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Sign up todayWonderblood
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Learn moreSet 500 years in the future, a mad cow-like disease called “Bent Head” has killed off most of the U.S. population. Those remaining turn to magic and sacrifice to cleanse the Earth.
Wonderblood is Julia Whicker's fascinating literary debut audiobook, set in a barren United States, an apocalyptic wasteland where warring factions compete for control of the land in strange and dangerous carnivals. A mad cow-like disease called "Bent Head" has killed off millions. Those who remain worship the ruins of NASA's space shuttles, and Cape Canaveral is their Mecca. Medicine and science have been rejected in favor of magic, prophecy, and blood sacrifice.
When traveling marauders led by the bloodthirsty Mr. Capulatio invade her camp, a young girl named Aurora is taken captive as his bride and forced to join his band on their journey to Cape Canaveral. As war nears, she must decide if she is willing to become her captor's queen. But then other queens emerge, some grotesque and others aggrieved, and not all are pleased with the girl's ascent.
Politics and survival are at the centre of this ravishing audiobook
Praise for Wonderblood:
"Julia Whicker's Wonderblood...plunges the readers into a marvelous and brutal world of pseudo-magic, religion and astronomy...The political machinations of the carnivals are thrilling, and the narration lush and wild." -- Washington Post
Julia Whicker received her MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop in 2006, where she won both the prestigious Capote Fellowship and the Teaching-Writing Fellowship. She’s had her poetry published in the Iowa Review, Word Riot, and The Millions, among others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A version of the first chapter of Wonderblood was published in the literary journal, Unstuck.
Caitlin Davies is a New York City-based actor and audiobook narrator. Davies specializes in audiobooks for teens and young adults, including the House of Night series by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast. She has performed in New York and regional theaters and is a member of the WorkShop Theater Company in New York City. She has a bachelor's degree from Vassar College, and has studied acting at the Eugene O'Neill National Institute, the British American Drama Academy, the Barrow Group, and Brown University/ Trinity Rep.
Reviews
"In a novel marked with heart-stopping violence, brutal ritual, surreal courtly intrigue, and moments of piercing beauty, Julia Whicker imagines a clash of religions in a broken future. The characters, and their world, are unforgettable."—Vivien Shotwell, author of Vienna Nocturne
"Visceral and intense... a fully built-out world, rich with color and detail." —Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional World
"Wonderblood is a richly imagined, otherworldly tale about the power - and danger - of faith and belief. I loved this book's beautiful prose and its startling, brutal, and poetic images; I loved its unique premise and masterful worldbuilding; I loved its complicated, passionate, and mesmerizing characters. Julia Whicker is a genius. This is a strange, daring, and masterful first novel." —Eden Lepucki, New York Times bestselling author of California
"A richly imagined broken world, one whose land, customs, history, and people are so sharply conveyed that they seem almost to have been incised into the page. I admire Wonderblood for its absorbing and unsettling story, for the uncanny beauty of its prose, but above all else for the daring of its tone, which begins in pitch darkness and brightens not to white but to a more lustrous black." — Kevin Brockmeier, New York Times bestselling author
"In fiercely glittering prose Julia Whicker evokes an apocalyptic America where medicine is illegal, everyone is searching for portents and only a severed head can offer protection. I love how richly imagined this novel is and I love how relentlessly it moves towards its amazing climax. Wonderblood is a stunning debut." —Margot Livesy, New York Times bestselling author