Taking the scenic route to your vacation destination this year? You're going to miss out on valuable reading time, but not to worry, book nerds! I've got nine new audiobooks for your long, summer road trip, so be sure you "pack" them with your sunscreen and flip-flops.
Audiobooks are perfect for long road trips. If you're making the trek alone, it's just you and the book you've chosen to listen to. For those of you taking friends or family members along for the ride, listening to the right audiobook can be a special experience that you share with the people you love. I still remember the summer I listened to Out of the Dust on tape with my mom, and you can make your vacation just as memorable with any of the nine new audiobooks on the list below.
Each of the audiobooks I've picked out for you will provide at least 10 hours of listening enjoyment for your next road trip. Just load them onto your connected device of choice and light out for the territory — or wherever else you might be headed. Check out my recommendations below, and enjoy your road trip, wherever it takes you:
'The Sunday Lunch Club' by Juliet Ashton, read by Karen Cass
Anna and her loved ones meet every Sunday afternoon to dish about their lives and get into petty little fights that will be forgotten by the next week. Now, 40-year-old Anna is pregnant, sitting between her ex-husband and her current lover, wondering if anything will ever be the same again.
'The Ensemble' by Aja Gabel, read by Rebecca Lowman
Aja Gabel's debut novel follows the members of the Van Ness String Quartet, with the third-person narrator looking over each character's shoulder in turn, as they navigate the first 15 years of post-college life.
'84K' by Claire North, read by Peter Kenny
Working at the Criminal Audit Office, Theo must calculate the fine for each crime committed, however big or small. With a fine set, the perpetrator may either pay their debt to society in cash, or work it off. When a woman Theo once loved is killed, and her killer allowed to walk free, the system no longer seems fair, and Theo must question his place in this hyper-capitalist society.
'Girls Burn Brighter' by Shobha Rao, read by Soneela Nankani
Brought together by tragedy, Poornima and Savitha — one motherless, the other hired out as a weaver — cling to and support one another, until Savitha disappears one night. Desperate to find her, Poornima leaves her village and spends years trying to reconnect with the only friend she's ever had.
'All the Ever Afters' by Danielle Teller, read by Jane Copland
Taking a sympathetic look at Cinderella's "evil" stepmother, Danielle Teller's All the Ever Afters presents readers with Agnes, an unwed mother who must return to her old employer and take work as a nurse to the strange Ella — whose father she eventually marries — in order to survive.
'The Map of Salt and Stars' by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar, read by Lara Sawalha
The Map of Salt and Stars follows two young women across the Middle East and North Africa. After her husband dies in 2011, Nour's mother moves her family back to Syria, only to find themselves fleeing the violence of the coming war. Traveling across the globe, Nour retraces the steps of Rawiya, a 16-year-old girl who disguised herself as a boy and set off to see the world in the 13th century.
'Mother of Invention' by Caeli Wolfson Widger, read by Christina Traister
Tessa Callahan's tech company has just developed the Seahorse Solution, which can condense gestation times from nine months down to nine weeks. Supervising the first human trial, Tessa begins to uncover cracks in the technology's seemingly flawless veneer, and soon discovers, to her horror, what the Seahorse Solution actually does.
'The Glitch' by Elisabeth Cohen, read by Cassandra Campbell
Shelley Stone has it all: a successful startup, a husband and two talented children, the perfect body, and a ruthlessly efficient work schedule. But when she meets another woman with her name, who has the same scar on her shoulder, Shelley wonders if her picture-perfect life has begun to crumble.
'Circe' by Madeline Miller, read by Perdita Weeks
Madeline Miller retells the story of Odysseus' witchy lover in Circe, following the title character from her childhood in the home of the sun god, through her banishment by Zeus to the island of Aeaea, culminating with her involvement in the mainstays of Greek myth and legend.
