The Last Wise Man, by Eileen Enwright Hodgetts (author), Leah Klocko (narrator)

Emerge Publishing, August 2021

This is a frustrating, disappointing story. It's the Nativity story, set on another planet in the distant future. The planet has a small and dwindling population of humans, accepted or tolerated to various degrees by the egg-laying natives. We meet three of the humans, who are hearing a voice asking "Where is he?"

There's also, of course, a new star in the sky.

One of the three humans is a young man born on this planet; the second is an older man who was born on Earth before the last humans were forced to leave, and the third is an ancient monk who has been wandering in the wilderness, but now has a vital task to perform.

Anyone But You, by Jennifer Crusie (author), Susan Ericksen (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, July 2008, (original publication January 1996)

Nina Askew is forty, divorced, and newly freed from the last tie to her ex-husband--the stuffy suburban mausoleum of a house they lived in and she always hated. She has a small apartment she loves in the city, the third floor of a divided-up Victorian. She's swearing off men, at least in any way that involves commitment. And today, she's off to the pound, to get what she could never have while married to stuffy, ambitious Guy--a dog. A puppy. A bouncy, energetic, small-breed puppy, who will add joy to her life. 

Diamonds and Lies, by Inge-Lise Goss (author), Natalie Disaster (narrator)

Inge-Lise Goss, February 2021

Mia Sloane is a rising young advertising executive--and together with her brother, Andy Carlyle, a jewel thief. She mostly lives on her legitimate income, and uses her ill-gotten gains to build a nest egg for the future. But now Andy is in trouble; he went gambling with a part of a stash of uncut diamonds--and lost them, instead of winning big. Now he needs to have either uncut diamonds of the amount that he lost, or $5 million in cash, in just a week.

This doesn't leave time for their usual careful planning. Andy picks a target, the owner of a chain of jewelry stores, and sends Mia in to check the place, and the owner, out. As hoped, she connects with him, and gets both more information about the shop, and a date with the man, which will give her a chance to check him and the store's operations out further.

Broken Homes (Rivers of London #4), by Ben Aaronovitch (author), Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (narrator)

Penguin Audio, ISBN 9780756409937, February 2014 (original publication February 2013)

Peter Grant and partner Lesley May are at the Folly practicing their magic skills and researching an Oxford dining club called the Little Crocodiles. Magic--Lesley is doing more careful, disciplined, and therefore somewhat more skilled work than Peter. Little Crocodiles--their professor was illicitly teaching them Newtonian magic.

They're interrupted by a call to an auto accident, with the drunk driver dead and the other driver, who was speeding, not badly hurt. And yet there's blood in the car. Turns out it's not the driver's blood. Whose is it?

Oh, and the driver, Robert Weil, is connected to the Little Crocodiles.

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022, by Rebecca Roanhorse (guest editor), John Joseph Adams (series editor)

Mariner Books, ISBN 9780358690122, November 2022

This is a collection of twenty stories of science fiction, fantasy, and bit of horror, a Year's Best collection with John Joseph Adams as the series editor, and Rebecca Roanhorse as this year's guest editor.

It's a lively and interesting collection of stories, including the ones that are not to my taste. It includes writers of a wide variety of backgrounds, with the diverse characters you, or at least I, like to see.

Some of my favorites here:

Champagne and Lemon Drops (Blueberry Springs 0.5), by Jean Oram (author), Cris Dukehart (narrator)

Oram Productions, ISBN 9781928198758, January 2015

I had very mixed feelings about this book.

Beth is a very likable character, who wants a quiet life in her hometown of Blueberry Springs, her career helping people in and out of the local hospital as a recreational therapist, and marriage, a white picket fence, and kids. A big family around the table for every holiday. She's planning her wedding to her sweetheart, Oz.

Except that Oz, who has seemed a bit "off" for a little while, announces they need to take a break. He hates his work as an accountant in his father's firm. He's living the life his father wants him to live. He needs to find himself.

Wacky Witches and Haunted Houses, by Amelia Morgan (author), Stephanie Quinn (narrator)

Meredith Potts, September 2021

Meg Walton and her police detective husband, Connor Smith, want to get out of their apartment and buy a house in their little town of  Enchanted Bay. But Enchanted Bay is a small town with not many people looking to move out, so every open house they visit is mobbed. Finally, they go to the least appealing one, the one with the lowest asking price and described as a fixer-upper. When they arrive to see the house, the real estate agent is there, but no one else. They're the only ones wanting to see the house, and the reasons are obvious. Fixing it up will be a huge job. But they're here, and decide to do a walk-through.

A woman approaches them asking for help, but only Meg can see and hear her. She's a ghost, and Meg wants nothing to do with a haunted house. She insists on leaving immediately.

Whispers Under Ground (Rivers of London #3). by Ben Aaronovitch (author), Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (narrator)

Tantor Media, ISBN 9781452680095, September 2012

When Peter Grant's young cousin, Abigail Kamara, drags him and his colleague and fellow magical apprentice, Leslie May, to a railroad track running under a school playground, they do find the ghost. But the ghost is no threat, and doesn't seem to be pointing to anything of concern now. So when the first case that lands on his desk on Monday is a man stabbed to death on the track at Baker Street Station, he puts the ghost aside, and sets about finding out why the British Transport Police officer, Sgt. Kumar, thinks there's something odd about the case in a way that makes it the Folly's business.

Gaming Hell Christmas: Volume Two, by Amanda McCabe (author), Kathy L Wheeler (author)

Chisel Imprint, December 2022

It's 1797, and in Georgian England, while women have no more legal rights than they will have in the coming Regency era, they do have somewhat more social freedom. The Girls of Wight, a small circle of friends who attended Miss Greensley's School of Comportment for Young Ladies of Quality, now 29 and all still unmarried, are exercising some of that freedom--still quite limited by modern standards.

One of them is Princess Augusta, a daughter of George III. Another is Alexandra, illegitimate but acknowledged and valued daughter of the Duke of Winsome. There are the twin daughters of an earl, Thomasina and Philomena. Victoria Lanford is an orphan who became the ward of her uncle when her parents died, and was sent to school and Miss Greensley's when she and her cousins, Delphine and Melanie, hated her. She now supports herself writing novels by "A Lady L." 

Miracle at Coney Island: How a Sideshow Doctor Saved Thousands of Babies and Transformed American Medicine, by Claire Prentice (author), Coleen Marlo (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, ISBN 9781536689303, August 2017

For forty years, 1903 to 1943, Martin Couney, the "incubator doctor," both cared for and exhibited premature babies in an incubator facility at Coney Island. He also ran similar facilities at amusement parks and world's fairs around the US and in Mexico, London, Paris, and Brazil.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the medical profession considered it not worthwhile to try to save premature babies. It was assumed that even if they lived, they would always be weak, and not productive. Couney disagreed. He believed, based on an exhibit he may have attended in Berlin, and they one he ran in London, that most of these babies could be saved, with good incubators and good care.