7 Audiobooks That Will Fill Your Ears with Heavenly Sounds

The Finishing School series by Gail Carriger, which begins with Etiquette and Espionage, has been a recent obsession of mine. The steampunk Victorian setting is filled with charm, and Carriger’s prose is oh so dreadfully witty. Adventurous Sophronia, our heroine and intelligencer-in-training, breaks the boundaries placed upon her by Victorian sensibilities with style. In audio form, Moira Quirk, our fearless narrator, does an excellent job of bringing Finishing School to life. Her many distinct voices for each of the characters are funny and brilliantly suited to each personality. This is a fun, entertaining series brought to life incandescently. Go forth and enjoy!

The Witch Hunter duology is the perfect pair of audiobooks if you’re looking for action, adventure, and, of course, romance. Elizabeth Grey is one of the king’s best witch hunters, tasked with rooting out wizards and witches within the kingdom on Anglia. But when Elizabeth is accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death, she finds salvation in the form of Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful and dangerous wizard in the kingdom. If she can help break the curse on him, he will save her from the stake. What follows is a rollicking ride through a Cromwellian-England inspired world of magic and deceit, expertly read by Nicola Barber!

Yes, yes, I know this is a middle-grade series. Hear me out, okay? Not only is The Wizards of Once series endearing, funny, and full of Cressida Cowell’s trademark charm, but the audiobooks are narrated by David Tennant. David. Tennant. I’ll give that a moment to sink in.

He does an excellent job of narrating, giving each character a unique and hilarious voice and I regularly burst out laughing. Out loud. On the subway. That is how funny this audiobook is. And at its core is an epic story of acceptance and the search for peace between the warring nations of the Wizards and the Warriors. What more can you ask of an audiobook!?

This classic, gothic masterpiece by Carlos Ruiz Zafon is transportive and haunting.

One day in the early ‘80’s, fifteen-year-old Oscar Drai vanishes from his boarding school, disappearing for a week. His story begins when he meets mysterious Marina while exploring and old portion of Barcelona. When they witness a macabre ritual that occurs once a month in an obscure cemetery, the two are transported into a forgotten postwar Barcelona, a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons, and a dark secret that lies waiting just below the city streets. Narrated by Daniel Weyman, this audio book will leave you checking under your bed and in your closet. Not going to lie, I had to pause it a few times because it was giving me some serious chills.

This audiobook was the 2019 Audie Winner for Multi-voiced Performance. Treadgill and Slattery do an excellent job of bringing to life this dual-narrative that brings the Tulsa race riot of 1921 to life and raises questions about the complex state of US race relations, both yesterday and today. When seventeen-year-old Rowan finds a skeleton on her family’s property, she has no idea that investigating a brutal century-old murder will lead to a summer of painful discoveries about the present and the past. One hundred years earlier, a misguided violent encounter propels seventeen-year-old Will into a racial firestorm. This lightning-paced mystery will leave you breathless as you listen.

In this Malaysian inspired fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. Soldiers are sent to capture Lei and bring her back to the castle as a Paper Girl, one of the demon king’s paper concubines. Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei does the unthinkable: she falls in love. Allison Hiroto brings Ikhara to life with impressive narrating skills and the plot of this book will keep you on the edge of your seat.

When Harriet Price, over-achieving perfectionist, and Will Everhart, social justice warrior with a chip on her shoulder, see a concerning incident involving the swimming coach swept under the rug, the unlikely duo reluctantly join together to expose all the wrongs of their elite Australian prep-school. And who takes the credit for these daring stunts? Amelia Westlake, a fictional student they make up as a kind of calling card. But how long can they keep their secret? Read by Candice Moll and Jaye Rosenberg (whose Aussie accents really help with the atmosphere), Amelia Westlake Was Never Here is an adorable tale about two girls fighting to make a difference. While maybe falling in love!