Forever Changed.” Brentan solidly captures Craig’s vacillating feelings about Daisy as he heads out to meet her at a remote, idyllic cabin in upstate New York, all the while considering how to make time for his mistress. As secrets surface, Brentan’s narration takes on a certain breathlessness, which helps to sustain the story’s edginess all the way through to its tidy finale.

Read our review of the print edition of The Eden Test.

Carlotta Brentan narrates Adam Sternbergh’s thriller with a certain breathlessness, which helps to sustain the story’s edginess.
FictionAudioHistorical Fiction

The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece

Review by Anna Zeitlin

Tom Hanks’ first novel, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece (16 hours), is an appropriately star-studded audiobook. Hanks narrates most of the story, with additional narration provided by actors Rita Wilson, Holland Taylor, Ego Nwodim, Nasim Pedrad and more.

The novel tells the story of the troubled present-day production of a new superhero film, going back to the 1970s comics that inspired the movie, and then further back to the World War II-era source material that led to the comics. As someone who’s worked on about a hundred movies (but ironically, no superhero films) as an actor, producer, writer and director, Hanks has insider knowledge of the film industry that makes him perfectly equipped to write about it in a cynical but loving way. His narration is ideally suited to the stylized dialogue; he sounds like a folksy dad pretending to be a noir detective.

Read our review of the print edition of The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece.

As someone who’s worked on about a hundred movies as an actor, producer, writer and director, Tom Hanks has insider knowledge of the film industry that makes him perfectly equipped to write about it in a cynical but loving way.
NonfictionAudioMemoir

This Isn’t Going to End Well

Review by Deborah Mason

Daniel Wallace (Big Fish) idolized his brother-in-law, William Nealy—an artist, author, outdoorsman and renegade—until the day he died by a meticulously planned suicide in July 2001. In This Isn’t Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew (6.5 hours), Wallace paints a double portrait of his friend: the heroic mask he presented to the world, and the traumatized, troubled man behind it.

This story is painful. The audiobook begins with information on how to contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), and listeners should be prepared for a frank exploration of Nealy’s lifetime of suicidal ideation. But Wallace’s tale of loss, anger and absolution is also redemptive and beautiful, and Audie Award winner Michael Crouch’s sensitive and convincing narration gently leads the reader toward Wallace’s reconciliation with his beloved friend.

Daniel Wallace shares more about his discovery that writing a memoir is “very, very, very hard.”

Daniel Wallace’s tale of loss, anger and absolution is painful yet redemptive, and Audie Award winner Michael Crouch’s sensitive and convincing narration gently leads the reader toward Wallace’s reconciliation with a beloved friend.
Audio

Warrior Girl Unearthed

Review by Tami Orendain

Perry Firekeeper-Birch wants nothing more than a relaxing summer, but when she’s forced into an internship, she discovers that a state college is using legal loopholes to withhold Anishinaabe ancestral remains. She rounds up family, friends and fellow interns to pull off a daring heist—but there may be more to the conflict than meets the eye. In Warrior Girl Unearthed (11.5 hours), Angeline Boulley expands on her bestselling debut novel, Firekeeper’s Daughter, with a deep and layered mystery.

Actor Isabella Star LaBlanc, a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota tribal nation who lent her voice to Firekeeper’s Daughter, also narrates Warrior Girl Unearthed. She excels at leading the reader deeper into the story with a tone that exudes both intriguing mystery and genuine emotion. LaBlanc’s narration helps us hear Perry’s wit and snark, her sister Pauline’s anxious perfectionism and her supervisor Cooper Turtle’s wistful wisdom. From heart-pounding to heart-wrenching moments—and the quotidian in between—LaBlanc’s lyrical performance is both smooth and striking, making it a compelling listen for all who enjoy a good mystery.

Read our interview with Isabella Star LaBlanc on her performance in Warrior Girl Unearthed.

Isabella Star LaBlanc’s lyrical performance is both smooth and striking, making Warrior Girl Unearthed a compelling listen for all who enjoy a good mystery.
Audio

Fatherland

Review by Deborah Mason

In Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets (9 hours), New Yorker staff writer Burkhard Bilger recounts his search for the truth about his grandfather, Karl Gönner, a former Nazi party chief who was credited with shielding an Alsace village from Nazi reprisals—and also accused of being a war criminal who ordered the death of an innocent man.

Bilger’s narration of his book reflects the ambiguity of his family’s history. Raised in Oklahoma by German immigrant parents, Bilger has a barely perceptible Oklahoma twang, softened by years spent away from his birthplace. He also speaks fluent German, a clear legacy from his extended family that sometimes inflects his spoken English. Like Karl, Bilger’s voice is neither purely one thing nor another, but rather an unexpected amalgam reminding the listener that human stories are not drawn in black and white but in complex and varied shades of gray.

Read our starred review of the print edition of Fatherland.

New Yorker staff writer Burkhard Bilger’s narration of his book reflects the ambiguity of his family’s history.
Audio

Zero Days

Review by Emma Rosenberg

Actor Imogen Church’s voice is inextricable from Ruth Ware’s thrillers, consistently keeping the emotions high through each adrenaline-filled novel. Church returns once again to voice Zero Days (14 hours), the story of two hired hackers whose assignment to test a corporation’s security system goes badly awry. Madly in love, Jack and her husband, Gabe, cannot stop flirting with each other, but Church balances their passion with a strong sense of tension as they attempt to outsmart both physical and cyber security systems. When Gabe turns up dead, Jack becomes the main suspect for her husband’s murder and must go on the run while trying to find the real killer.

Church’s female voices are particularly strong, and her British accents keep the highest intensity moments—which are filled with hurled insults—especially entertaining. Church narrates at the pace of a racing heartbeat, mirroring the moment-by-moment chase as the action unfolds—and leaving the listener hanging onto every last word.

Read our interview with Ruth Ware about Zero Days.

Imogen Church narrates Ruth Ware’s thriller at the pace of a racing heartbeat, mirroring the moment-by-moment chase as the action unfolds—and leaving the listener hanging onto every last word.
Audio

The Covenant of Water

Review by Emma Rosenberg

With a friendly, warm voice and clear, well-paced performance, Abraham Verghese narrates his second novel, The Covenant of Water (31.5 hours), which follows three generations of a South Indian family from 1900 to the late 1970s. The tale begins with 12-year-old Mariamma, who is arranged to be married to a 40-year-old man whose family members have a “condition” that leads to water-related deaths. Verghese poetically weaves the family’s faith with their mysticism as they search for an explanation for these losses. As Mariamma’s father says, “Faith is to know the pattern is there, even though none is visible,” and likewise the reader will find themselves seeking providential clues.

There’s no denying that this ambitious novel and its many subplots make for a very long audiobook, but Verghese gives voices to his ensemble cast that reveal the deep tenderness he has for their experiences and will carry listeners through the whole tale.

Read our starred review of the print edition of The Covenant of Water.

There’s no denying that this ambitious novel and its many subplots make for a very long audiobook, but Abraham Verghese’s performance will carry listeners through the whole tale.
Audio

Better Living Through Birding

Review by Norah Piehl

Christian Cooper may have come to national prominence as the Central Park bird-watcher who was the target of a racist incident in 2020, but as his memoir makes perfectly clear, that viral episode hardly defines his life story. In Better Living Through Birding (10.5 hours), Cooper delves into his identities as a gay man, a Black person, a devotee of comic books, superheroes and other facets of nerd culture—and, of course, a birder.

With birding tips and many glimpses of the often surprising rewards of birding, Cooper makes a compelling argument for his obsession—er, hobby—to become more inclusive. He inspires by showing how he has allowed his recent fame to propel him into new and rewarding professional directions, such as becoming the host of National Geographic’s TV show “Extraordinary Birder.” Cooper’s voice is warm and approachable as he reads his book, and the bird songs that punctuate section and chapter breaks offer clever and appropriate ambiance.

Read our review of the print edition of Better Living Through Birding.

Christian Cooper’s voice is warm and approachable as he reads his memoir, and the birdsongs that punctuate section breaks offer clever and appropriate ambience.
Sponsored
Audio

Gone Tonight

Sponsored by Macmillan Audio

Catherine Sterling thinks she knows her mother. Ruth Sterling is quiet, hardworking, and lives for her daughter. All her life, it’s been just the two of them against the world. But now, Catherine is ready to spread her wings, move from home, and begin a new career. And Ruth Sterling will do anything to prevent that from happening.

Ruth Sterling thinks she knows her daughter. Catherine would never rebel, would never question anything about her mother’s past or background. But when Ruth’s desperate quest to keep her daughter by her side begins to reveal cracks in Ruth’s carefully-constructed world, both mother and daughter begin a dance of deception.

This program is read by Kate Mara, best known for her roles in hit TV shows like A Teacher and House of Cards, as well as films such as The Martian and Chappaquiddick.

New from the #1 bestselling co-author of The Golden Couple and The Wife Between Us! This program is read by Kate Mara, best known for her roles in hit TV shows like A Teacher and House of Cards, as well as films such as The Martian and Chappaquiddick.
AudioMemoir

How to Stay Married

Review by Emma Rosenberg

Author Harrison Scott Key narrates his book How to Stay Married (8.5 hours), the self-proclaimed “most insane love story ever told,” in which he tears down all the cultural boundaries of marital secrecy to spill the details of his wife’s five-year-long infidelity. In a confessional-like manner, Key recounts the aftermath of when Lauren Key, the mother of his three children, asks for a divorce—a moment when everything he knew about Lauren, love and faith all come crashing down. While he grapples with this new reality, he discusses his own personal failures and doubts. “The truth will set you free,” Key writes, then adds, “free to lose your mind.”

Key’s deadpan delivery makes the wisecracks all the more hilarious and bitter (especially when making fun of “Chad,” the man with whom Lauren fell in love), and the heartbreak all the more aching. One chapter near the end of the book titled “A Whore in Church” is written by Lauren, and she reads her own honest words with a clear voice.

With ample comic relief, How to Stay Married is an absolute whirlwind of brokenness and humility that’s also embedded with hope and forgiveness.

Read our starred review of the print edition of How to Stay Married.

Harrison Scott Key’s deadpan delivery reading How to Stay Married makes the wisecracks all the more hilarious and bitter, and the heartbreak all the more aching.
AudioMemoir

Leg

Review by Norah Piehl

Greg Marshall has penned a different kind of coming-out memoir: With Leg (10 hours), he writes about his evolving understanding of his identity not only as a gay man but also as a disabled person. Out of a well-intentioned desire to prevent their son from focusing on his differences, his parents kept his cerebral palsy diagnosis a secret and led Marshall to believe that he just had “tight tendons” until his early thirties. Marshall’s memoir-in-essays (some of which have been published elsewhere in standalone form) transforms what could have been a fairly tragic tale—growing up as a disabled kid with two chronically ill parents—into wry comedy, thanks in no small part to a colorful family life, a fair amount of raunchy humor and a willingness to make fun of himself. Marshall, who reads his own work, forewarns listeners that they may “notice occasional mouth sounds that accompany this reading” due to his disability, but even this author’s note is couched in wit and humor.

Read our starred review of the print edition of Leg.

Greg Marshall’s memoir-in-essays transforms what could have been a fairly tragic tale—growing up as a disabled kid with two chronically ill parents—into wry comedy.
FictionAudioFamily Saga

Return to Valetto

Review by Maya Fleischmann

Edoardo Ballerini’s magnetic performance draws out the beauty and darkness of places and people in Return to Valetto (9 hours), Dominic Smith’s elegant multigenerational family saga set in the splendor of the Italian countryside.

After a two-year absence from Europe, where he studied Italy’s vanishing villages and towns, writer and historian Hugh Fisher returns to Valetto, Italy, for six months. This time, he’s focusing on family matters: namely visiting his aunts and 99-year-old grandmother and tending to the cottage left to him by his late mother, who died a year earlier. With an impeccable Italian accent, Ballerini portrays the tense dynamics as family members bicker over the cottage. After a squatter claims Fisher’s grandfather left it to her family in exchange for sheltering him during World War II, Ballerini’s adroit narration conveys subtle changes in the family that occur as the ensuing investigations unearth troubling secrets involving Hugh’s mother. The smooth effortlessness of Ballerini’s narration immerses readers in this tumultuous family history set against the backdrop of Valetto’s changing landscape.

Read our starred review of the print edition of Return to Valetto.

The smooth effortlessness of Edoardo Ballerini’s narration immerses readers in this tumultuous family history set against the backdrop of a changing Italian village.
Audio

The Country of the Blind

Review by Tami Orendain

In The Country of the Blind (8 hours), Andrew Leland explores the culture, politics and history around blindness—a topic that is especially important to him because he is slowly losing his eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa. Leland takes listeners on a wide-ranging examination of blindness: both how it’s treated and how those who have it experience the world.

Leland’s honest and emphatic narration of The Country of the Blind emphasizes the personal nature of this book. Acting as both writer and narrator helps him bridge the gap between his research on vision and the intimate accounts of those who have vision issues, including himself. His reading is straightforward but warm, echoing the heavy and hopeful themes of the stories he shares.

Nuanced and emotional, The Country of the Blind explores difficult conversations around disability with empathy. By placing individuals’ accounts within historical context, Leland tells real stories with authority and authenticity.

Nuanced and emotional, The Country of the Blind explores difficult conversations around disability with care and empathy.

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