best fiction of 2020 Audiobooks

Everyone has a chapter they don't want to read out loud. This is mine... There are moments in our lives that define us. For Brooklyn Tanner, it's the summer before her junior year of high school. The summer boys finally begin to notice her. The summer he finally begins to notice her. Andrew Brinks. Handsome. Popular. Star hockey player. Her best friend's brother. For one summer, she's happy, carefree, and convinced she'll finally experience what she's been dreaming about for years...her first kiss. But just like everything else in her life, it comes at a price she may not be ready to pay. One he may not be ready to pay, either. Promise is a prequel to T.K. Leigh's Redemption series. Start this second chance, single dad romance today. Redemption Series Reading Order: 1. Promise 2. Commitment 3. Redemption

What girl doesn’t want to wear a tiara? Me. The one who lives in yoga pants and knows she’s not special enough to be a princess. One minute I’m starting my dream life in NYC, and the next, a man too hot for his own good is banging on my door, telling me that I’m a long lost princess of a country on the other side of the Atlantic. Not exactly your typical Friday night in the Big Apple. Suddenly, all of my plans for the future are yanked away. I’m trapped in a life filled with social obligations—and stilettos!—and an uptight royal family I didn’t know existed. They, and the whole rest of the freaking country, have lofty expectations I’m not sure I can meet. At least the aforementioned sexalicious man, Elias, is my constant shadow, protecting me with his life. The whole situation is overwhelming. So I’ve secretly put him in charge of my happiness, too...and he’s taking my orders very, very seriously. So seriously, I’m falling for him even harder than the new country I’m coming to... maybe ...love. And that’s a major problem, because he’s crazy about me, too. I may not know all the zillion rules about being royal, but I know one for sure: No way can a princess date her bodyguard… Each book in the Unexpectedly Royal series is STANDALONE: * The Princess Problem * Ruling the Princess

Two deeply scarred souls struggle with forbidden feelings in this heartfelt second novel in the Nashville Sound series. Life has taught defenseman Bryant Taylor never to look back and never to get serious about a woman. His ill, pregnant wife died while he was off playing an away game, leaving him—and both their families—heartbroken. Jokes and puck bunnies are his style now, and he’s sticking to it. Gabriella Charbonnet has idolized her brother Emile since he rescued her from their violently abusive father when she was eleven—and he’s supported her ever since. He even agreed to play for the Sound so that she could apprentice as a pastry chef in nearby Beauford, Tennessee. When Bryant and Gabriella find themselves thrown together at a society fundraiser, sparks fly. But Gabriella wants nothing to do with hockey players, aside from her brother, who just so happens to be Bryant’s best friend. The first rule of the bro code? Don’t mess with sisters. There are plenty of reasons why starting a relationship would be all kinds of wrong, yet walking away from each other doesn’t prove to be as easy as they thought. Sensuality Level: Sensual

There is no way to really start this story. My story really has no beginning and no ending. It's like I was plucked from non-existence and dropped smack dab into the worst possible nightmare. I am not sure if I ever felt a moment of comfort or love from my parents, my sister I have, but from the ones that created me I don’t think I did. When you go your entire life not feeling the shelter of a parents love, I think even if for only a second if it was present it would be unforgettable, even to an infant. I cannot move forward without going back. I do not want to go back. I am scared of very few things in this world, but my past is something to bring on the cold sweats and break me into a ball of rage and pain. The trapdoors I call them, the ones containing all of the fury and pain, they need to be broken open. I have fought against it for too long and now I face my own death or my own redemption. I face the fact she will never be back and I accept the moment I broke. That’s one of the many doors I fear opening. Doors that are closed and locked and barricaded in for a reason. What I share with you, will make your skin crawl, and sadly I haven’t even scratched the surface. My name is Noah Beckett, and this is my story. There will be moments I disgust you, I will undoubtedly break your heart. I am a master of making ugly even worse but I can bring out beauty in the worst of all things. I do not judge, I would have answered to a bullet a long time ago if I did. You may not like my choices or the things I say and the way I live, but you will respect it because I have earned it.

Best friends to lovers...or will they always be branded by their pasts? Tattoo artist India Ellison is well-acquainted with preconceived notions. As a walking advertisement for the tattoo shop she’s set up in a small Wyoming town, India is used to comments about her colorful tats and hair. Still, life is good. She’s clean and sober, adored by her family, and best of all, spends most of her free time with her best friend, Colt. Reformed bad boy Colt McKay never expected three years of sobriety to lead to three years of abstinence. Curbing his craving for booze is nothing compared to the ever-increasing yearning for his hot-tempered, hot-bodied best friend, India. Too bad she hasn’t a clue that Colt’s been in love with her since day one. After an unexpected, steamy encounter, all India can think about is riding the sexy cowboy as hard and fast as her motorcycle. But Colt is determined to show her a slower ride is worth the wait. The friendship that helped them conquer their pasts is about to be tested by their new addiction. Each other.

All signs point north for Not-So-Saint Nick After too many mugs of mulled wine, introverted accountant Holly North lets her best friend guilt her into filling in as Mistress Christmas at Sugar Plums, a Christmas-themed strip club. The combination of a velvet mask and a Mrs. Claus-meets-dominatrix costume gives Holly the courage to approach the hot-bodied man across the room who is as lickable as a candy cane. Detective Nick West is working undercover to find the sexy vixen who supposedly robbed his buddy at Sugar Plums. His interest in the pole dancers vanishes faster than a flying sleigh upon his introduction to Mistress Christmas—a leggy brunette with smoky eyes and a lush mouth that begs for hours beneath the mistletoe. One lap dance and their attraction flares hotter than a fireplace on a cold winter evening. And Nick is only too happy to oblige when Holly blurts out her secret Christmas wish…a night filled with sweet and dirty carnal pleasures that will land them both on the naughty list.

I’m not the kind of man an innocent girl should fall for. But Marley River says she knows what she wants. And she wants me. She says she can handle a mountain man, after all, this freckled face slice of sunshine grew up in Alaska. But I’m more than a feral mountain man. I’m an ex-drug lord, reformed con-man, an exonerated criminal. Her brothers are the River Boys and they want me off Whiskey Mountain. I want to turn a new leaf, but not if it means giving up what I want. I love Marley more than life itself. But is that enough when the world is dead set against it? It’s high time we find out. Because I’m not going down without a fight. I’ll be here, on Whiskey Mountain, defending what — and who— is mine. With guns blazing.

Howard Andrew Jones' powerful world-building brings this epic fantasy to life in For The Killing of Kings , the first book of his new adventure-filled trilogy. Their peace was a fragile thing, but it had endured for seven years, mostly because the people of Darassus and the king of the Naor hordes believed his doom was foretold upon the edge of the great sword hung in the hall of champions. Unruly Naor clans might raid across the border, but the king himself would never lead his people to war so long as the blade remained in the hands of his enemies. But when squire Elenai’s aging mentor uncovers evidence that the sword in their hall is a forgery she’s forced to flee Darassus for her life, her only ally the reckless, disillusioned Kyrkenall the archer. Framed for murder and treason, pursued by the greatest heroes of the realm, they race to recover the real sword, only to stumble into a conspiracy that leads all the way back to the Darassan queen and her secretive advisors. They must find a way to clear their names and set things right, all while dodging friends determined to kill them – and the Naor hordes, invading at last with a new and deadly weapon.

I’m more than a single mom running from the cult that held me captive– I’m a woman carving out a life for myself. It’s harder than I expected. After solving the murder of my best friend, I’m hoping my run-ins with the law are over. Then my youngest daughter goes missing. The local detective, Boone, is on the case, and the neighborhood is determined to help find my little girl alive. But the clock is ticking. And hope? It’s running out. A kidnapped child is a mother’s worst nightmare. I will search until she is found, even if it means confronting my past. My sister wives might have the clue I need and I’m no longer scared of them. I’m a mother on a mission, and losing Ruthie isn’t an option. The Sister Wife’s Secret is the second book in a new suspense series.

“Small town Colorado police detective Gemma Monroe is a human and fallible heroine I can't wait to meet again, and Littlejohn's prose is lyrical and gripping.”―Deborah Crombie In Emily Littlejohn's follow-up to her acclaimed debut Inherit the Bones , a twisted killer stalks his prey in the dead of winter. On a cold dark night in February, as a blizzard shrieks through Cedar Valley, police officer and new mother Gemma Monroe responds to an anonymous report of a prowler at the local private high school, The Valley Academy. In her idyllic Colorado small town, Gemma expects the call was just a prank by a bored teenager. But there in the snow lies the savaged body of a man whose presence in town was meant to be a secret. And a disturbing message left by his killer promises more death to come. This is only the beginning . . . Nothing is as it seems in Cedar Valley and stories, both fact and fiction, ensnare Gemma as her investigation moves from the halls of an elite academy to the forests that surround Cedar Valley. Against a backdrop of bleak winter weather, stymied by those who would lie to protect what is dearest to them, Gemma hunts a ruthless killer before he strikes again in A Season to Lie .