This summer, SYNC will be providing two free teen audiobooks each week from April 27th to August 16th. Each week will focus on a specific theme, pairing a classic YA title with a more modern YA title. These two titles will be available to download for free this week only (from 6/8 to 6/15) at the SYNC website. The seventh week will start on Thursday, June 8th with If I Run and Plus One . The theme for the seventh week is “Crossing the line.”
Narrator Nan Gurley convincingly portrays Casey Cox as she flees in shock after discovering the murder of her boyfriend, Brent Pace. Pace was investigating the supposed suicide of Cox’s dad, a cop, and the possibility that some of Shreveport’s police are dirty. The gripping chapters alternate between the kind, resourceful Cox, who goes on the run, and PTSD sufferer Dylan Roberts, an Iraqi war vet who is hired by the cops to find her. Gurley’s most endearing character is sweet, elderly Miss Lucy Daley, who shares her sincere faith with Cox when the two meet on a bus. Listeners will breathlessly follow Cox’s flight while savoring colorful descriptions of small Southern towns and food and delighting in eccentric characters. However, learning Cox’s fate must wait until Volume 2.
Julia Whelan’s impassioned narration enhances the author’s story of an alternate reality. In this world, citizens are divided–living either by day or by night. Seventeen-year-old Soleil Le Coeur is a “smudge”–someone relegated by law to live under the veil of night. Sol fakes an injury as part of her plan to give her dying grandfather one last gift–to hold his great-granddaughter, Sol’s niece, who is a “ray,” someone who lives her life during the day. Unknowingly, Sol sets in motion a series of events that lead to political unrest and unlikely love. Sol’s desperation and intense love come through powerfully in Whelan’s delivery as the members of an intriguing subculture come to life.
Check out the rest of the month’s schedule here… you can even get text alerts about upcoming titles!
