Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea

Morgan Callan Rogers; read by Luci Christian

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3. Put the words “Red Ruby” in the subject line. Entries must be received by no later than 2/20/2012. See the Win Audiobooks page for more details. Alternatively, you can LIKE HighBridge on Facebook and comment on this post, or become a FOLLOWER on Twitter and tweet or retweet this message by 2/20/2012 (remember to “@HighBridgeAudio”).

About This Month’s Featured Audio

A captivating debut, introducing a spirited young heroine coming of age in coastal Maine during the early 1960s.

“So rapturously moving, I could barely bring myself to close the final page.”
      —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

“Not since Ellen Foster have I rooted so hard for a fictional girl.”
      —Monica Wood, author of Any Bitter Thing

“Florine . . . isn’t always lovable . . . [b]ut Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea makes her real. B+”
      —Entertainment Weekly

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Last Month’s Winner

Congratulations to SANDRA MALARCHER the winner of the last giveaway, Running the Rift. Thanks to all who participated.

Running the Rift

Naomi Benaron; read by Marcel Davis

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newsletter@highbridgeaudio.com

3. Put the words “Running” in the subject line. Entries must be received by no later than 1/20/2012. See the Win Audiobooks page for more details. Alternatively, you can LIKE HighBridge on Facebook and comment on this post, or become a FOLLOWER on Twitter and tweet or retweet this message by 1/20/2012 (remember to “@HighBridgeAudio”).

About This Month’s Featured Audio

Winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction, this powerful debut novel describes the life of a young Tutsi boy who comes of age during the Rwandan genocide.

“Truly fearless writing . . . culturally rich and completely engrossing.”
      —Barbara Kingsolver, founder of the Bellwether Prize, author of
The Poisonwood Bible

“The politics will be familiar to those who have followed Africa’s crises (or seen Hotel Rwanda), but where Benaron shines is in her tender descriptions of Rwandan’s natural beauty and in her creation of Jean Patrick, a hero whose noble innocence and genuine human warmth are impossible not to love.”
      —Kirkus Reviews HC starred review

“Benaron accomplishes the improbable feat of wringing genuine loveliness from unspeakable horror. . . . It is a testament to Benaron’s skill that a novel about genocide . . . conveys so profoundly the joys of family, friendship, and community.”
      —Publishers Weekly HC starred review

“Unflinching and beautifully crafted. . . .   This tale of social justice [is] a memorable read, and those interested in coming-of-age stories set in wartime will want it as well. Highly recommended.”
      —Library Journal HC starred review

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Last Month’s Winner

Congratulations to CAROL KUBALA the winner of the last giveaway,
When She Woke. Thanks to all who participated.

Diana Abu-Jabur sat down with HighBridge at the Twin Cities Book Festival in Minneapolis. The author of CRESCENT and BIRDS OF PARADISE, both available on audio from HighBridge, was on a panel discussing food in writing, a combination she a thorough master of. Check out our video, where she discusses the event and audiobooks:

Birds of Paradise

How to Win This Audio CD

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2. Send an email to newsletter@highbridgeaudio.com 3. Put the words “Whim of Hat” in the subject line. Entries must be received by no later than 9/23/2011. See the Win Audiobooks page for more details. Alternatively, you can LIKE HighBridge on Facebook and comment on this post, or become a FOLLOWER on Twitter and tweet or retweet this message by 9/23/2011.

About This Month’s Featured Audio

Diana Abu-Jaber’s latest has been receiving acclaim months before its publication. It was the buzz of the June Book Expo America convention, Kirkus gave it a starred review, and now AudioFile has chimed in with praise for the narration. It’s the story of the Muirs:

Avis Muir is a brilliant pastry chef, Brian Muir a corporate real estate attorney. Their son, Stanley, is the proprietor of a trendy food market. Their beautiful daughter, Felice, is missing. A runaway at 13, Felice has spent five years modeling tattoos, skateboarding, clubbing, and sleeping in a squat house or on the beach. She’s about to turn 18. Soon all of the Muirs will be forced to confront their anguish, loss, and sense of betrayal. And Felice must reckon with the guilty secret that drove her away, then face her fear of losing her family and her sense of self forever.

“Narrator Tamara Marston portrays the main characters . . . with feeling and sensitivity. Her reading recognizes that the city of Miami . . . is also a character, and she infuses the descriptions of the landscape and urban setting with meaning.”
      —AudioFile

“Nuanced and deftly drawn. . . . Will [also] draw teens.”
      —Booklist

“A meticulous, deeply moving portrayal of imperfect human beings struggling to do right.”
      —Kirkus Reviews starred review

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Last Month’s Winner

Congratulations to DANA POLK the winner of the last giveaway, Killed at the Whim of a Hat. Thanks to all who participated.

Killed at the Whim of a Hat

How to Win This Audio CD

1. Be an active* subscriber to our newsletter. Just enter your email address below:

2. Send an email to newsletter@highbridgeaudio.com

3. Put the words “Whim of Hat” in the subject line. Entries must be received by no later than 8/19/2011.

See the Win Audiobooks page for more details. Alternatively, you can LIKE HighBridge on Facebook and comment on this post, or become a FOLLOWER on Twitter and tweet or retweet this message by 8/19/2011.

About This Month’s Featured Audio

Critics have been unanimous in their praise for Killed at the Whim of a Hat, Colin Cotterill’s novel and “What may be the best new international mystery series since the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.” (Booklist)

Jimm Juree was a crime reporter for the Chiang Mai Daily Mail with a somewhat eccentric family. When she is forced to follow her family to a rural village on the coast of Southern Thailand, she’s convinced her career—maybe her life—is over. So when a van containing the skeletal remains of two hippies is inexplicably unearthed in a local farmer’s field, Jimm is thrilled. Shortly thereafter an abbot at a local Buddhist temple is viciously murdered.

Suddenly Jimm’s new life becomes somewhat more promising—and a lot more deadly. And if Jimm is to unravel the inexplicable events, it will take luck, perseverance, and the help of her entire family.

See why Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and the New York Times all love it: Enter for your chance to win it!

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Last Month’s Winner

Congratulations to MICHELLE WADDY, the winner of the last giveaway, Claire DeWitt and City of the Dead. Thanks to all who participated.

Dr. Paul Farmer, the renowned physician and anthropologist and the founding director of Partners in Health, talked with NPR Tuesday about his newest book, Haiti After the Earthquake. Tuesday marked the eighteen-month anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. A recording of the NPR session can be found here.

On Jan. 12, 2010, a massive earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 200,000 people and causing widespread destruction. After the quake, 1.5 million people were left homeless. Today, as many as 800,000 people are still living in makeshift encampments, where security is lax and waterborne diseases like cholera have proliferated.

“It [was the] first big recrudescence of cholera in the Americas since the end of an epidemic that really swept through Peru and ended in 1993,” says Dr. Farmer. “If any country was a mine-shaft canary for the reintroduction of cholera, it was Haiti — and we knew it. And in retrospect, more should have been done to prepare for cholera … which can spread like wildfire in Haiti. … This was a big rebuke to all of us working in public health and health care in Haiti.”

Dr. Farmer’s organization, Partners in Health,  provides medical services to the poor in many countries, including Haiti. He returned to Haiti on Jan. 15, 2010, along with a cadre of volunteers, to help with the recovery and relief efforts. In his new book Haiti After The Earthquake, Farmer details what it was like on the ground in the days after the earthquake — and why the country is still struggling to recover. You can stay up to date with Dr. Farmer’s readings and events here.

 An impressive cast has stepped up to lend their voices to the Haiti After The Earthquake audiobook, which will be available through HighBridge in August. Meryl Streep, Edoardo Ballerini (far left), Edwidge Danticat, and Eric Conger (near left) are among those committed to help spreading Farmer’s message of Haiti’s struggles, recoveries, and hopes.

I was lucky enough to see Dr. Farmer speak at the commencement address for Macalester College this year; he is truly an inspiration.

The bizarre but true tale of New Jersey native Robert Egan’s experience as an accidental diplomat with North Korea—and “an enlightening, and precarious, experiment in the ways opposing cultures can merge and acquiesce” (Kirkus Reviews)—Eating With the Enemy has been garnering major attention ever since it was published earlier this year. It’s been featured in the New York Times, and James Gandolfini will be returning to HBO to star in the movie adaptation.

Now HighBridge is publishing his story as a digital download audio. Narrator Traber Burns captures the full flavor of Egan’s story: often hilarious, occasionally somber, sometimes “in-your-face,” and always fascinating.

Robert Egan could have been a roofing contractor, like his father. Instead, he opened a barbecue restaurant. His interest in the search for Vietnam-era POWs led to an introduction to North Korean officials desperate to improve relations with the United States. So Egan turned his restaurant into Camp David, with pork ribs.

During tumultuous years that saw the death of Kim Il Sung, the rise of Kim Jong Il, the Bush “Axis of Evil,” and North Korea’s successful test of a nuclear weapon, Egan advised North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, informed for the FBI, vexed the White House, and nearly rescued a captured U.S. Navy vessel. Based on true events, this fast-paced tale shows how far one citizen can go in working for peace.

The New York Times calls Eating with the Enemy “a jaunty narrative of one man’s sometimes self-indulgent escapades in the face of government ambivalence,” and Library Journal writes, “In this engaging, off-the-wall memoir, Egan . . .  demonstrates the power that individual friendships formed across ‘enemy’ lines can have.”

Egan has owned and run Cubby’s, a barbecue restaurant in Hackensack, New Jersey for the past twenty-five years. His story has been profiled in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and elsewhere. Journalist Kurt Pitzer has reported from some of the world’s most turbulent regions, including the Balkans, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq. He has written for many publications, including the Boston Globe, The Sunday Times of London, the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones magazine, BBC Radio and People magazine. He is the 2007 winner of the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize for his documentary work in Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia. In 2003, he was embedded with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion of Iraq.

Both authors and narrator have created a one-of-a-kind audiobook that will leave you shaking your head and wondering, “What do I have to offer to international diplomacy?” Find out how to get started: download Eating With the Enemy today!

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

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3. Put the words “Claire DeWitt” in the subject line. Entries must be received by no later than 7/22/2011.

See the Win Audiobooks page for more details. Alternatively, you can LIKE HighBridge on Facebook and comment on this post, or become a FOLLOWER on Twitter and tweet or retweet this message by 7/22/2011.

About This Month’s Featured Audio

The tattooed, pot-smoking Claire DeWitt is not your average private investigator. Investigating a murder in a homicide-plagued, post-Katrina New Orleans, she has brilliant skills of deduction and is an ace at discovering evidence. But Claire also uses her dreams, omens, and mind-expanding herbs to help her solve mysteries, and relies on Détection—the only book published by the great and mysterious French detective Jacques Silette before his death.

“Those who try to grasp onto the mystery will never succeed,” says Détection. “Only those who let it slip their fingers will come to know it, and hear its secrets.” Good advice for solving a murder, but you’re not going to want to let this slip through your fingers: this month, we’re giving away a free audio copy of what Express calls “The most unusual, intelligent thriller I have read in a long time:” Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead. This audiobook is so good, and two-time Audie® Award-winner Carol Monda’s narration is so spot-on, a slip of the fingers won’t even cross your mind!

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Last Month’s Winner

Congratulations to Lin Faro, the winner of the last giveaway, The Borrower. Thanks to all who participated.

David did an excellent job with All Things Shining, which David Brooks of the New York Times called “A smart, sweeping run through the history of Western philosophy. . . . important for the way it illuminates life today and for the controversial advice it offers on how to live.” It’s a wide-ranging look at the loss of meaning in the West, and a gripping guide for how to retrieve it. You can read more and hear an excerpt of David’s reading here.

It’s always fun to be able to put a face to a voice, and meeting David has gotten me excited to see Guys and Dolls (I have tickets for Wednesday night).  Thanks to David for stopping by!

David Drummond (back left) with HighBridge staffers Steve Lehman, Susan Lovley, Julie Jackson, and Diane Glaser

Swedish mystery writer Håkan Nesser’s latest novel, The Inspector and Silence, is available on audio today from HighBridge, simultaneously with the print edition. HighBridge is also releasing today the four previous installments in the Inspector Van Veeteren series, all never before available on audio in the U.S.: Mind’s Eye, The Return, Woman with Birthmark, and Borkmann’s Point.

O, The Oprah Magazine writes of the series, “Snappish, sardonic, unsentimental, depressed, and quite possibly psychic, Van Veeteren is the most appealingly unlovable hero since TV’s crabby physician House.” And The Independent comments, “The clarity of Nesser’s vision, the inner problems of good and evil with which Van Veeteren struggles, recall the films of Bergman.”

Simon Vance, the voice behind several hundred audiobooks (including those of Nesser’s fellow Swede, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest author Stieg Larsson) has narrated the entire Van Veeteren series. Vance was Booklist magazine’s 2010 “Voice of Choice”; he continues to do a masterful job with Nesser’s work. You can check out an excerpt of each of the five titles here.

So don’t delay. Van Veeteren has beer to drink and murderers to catch. You don’t want to keep him waiting!