Fiction Reviews: Two Novels on Audio

I'm trying to catch up on my December reviews, so I can wrap up my 2022 reading! These were the last two audio books I listened to last year, two very different but gripping stories about young people that I enjoyed.

Since my husband and I both loved The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak (my review at the link), I was excited to hear he had a new book out, Hidden Pictures, a supernatural thriller. Mallory has had a rough start to life, getting addicted to painkillers after an injury while on her high school cross-country team. But she's completed rehab and is pulling her life back together. With the help of her sponsor, she gets a summer job as a nanny for a family in a nice suburb. She has their guest cottage in the back of the house all to herself, and she adores their cute five-year-old, Teddy. It seems like the perfect way to get back on her feet. She gets along well with Teddy's parents, Ted and Caroline, and settles in. She and Teddy bond and spend their days drawing (one of Teddy's favorite activities), playing pretend, and swimming in the backyard pool. Then strange things begin to happen: Teddy's usually typical kid drawings take a sinister turn, Mallory hears strange noises outside at night, and Teddy's imaginary friend becomes menacing. What is really going on here? Mallory wonders if it has to do with the rumor of a long-ago murder on the property. Is there such a thing as ghosts? 

This unique thriller ratchets up the tension, as Mallory's idyllic days with Teddy turn frightening. But the truth is even stranger than she suspects, with plenty of surprises in store for the reader. I really liked Mallory and Teddy and was rooting for them, as the suspense grew. I finished this compelling story in record time.

384 pages, Flatiron Books

Macmillan Audio

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - New Jersey

 

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, narrated by Suzy Jackson (!), and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local! Purchase Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak.

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My last audio book of 2022 was Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson. I'd enjoyed his mix of wit, warmth, and thoughtfulness in Perfect Little World and found the same in this new novel. Here, the story is framed by thirty-six-year-old Frankie Budge looking back on the summer when she was sixteen that changed her life and continues to affect her. Back then, Frankie felt as though she didn't fit into her small town in Tennessee or even with her older triplet brothers. Her father left them and their mom to start over with another woman. Then Frankie meets Zeke, a fellow loner who is staying with his grandmother for the summer with his mom because his father left them, too. The two of them bond that summer. Frankie wants to be a writer (she is working on an anti-Nancy Drew novel), and Zeke loves to draw, so they decide to create art together. When they find an old copy machine in Frankie's garage, they create a poster, with Zeke's art and Frankie's text: "The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us." They're proud of their co-creation and make copies to post all over town. But instead of people marveling at the creative artwork, the community panics and begins coming up with all kinds of crazy theories: it's a cult, it's satanists, etc. All of a sudden, their fun art project has taken on a life of its own and is out of their control. Twenty years later, a journalist contacts Frankie about The Coalfield Panic of 1996, suspecting that Frankie had something to do with it.

This is a fun, thoughtful, propulsive coming-of-age story. It's about friendship, being a teen, first love, and the power of art to change the world. As with most Kevin Wilson novels, it is a wholly unique story, with a sense of humor, even as things turn darker. It's made all the more provocative by the addition of Frankie's perspective as an adult, twenty years later. The author's note at the end makes it all the more intriguing. I thoroughly enjoyed this fun, thought-provoking novel.

256 pages, Ecco

Harper Audio

 

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, narrated by Ginnifer Goodwin, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local! Purchase Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson.