-
The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Katie Leung, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 13 hrs
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pre-order for $25.51
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
This program is read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Katie Leung, who played Cho Chang in the Harry Potter films.
For fans of Piranesi and The Midnight Library, a stunning historical fantasy novel set on a grand express train, about a group of passengers on a dangerous journey across a magical landscape
“Breathtaking…Abounding with mysteries and marvels.”—Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree
It is said there is a price that every passenger must pay. A price beyond the cost of a ticket.
There is only one way to travel across the Wastelands: on the Trans-Siberian Express, a train as famous for its luxury as for its danger. The train is never short of passengers, eager to catch sight of Wastelands creatures more miraculous and terrifying than anything they could imagine. But on the train's last journey, something went horribly wrong, though no one seems to remember what exactly happened. Not even Zhang Weiwei, who has spent her life onboard and thought she knew all of the train’s secrets.
Now, the train is about to embark again, with a new set of passengers. Among them are Marya Petrovna, a grieving woman with a borrowed name; Henry Grey, a disgraced naturalist looking for redemption; and Elena, a beguiling stowaway with a powerful connection to the Wastelands itself. Weiwei knows she should report Elena, but she can’t help but be drawn to her. As the girls begin a forbidden friendship, there are warning signs that the rules of the Wastelands are changing and the train might once again be imperiled. Can the passengers trust each other, as the wildness outside threatens to consume them all?
A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.
Critic reviews
A Most Anticipated Book (Publishers Weekly, CrimeReads, The Nerd Daily, FanFiAddict, Historical Novel Society)
“This book is steampunk perfection!…Brooks brings a Mieville-esque mentality to her novel, with some terrifying creepy-crawlies and an even more terrifying capitalist conglomerate.”—CrimeReads
“If a luxury train raced through Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X, filled with the cast of Frances Hardinge’s The Lie Tree, it would be something like the Trans-Siberian Express of this story…Ultimately, this journey through the unknown provides ample opportunity for musings about the power of travel to change people, while examining humans’ relationships to the environment, to capitalism, and to each other…A nerve-wracking but empathetic first-class read for lovers of the strange and uncanny.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“Secrets abound…Brooks’ novel presents the reader with a late nineteenth-century Asia and Europe both familiar and bizarre…The true terrors are human greed, fear, and desire for power. This is ultimately a story about connection, friendship, and the importance of being unafraid of change. Highly recommended for its many mysteries, fascinating cast of characters, and beautifully strange Wastelands. An immersive fantasy with a complex and driven heroine.”—Booklist
More from the same
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The North Line
- A Novel
- By: Matt Riordan
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone believes Adam to be something he’s not. Sometimes that’s because he’s told them a story. Sometimes he’s told himself one. But when Adam joins an Alaskan fishing crew that’s promising quick money, the dangerous work and harsh lifestyle strip away all fabrications and force a dark-hearted exploration of who he really is. On the unforgiving Bering Sea, Adam finds the adventure and authenticity of a fisherman’s life revelatory. The labor required to seize bounty from the ocean invigorates him, and the often crude comradery accompanies a welcome, hard-earned wisdom.
-
-
Timeless, smart “Go west adventure”
- By Meadow on 05-12-24
By: Matt Riordan
-
The Wedding People
- A Novel
- By: Alison Espach
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she's here without him.
By: Alison Espach
-
House of Shades
- A Novel
- By: Lianne Dillsworth
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1833. Doctress Hester Reeves has been offered a life-changing commission. But it comes at a price. She must leave behind her husband and their canal-side home in Kings Cross and move to Tall Trees—a dark and foreboding house in Fitzrovia. If Hester can cure the ailing health of its owner, Gervaise Cherville, she will receive payment that will bring her everything she could dream of. But on arriving at Tall Trees, Hester quickly discovers that an even bigger task awaits her.
-
Trust Her
- A Novel
- By: Flynn Berry
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three years after they narrowly escaped the IRA's worst punishment for informing, Northern Irish sisters Tessa and Marian Daly have built a new life in Dublin with their young children. Though Tessa is haunted by the abrupt and violent end to her old life, she does her best to immerse herself in the joys of Finn's childhood and the rhythms of her new job at the Irish Observer. It's a small island, though, and just as quickly as they disappeared, figures from the sisters' past surface to drag them back into the conflict.
By: Flynn Berry
-
Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books
- A Novel
- By: Kirsten Miller
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.
By: Kirsten Miller
-
In the Hour of Crows
- By: Dana Elmendorf
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Adam Gold
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When called upon, she can talk the death out of the dying and save their lives—only once, never twice. But this truly unique gift comes at a price, rooting Weatherly to people who only want her around when they need her and resent her backwater ways when they don’t. Weatherly’s cousin Adaire also has a gift: she’s a Scryer and can see the future reflected back in dark surfaces. Right before she is killed in an accident, Adaire saw something unnerving, and that’s why Weatherly believes she was murdered—never thinking for a moment that it was an accident.
By: Dana Elmendorf
-
The North Line
- A Novel
- By: Matt Riordan
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone believes Adam to be something he’s not. Sometimes that’s because he’s told them a story. Sometimes he’s told himself one. But when Adam joins an Alaskan fishing crew that’s promising quick money, the dangerous work and harsh lifestyle strip away all fabrications and force a dark-hearted exploration of who he really is. On the unforgiving Bering Sea, Adam finds the adventure and authenticity of a fisherman’s life revelatory. The labor required to seize bounty from the ocean invigorates him, and the often crude comradery accompanies a welcome, hard-earned wisdom.
-
-
Timeless, smart “Go west adventure”
- By Meadow on 05-12-24
By: Matt Riordan
-
The Wedding People
- A Novel
- By: Alison Espach
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she's here without him.
By: Alison Espach
-
House of Shades
- A Novel
- By: Lianne Dillsworth
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1833. Doctress Hester Reeves has been offered a life-changing commission. But it comes at a price. She must leave behind her husband and their canal-side home in Kings Cross and move to Tall Trees—a dark and foreboding house in Fitzrovia. If Hester can cure the ailing health of its owner, Gervaise Cherville, she will receive payment that will bring her everything she could dream of. But on arriving at Tall Trees, Hester quickly discovers that an even bigger task awaits her.
-
Trust Her
- A Novel
- By: Flynn Berry
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three years after they narrowly escaped the IRA's worst punishment for informing, Northern Irish sisters Tessa and Marian Daly have built a new life in Dublin with their young children. Though Tessa is haunted by the abrupt and violent end to her old life, she does her best to immerse herself in the joys of Finn's childhood and the rhythms of her new job at the Irish Observer. It's a small island, though, and just as quickly as they disappeared, figures from the sisters' past surface to drag them back into the conflict.
By: Flynn Berry
-
Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books
- A Novel
- By: Kirsten Miller
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.
By: Kirsten Miller
-
In the Hour of Crows
- By: Dana Elmendorf
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Adam Gold
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When called upon, she can talk the death out of the dying and save their lives—only once, never twice. But this truly unique gift comes at a price, rooting Weatherly to people who only want her around when they need her and resent her backwater ways when they don’t. Weatherly’s cousin Adaire also has a gift: she’s a Scryer and can see the future reflected back in dark surfaces. Right before she is killed in an accident, Adaire saw something unnerving, and that’s why Weatherly believes she was murdered—never thinking for a moment that it was an accident.
By: Dana Elmendorf
-
The Door of No Return
- By: Kwame Alexander
- Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his village in Upper Kwanta, 11-year-old Kofi loves his family, playing oware with his grandfather and swimming in the river Offin. He’s warned though, to never go to the river at night. His brother tells him ”There are things about the water you do not know. “ Like what? Kofi asks. “The beasts.” His brother answers.
-
-
Beautiful and heartbreaking
- By Anonymous User on 03-03-24
By: Kwame Alexander
-
A Walk in the Park
- By: Kevin Fedarko
- Narrated by: Kevin Fedarko
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had completed the crossing billed it as “the toughest hike in the world.”
By: Kevin Fedarko
-
The God of the Woods
- A Novel
- By: Liz Moore
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.
By: Liz Moore
-
The Twilight Garden
- A Novel
- By: Sara Nisha Adams
- Narrated by: Shaheen Khan, Mikhail Sen, Emily Stride
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a small pocket of London, between the houses of No.77 and No.79 Eastbourne Road, lies a neglected community garden. It was a beautiful thing once, a little oasis in a bustling city for neighbors by day and the local foxes at twilight. Now it’s overgrown and neglected, an empty patch of greenery lost to time.
-
-
Such a warm and wonderful story
- By Groovy-book-girl on 05-02-24
By: Sara Nisha Adams
-
The Library Thief
- A Novel
- By: Kuchenga Shenjé
- Narrated by: Cora Kirk
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1896. After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby, Florence's father had her hair hot-combed to make her look like the other girls. But as a young woman, Florence is not so easy to tame—and when she brings scandal to his door, the bookbinder throws her onto the streets of Manchester. Intercepting her father's latest commission, Florence talks her way into the remote, forbidding Rose Hall to restore its collection of rare books. Lord Francis Belfield's library is old and full of secrets—but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife.
-
-
Great historical mystery
- By Cate F. on 05-12-24
By: Kuchenga Shenjé
-
Maude Horton's Glorious Revenge
- A Novel
- By: Lizzie Pook
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-year-old Constance Horton has run away from her life in Victorian London, disguising herself as a boy to board the Makepeace, an expedition vessel bound for the icy and unexplored Northwest Passage of the Arctic. She struggles to keep her real identity a secret on the ship, a feat that only grows more difficult when facing off with the constant dangers of the icy North. In London two years later: Maude Horton is searching for the truth.
-
-
Unrelievedly grim, characters, story, and setting
- By Chloe Gray on 01-27-24
By: Lizzie Pook
-
Sandwich
- A Novel
- By: Catherine Newman
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go. For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.
By: Catherine Newman
-
I Just Keep Talking
- A Life in Essays
- By: Nell Irvin Painter
- Narrated by: Nell Irvin Painter
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times bestselling author of The History of White People and Old in Art School, a finalist for the NBCC Award, comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it. These essays resist easy answers in favor of complexity, the inescapable sense of our country’s potential thwarted by its failures. This collection will surely solidify Painter’s place among the finest critics and writers of the last half century.
-
The Bright Sword
- A Novel of King Arthur
- By: Lev Grossman
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith, Lev Grossman
- Length: 24 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find that he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive. They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill.
By: Lev Grossman
-
All the Colors of the Dark
- By: Chris Whitaker
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.
By: Chris Whitaker
-
The Spice Gate
- A Fantasy
- By: Prashanth Srivatsa
- Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Delve into this debut fantasy and journey through the Spice Gates as Amir, a young man born with the ability to travel between the eight kingdoms, unravels the power that keeps the world in balance, perfect for listeners of Ken Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty, S.A. Chakraborty’s Daevabad Trilogy, and Andrea Stewart’s The Drowning Empire.
-
The Book of Thorns
- By: Hester Fox
- Narrated by: Ell Potter, Fiona Hardingham
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Penniless and stranded in France after a bid to escape her cruel uncle goes awry, Cornelia Shaw is far from the Parisian life of leisure she imagined. Desperate and lacking options, she allows herself to be recruited to Napoleon’s Grande Armée. As a naturalist, her near-magical ability to heal any wound with herbal mixtures invites awe amongst the soldiers…and suspicion. For behind Cornelia’s vast knowledge of the natural world is a secret she keeps hidden—the flowers speak to her through a mysterious connection she has felt since childhood.
-
-
Another great one from Ms. Fox
- By audrey melton on 04-11-24
By: Hester Fox