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In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!
Shop nowWhalefall
A Novel
Narrator
Kirby Heyborne
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Length
8 hours 7 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“Whalefall, by Daniel Kraus, is based on a ridiculous premise - a skinny little scuba diver is swallowed by a huge sperm whale. Also, the first couple of chapters are kind of slow going. So why am I recommending this book? Because it is a rollercoaster of a story. Jay Gardiner's estranged father commits suicide by drowning himself. We know it's suicide because the man was a legendary diver in his state. Jay was not there when his father was diagnosed with mesothelioma, nor when Mitt Gardiner killed himself. The guilt Jay feels motivates him to go diving to find any of his father's remains. While searching, Jay is accidentally swallowed by the whale in a completely plausible event. The rollercoaster effect of the book starts at this point. Jay's air is running out. In fact, the chapter titles are PSI numbers. While trying to free himself from the whale, Jay embarks on a spiritual journey of hope, despair, and forgiveness.”
— Bill • Quail Ridge Books
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Named a Best Book of 2023 by Book Riot, Shelf Awareness, and NPR
The Martian meets 127 Hours in this “astoundingly great” (Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author) and scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.
Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.
The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.
Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an “powerfully humane” (Owen King, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life…only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.
Daniel Kraus is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels and graphic novels. He coauthored The Living Dead with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. With Guillermo del Toro, he coauthored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus coauthored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. He has won two Odyssey Awards (for Rotters and Scowler), and The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 Books of the Year. His books have been Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults picks, Bram Stoker finalists, and more. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. Daniel lives with his wife in Chicago. Visit him at DanielKraus.com.
