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Two Delightful Digital Audiobook Mysteries narrated by Johanna Parker: Brownies & Broomsticks and Beaches, Bungalows, & Burglaries

11 May

Recently I enjoyed two fun mysteries narrated by the always enjoyable Johanna Parker who has a soothing voice with just a little twang and spunkiness added to it for her Southern protagonists.  Johanna Parker has won both an AudioFile Earphones Award and an Audie Award for her narrations.  Her most notable narration has been Sookie Stackhouse from Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries.

Brownies & Broomsticks
by Bailey Cates
Brownie & Broomsticks is the first of the Magical Bakery Mystery series.  Katie Lightfoot leaves her job in Ohio to open a new bakery in Savannah with her aunt and uncle.  If you love baking too, there are instructions at the beginning of the digital audiobook for how to get recipes from the story for Lightfoot’s Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies and Cheddar Sage Scones. But more than just recipes are brewing, Katie learns in the novel not only is her aunt a witch, but she is too!  Add in some potential love interests and if that wasn’t enough drama a customer is murdered and her uncle is the main suspect.  Parker only narrated the first in the series, with the also charming Amy Rubinate narrating the subsequent nine installments. The book is also available in print from BCCLS libraries. 

Beaches, Bungalows, & Burglaries
by Tonya Kappes
Part one of Tonya Kappes’s Camper and Criminals Cozy Mystery series, Beaches Bungalows, & Burglaries is another enjoyable mystery narrated by Johanna Parker.  Mae West (no, not the Hollywood actress, but the wife of Paul West who was arrested for a Ponzi scheme) has been forced to downsize considerably from her big city NY lifestyle to living in a camper and trying to make a go running a tourist campground in Kentucky.  Things are tough enough with residents blaming her for her husband’s thievery, but then he escapes from jail and turns up dead.  Parker’s fans will be pleased that she narrates all 20 books in the series including the most recent Blossoms, Barbeque, & Blackmail.

Do you love mysteries? Consider joining us for the Hoboken Public Library Mystery Book Club!

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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Dazzling Diverse Fantasy: Fevered Star and The Gilded Ones

27 Apr

Myth, legends, and traditions have always worked their way into fantasy, but for years much of what was written in English drew from European history or if it looked elsewhere it was through an “exotic” outsider lens. It is exciting to see so many People of Color, especially women, writing and getting published fantasy works inspired by their own cultures. Here are two powerful works I enjoyed recently.

Fevered Star
Fevered Star is alive with strong willed characters that kept me turning the page. I was especially drawn to Xiala a Teek whose voice has power and Serapio who though literally now a powerful god still manages to have the complexity of a lesser man. This is a second book so the various strands of each main character are interwoven together, but they are distanced from one another. The series is set in a Fantasy American Continent drawing from native myths and legends. I would recommend to other readers starting with Black Sun and then reading Fevered Star to better understand the underlying political dynamics at work. The end of Fevered Star definitely left me hungry for the third book in the series. Rebecca Roanhorse is an African American and Indigenous author. I was provided an advanced copy of Fevered Star by Net Galley/SAGA Press.

The Gilded Ones
The Gilded Ones is the first in a series by Namina Forna. The next book, The Merciless Ones, will be coming out at the end of this month. Forna immigrated from West Africa as a child and her experiences there helped to inspire some of the novel’s story. In The Gilded Ones, women are considered impure if they bleed gold when cut. They must choose between death and becoming warriors whose service to the emperor will purify them. But all is not what it seems, in this inspiring work of feminist fantasy. Although it is listed as a Young Adult work, adults will also enjoy this book. We read it as part of our monthly HPL Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Discussion Group.

Both series are available from elibraryNJ and in print from BCCLS Libraries.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Service Manager

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