Let me start with narrator Susan Dalian, who has been very busy voicing a number of new audiobooks. Dalian was the 2021 Audie Award winner in Thriller/Suspense for her co-narration of WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING. Then she narrated AS THE WICKED WATCH (released October 2021), the first audiobook in a new series written by TV personality Tamron Hall. Not surprisingly, the protagonist is a TV reporter whose ambition is to be an anchor on a national network. She also happens to have a master’s degree in forensic science, allowing her to bring her special talents and instincts to cover murders.
Narrator Dalian also brings her talents to ALL HER LITTLE SECRETS, the debut novel of author Wanda M. Morris. Morris’s lead character Ellice Littlejohn is a lawyer, like Morris herself. Dalian applies her talents to performing and differentiating a full range of characters.
And one more mention for Dalian’s narrating talents: THESE TOXIC THINGS by Rachel Howzell Hall. Dalian provides the voice and personality for Mickie Lambert, another amateur sleuth, who is drawn into a mystery by virtue of her very modern occupation—a digital memory creator.
In Yasmin Angoe’s debut thriller, HER NAME IS KNIGHT, Nena Knight is a trained "dispatcher" (assassin). Narrator Tamika Katon-Donegal is especially effective in shifting from Nena’s “before” story of a teenager kidnapped into the sex slave trade in Ghana and the “after” where she, in her mid-twenties, is living in Miami and carrying out her assassination assignments. While the “before” chapters are violent, emotionally intense, and so well delivered that they are at once captivating and horrifying, the "after" chapters have a superhero vibe. Angoe begins the novel with a list of resources for information on abuse and sex trafficking.
Finally, Golden Voice January LaVoy earned an Earphones Award for her performance of Ken Follett's NEVER, a 24-hour epic listen that you may well find as "unpausable" as AudioFile's reviewer did. LaVoy uses her superstar narrator skills to memorably portray a wide variety of characters—including the first female U.S. president—to excellent effect. I mentioned this title briefly in my last article, but if you're a fan of globe-trotting thrillers, especially as delivered by a master narrator, this is one you don't want to miss.
