Featured bookseller pick
If you enjoyed Widowmaker, then you’ll love The Obsidian Chamber.
Show me another!“Dark mystery/thrillers!”
Suzanne, Ballast Book Co.
Bookseller picks
Find hidden gems personally recommended by our amazing bookseller partners.

Hidden Valley Road
By: Robert Kolker
Narrated by: Sean Pratt
Length: 13 hours 8 minutes
Abridged: No
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOKS OF THE YEAR
ONE OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL TOP TEN BOOKS OF THE YEAR
PEOPLE'S #1 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, TIME, Slate, Smithsonian, The New York Post, and Amazon
The heartrending story... Read more »

Me and White Supremacy
By: Layla F. Saad
Narrated by: Layla F. Saad
Length: 5 hours 19 minutes
Abridged: No
Based off the original workbook, Me and White Supremacy teaches listeners how to dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.
When Layla Saad began an Instagram challenge called #meandwhitesupremacy, she never... Read more »
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Deacon King Kong
By: James McBride
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Length: 14 hours 5 minutes
Abridged: No
One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year"
Oprah's Book Club Pick
Named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and TIME Magazine
A Washington Post Notable Novel
From the author of the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird and the bestselling modern classic The Color of Water, comes one of... Read more »

Big Friendship
By: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Narrated by: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Length: 5 hours 33 minutes
Abridged: No
A close friendship is one of the most influential and important relationships a human life can contain. Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul.
Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their... Read more »

Legendborn
By: Tracy Deonn
Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
Length: 18 hours 54 minutes
Abridged: No
Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy Legendborn offers the dark allure of City of Bones with a modern-day twist on a classic legend and a lot of Southern Black Girl Magic.
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or... Read more »

A Deadly Education
By: Naomi Novik
Narrated by: Anisha Dadia
Length: 10 hours 58 minutes
Abridged: No
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic.
“The dark school of magic I’ve been waiting for.” Katherine Arden, author of Winternight Trilogy
I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my... Read more »

The Once and Future Witches
By: Alix E. Harrow
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
Length: 16 hours 3 minutes
Abridged: No
In the late 1800s, three sisters use witchcraft to change the course of history in Alix E. Harrow's powerful novel of magic and the suffragette movement.
In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern... Read more »

Shit, Actually
By: Lindy West
Narrated by: Lindy West
Length: 7 hours 16 minutes
Abridged: No
**Your Favorite Movies, Re-Watched**
New York Times opinion writer and bestselling author Lindy West was once the in-house movie critic for Seattle's alternative newsweekly The Stranger, where she covered film with brutal honesty and giddy irreverence. In Shit, Actually, Lindy returns to those roots, re-examining beloved and iconic movies from... Read more »

Luster
By: Raven Leilani
Narrated by: Ariel Blake
Length: 6 hours 39 minutes
Abridged: No
"There is a universal appeal to [Narrator Ariel] Blake's performance as Edie, a protagonist who may be her own worst antagonist. Blake's delivery has an immensely human, relatable quality that makes the listener want the best for Edie as she struggles to make her way in the world." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner
AN INSTANT NEW... Read more »

Beach Read
By: Emily Henry
Narrated by: Julia Whelan
Length: 10 hours 12 minutes
Abridged: No
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
"Original, sparkling bright, and layered with feeling..."—Sally Thorne, author of The Hating Game
A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.
Augustus Everett is an... Read more »

When No One Is Watching
By: Alyssa Cole
Narrated by: Susan Dalian & Jay Aaseng
Length: 8 hours 29 minutes
Abridged: No
"From the first page of WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING, I felt like I was right there in the gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood, filled with sharply etched characters and dialogue that zings. Then bam! I was knocked over by the momentum of an intense psychological thriller that doesn’t let go until the final page. This is a terrific read." – Alafair... Read more »
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In the Dream House
By: Carmen Maria Machado
Narrated by: Carmen Maria Machado
Length: 5 hours 28 minutes
Abridged: No
In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened... Read more »
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The Power of Ritual
By: Casper ter Kuile
Narrated by: Casper ter Kuile
Length: 5 hours 54 minutes
Abridged: No
Casper ter Kuile, a Harvard Divinity School fellow and cohost of the popular Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, explores how we can nourish our souls by transforming common, everyday practices—yoga, reading, walking the dog—into sacred rituals that can heal our crisis of social isolation and struggle to find purpose—a message we need more... Read more »
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The Death of Vivek Oji
By: Akwaeke Emezi
Narrated by: Chukwudi Iwuji & Yetide Badaki
Length: 7 hours 38 minutes
Abridged: No
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR’S CHOICE
"Electrifying." — O: The Oprah Magazine
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, USA TODAY, Vanity Fair, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, Shondaland, Teen Vogue, Vulture, Lit Hub, Bustle, Electric Literature, and BookPage
What does it mean... Read more »

Black Sun
By: Rebecca Roanhorse
Narrated by: Cara Gee, Nicole Lewis, Kaipo Schwab & Shaun Taylor-Corbett
Length: 12 hours 46 minutes
Abridged: No
From the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Resistance Reborn comes the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.
A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black... Read more »

Transcendent Kingdom
By: Yaa Gyasi
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 8 hours 40 minutes
Abridged: No
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK!
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER
Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.
Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine... Read more »

Homeland Elegies
By: Ayad Akhtar
Narrated by: Ayad Akhtar
Length: 10 hours 19 minutes
Abridged: No
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2020
Finalist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
A Best Book of 2020 * Washington Post * O Magazine * New York Times Book Review * Publishers Weekly
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced and American Dervish: an... Read more »

Shuggie Bain
By: Douglas Stuart
Narrated by: Angus King
Length: 17 hours 30 minutes
Abridged: No
This is the unforgettable story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is... Read more »
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There There
By: Tommy Orange
Narrated by: Darrell Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Alma Cuervo & Kyla Garcia
Length: 7 hours 59 minutes
Abridged: No
ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
WINNER OF THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, O, The Oprah Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, GQ, The Dallas Morning News, Buzzfeed, BookPage, Publishers Weekly, Library... Read more »

Black Buck
By: Mateo Askaripour
Narrated by: Zeno Robinson
Length: 11 hours 12 minutes
Abridged: No
A crackling, satirical debut novel about a young man given a shot at stardom as the lone black salesman at a mysterious, cult-like, and wildly successful startup where nothing is as it seems.
There’s nothing like a black salesman on a mission.
An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants... Read more »
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Writers & Lovers
By: Lily King
Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
Length: 8 hours 13 minutes
Abridged: No
Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.
Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists... Read more »
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This Is How You Lose The Time War
By: Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell & Emily Woo Zeller
Length: 4 hours 15 minutes
Abridged: No
HUGO AWARD WINNER: BEST NOVELLA
NEBULA AND LOCUS AWARDS WINNER: BEST NOVELLA
“[An] exquisitely crafted tale...Part epistolary romance, part mind-blowing science fiction adventure, this dazzling story unfolds bit by bit, revealing layers of meaning as it plays with cause and effect, wildly imaginative technologies, and increasingly intricate... Read more »

The Book of Longings
By: Sue Monk Kidd
Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò & Sue Monk Kidd
Length: 13 hours 22 minutes
Abridged: No
“An extraordinary novel . . . a triumph of insight and storytelling.” —Associated Press
“A true masterpiece.” —Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed
An extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated number one New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The... Read more »

Red, White & Royal Blue
By: Casey McQuiston
Narrated by: Ramon de Ocampo
Length: 12 hours 15 minutes
Abridged: No
* GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER for BEST DEBUT and BEST ROMANCE of 2019 *
One of AudioFile Magazine's Best Audiobooks of 2019; an Instant New York Times bestseller; a *Must-Read Book* for Us Weekly, Vogue, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Oprahmag.com, and more!
"Narrator Ramón de Ocampo brings out all the emotion in this tender, serious,... Read more »