Women Talking, by Miriam Toews (author), Matthew Edison (narrator)

Recorded Books, ISBN 9781501998782, April 2019

This story is based on real events in a remote Mennonite community, in which more than a hundred women and girls were drugged and assaulted during the night by what the men of the colony told them were ghosts or demons. Eventually, one of the women succeeds in outsmarting her attacker, and the truth is exposed.

This book is about an imagined response to this, in which eight women, over forty-eight hours, talk about what they can do and will choose to do about what's happened, while the men of the colony are in a nearby town trying to post bail for the men involved in the assaults. It's a challenging listen, but also fascinating.

The Prisoner's Wife, by Maggie Brookes

Berkley Publishing Group, ISBN 9780593197752, May 2020

This is based on a true story from World War II, as improbable as it seems.

It's 1944, and Izabella is a twenty-year-old farm girl. Her father and older brother have joined the partisans; Izzy, her mother, and her younger brother, Marek,are left alone on the farm.

Izzy's mother, fortunately, was always the farmer in the family; it's her family's farm, and Izzy's father was a musician. But with only Izzy and her mother to do the heavy work, it is a struggle. When Nazi officer Captain Meier shows up and says he can bring a work crew--prisoners from the Allied forces--her mother accepts.

It's a team of five captured British soldiers. They don't come every day, but for every major job the farm has. Among the prisoners is William King, and he and Izzy are quickly drawn to each other.

They have to be very, very careful.

Professional Integrity (A Riyria Short Story), by Michael J. Sullivan (author), Tim Gerard Reynolds (narrator)

Audible Studios, June 2015

Hadrian and Royce have been operating a very successful thieves-for-hire business for several years, but this latest proposition is truly unusual. A young heiress wants them to kidnap her, to attract the interest of a most desirable potential suitor. She won't even get to meet him if they don't, because her father locks her in a steel box whenever he visits.

Something is not what it seems here. Her story does not really make sense, and yet she seems completely sincere. What's really going on? Is someone setting Royce and Hadrian up, or attempting to use them as tools in some larger scheme?

Marvel's Thor: Metal Gods, by Aaron Stewart-Ahn (author), Jay Edidin (author), Brian Keene (author), Yoon Ha Lee (author), Daniel Gillies (narrator)

Serial Box, December 2019

Thor and Loki have each had their adventures and made their mistakes. In this adventure, their past mistakes collide and they have a major problem they will have to solve--even if, this time, they have to, however reluctantly, solve it together, and learn from each other.

Many years ago, Thor responded to a request from the government of the planet of Miskandr, to help them put a stop to terrorist attacks from rebels. Thor does so, and upon successful completion of his mission, they give him a crown made of a metal unique to their planet. Thor has lots of such trinkets, and he puts it in his treasure room and forgets it.

Years after that, in the 1980s, Loki steals it, and uses it to boost a musician in the band he's amusing himself with into an apparently major talent. The musician, Sylvain, gets more self-involved and stops believing Loki has anything to do with his success. They break up, and Loki doesn't manage to get the crown back.

Caving into You (Love in the West #1), by Bess McBride (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

Bess McBride, March 2020

Hilly Creighton is a romance writer, on her way to visit her brother in Phoenix after attending a writer's convention. She stops near Tombstone to enjoy the stark landscape, and finds a cave. She calls into it, just being silly for a minute, and then goes on her way.

Clint Woodrow is a miner in 1881 Tombstone, until he hears a woman's voice calling to him from the entrance to his mine, and emerges to find no woman in sight, but but a very different world than the Tombstone he knew.

Pile of Bones (Legends of the First Empire #0.5), by Michael J. Sullivan (author), Tim Gerard Reynolds (narrator)

Audible Studios, January 2020 (original publication August 2019)

Suri is a young apprentice mystic, and one day she and her wolf companion find a cave, and explore it--though the wolf thinks it's a bad idea, and makes that clear. In a hidden chamber in the far back of the cave, Suri finds a pile of bones, and experiences a very strange presence.

And then she makes a potentially fatal mistake. Having accidentally kicked over the pile of bones while fleeing the hidden chamber, once safely out, she finds one bone has been kicked out of the chamber. It's long and straight, and perfect for making a bone flute. She takes it home.

Beach Read, by Emily Henry

Berkley, ISBN 9781984806734, May 2020

January Andrews and Gus Everett met in college, and clashed rather than connected. They were both aspiring writers, but with very different styles and goals.

Some years later, January is a successful "happily ever after" romance writer, with three books to her credit, and Gus is a serious literary writer with two successful and well-received books.

Also, January's father has died, and his lover shows up for the funeral, and gives January a letter from her father, and a key. It turns out that January's mother knew about the lover, Sonya, and Does Not Want To Talk About Any Of It.  January is devastated, and for now, can't see past the wreckage of her illusions of her parents' happy marriage to write her next book, which is under contract and has a due date.

The key Sonya gave her is to a beach house on Lake Michigan, that her father has left to her. She heads there, planning to work on her book while also working on selling first the contents of the house, and then selling the house. When she arrives, she soon finds that her next door neighbor is now Gus Everett.

Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries #5), by Martha Wells (author),Kevin R. Free (narrator)

Recorded Books, May 2020

SecUnit, a.k.a. Murderbot, makes a deal with Dr. Mensah that he'll accompany an expedition with members of the survey team, and a couple of family members, if she goes for trauma recovery treatment.

They get attacked on the planet they're surveying, and successfully fight them off, but of course that's not the end of the matter. They wind up being kidnapped in space, by the ship that is, or was, piloted by Murderbot's old friend, the bot pilot who is really a pretty sophisticated AI, ART. (Asshole Research Transport.)

ART doesn't seem to be there. There are, though, some very strange-looking and quite hostile people--Murderbot immediately dubs them "Targets."

The Last Emperox (Interdependency #3), by John Scalzi (author), Wil Wheaton (narrator)

Audible Studios,April 2020

The Flow is continuing to break down, and the Interdependency is coming apart. Emperox Grayland II, a.k.a. Cardenia Patrick-Wu, has managed to take full control of her empire--for the moment. Unfortunately, she still has enemies--lots of them, and powerful ones. Some are resisting the reality of what is happening. Others, the more dangerous ones, recognize what's happening, but don't share the Emperox's goal of saving the entire population of the Interdependency. They think--not completely irrationally--that that is impossible. And that being the case, they think the important thing is to save the culture, achievements, and values of the Interdependency. Which is to say, the aristocracy. I.e., themselves.

On Cats, by Charles Bukowski (author), Roger Wayne (narrator)

HarperAudio, ISBN 9780062421210, December 2015

This is a short collection of poetry about cats, that does not quite work for me.