
Audiobooks for Beginners
So you’ve decided to take the plunge and start listening to audiobooks, but you have no idea where to start. Here’s an audiobook easy guide to getting started, and also a selection of great audiobooks to get you started.
If you’ve spent years reading physical and ebooks, you may not understand what the fuss is all about audiobooks and even be reluctant to try. You may think you’ll lose a lot of the story believing it is easy to get distracted. I’ve been there and now they are my go-to choice. And I’ll tell you why.
Multitask Like a Pro
Torn between reading and doing the dishes? Cleaning the house? Cooking? Doing laundry? Not with audiobooks. Everything from chores to running errands to hitting the gym becomes more exciting once you press play on an audiobook. The format allows you to be productive in more ways than one!
Time Flies
Whether you’re listening as you commute to and from the office each day or hitting the road to travel audiobooks will keep you entertained.
You Will Read More
Many readers find that their reading speed increases once they start listening to audiobooks. Part of this is because they can multitask and read. And you can also adjust the narration speed to go faster than reading with your eyes alone.
Enhance Reading Experience
Audiobook narrators can take your reading experience to the next level. A great narrator can transport you into a story and make you feel as though you truly know the characters. Plus some audiobooks come with full cast recording, music, and sound effects.
The only downside is that as a great narrator can save a bad book, a bad narrator can ruin a good one. But with time you will learn which narrators are for you and which are not.
That sounds great! What do I need to listen?
When it comes to audiobooks, there are both paid and free subscription services. I’ll outline some of the most popular below, but we recommend taking a close look at each platform yourself to find the best fit for you.
Paid subscriptions
Audible lets you make one-off purchases or start a monthly subscription, though its package is what it’s famed for. For £7.99 a month, you get one credit which means you can download and keep any title. Every book you choose is yours to keep, forever – even if you cancel your membership. If you want more bang for your buck, there are higher-priced packages that give you access to additional books and as a subscriber, you get discounts on any books you buy outside your monthly package.
Libro.fm allows members the option of buying audiobooks through their local bookstore! For $14.99 a month, Libro.fm members receive one credit that can be redeemed for any audiobook on their site. Not ready to commit to a monthly membership? This platform allows members to choose an À La Carte option where they can pay as they listen. All books that you purchase are yours forever, even if you end your membership. With an easy-to-use app and a dedication to indie bookstores, Libro.fm is a favorite among many readers.
Storytel is a popular ebook and audiobook platform. For only $12.98 a month you have access to Storytel Unlimited— but the price differs depending on the country. There’s no limit to the amount of titles you can read/listen to. Storytel operates in over 25 markets around the globe and is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.
This comprehensive reading-focused platform gives you unlimited access to over a million titles all wrapped up in one subscription price of $9.99 a month. Well, Scribd also gives you access to ebooks, articles and podcasts too.
Free options
It can be all too easy to forget what an amazing place the library is. Then along comes a smart little lending app that lets you tap into the catalogue of audiobooks (ebooks and mags, too) at your local library, from the convenience of your pocket.
Hate waiting? Hoopla offers readers access to ebooks, audiobooks, music, and movies from their local library and there are no holds. Bookworms who love reading a book and then immediately watching the film adaptation will find Hoopla to be a great one-stop shop.
Spotify has an extensive collection of audiobooks, but the quality of the narrators is hit or miss.
Some tips for beginners:
Sign up for a free trial. It is good testing the waters before your final decision. Lots of big stores – including Audible – offer free trials. They’re a great way to experiment. Dip in and out of a few books, and you’ll begin to get a feel for what you enjoy most.
Start small. Listening to your first audiobook can be daunting. It’s a skill, and it takes time to adapt to pick up detail. But trust me you will get there. You can either listen to something you’ve read and loved or pick a short story. Or you can also listen while you read. You can find free audiobooks on Kindle Unlimited.
Toggle the narration speed. Some people genuinely prefer to listen to a faster narration, which as a bonus means you read (or listen) quicker too. Others prefer a slower speed, so they don’t miss any action. Play about with the speed to find a pace that suits you.
Now that you are all set. Enjoy your audiobook!
Sweet Talk
by Cara Bastone

Narrators: Lidia Dornet, Chris Brinkley
Published: April 22, 2021
Length: 5 hours and 42 minutes
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series of Standalone: Love Lines #2
Characters: Jessie, Eliot
POV: first person, dual.
Tropes:
- grumpy X sunshine
- cinnamon roll hero
- funny
THOUGHTS:
Cara Bastone’s audiobooks are always a great pick for beginners. Her audiobooks is so well done. They are easy to folly and full of sound effects.
BLURB: It’s officially booty o’clock, I’m alone again in my kitchen choking down a slice of terrible chocolate cake…and I’m pretty sure I just got drunk texted by the man I have a ginormous crush on.
I’ve been daydreaming about Eliot Hoffman’s dimples for two months, and even though I’m sure this was a mistake on his end, it doesn’t mean it’s not an opportunity on mine. It’s the middle of the night, and I just wanna talk to him. So I text him back.
And then somehow we keep talking…ALL NIGHT. We’re both insomniacs, so talking all night soon turns into talking EVERY night.
And talking about nothing soon turns into talking about something.
And here we go from in-depth analysis of reality TV to my relationship with my family to his amazing artwork. There’s no topic we don’t cover…
Except for who I really am. It’s the only question of his I won’t answer.
As my crush turns into an avalanche of Eliot, I think of him all the time now. But if he knew who I was, the entire house of cards we’ve built this relationship on would come toppling down. I want him to be mine, but we might never be more than just a sweet dream…
Daisy Jones & the Six
by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Narrators: Jennifer Beals, Benjamin Bratt, Judy Greer, Pablo Schreiber
Published: March 5, 2019
Length: 9 hours and 3 minutes
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Los Angeles, California (United States)
Characters: Warren Raymond, Billy Dunne, Daisy Jones, Simone Jackson, Graham Dunne, Camila Dunne, Eddie Loving, Karen Karen, Teddy Price
POV: third person, multiple
TROPES:
- love triangle
- rockstar hero
- 70s rock band
THOUGHTS:
I have listened to countless audiobooks over the last 5 years and this is the simply the best audiobook I’ve ever listened so far. It is like you are listening to an episode of VH1’s Behind The Music. It’s incredible!
BLURB: Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.
Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.
House of Earth and Blood
(Part 1 of 2 & Part 2 of 2) – The GraphicAudio
by Sara J. Maas

Narrators: full cast, Robb Moreira, Debi Tinsley, Lise Bruneau, Colleen Delany, Kit Swann, Danny Montooth, Nick J. Russo, Torian Brackett, Gail Shalan, Stephanie Németh-Parker, Gabriel Michael
Published: February 29, 2024
Length: 11 hours and 51 minutes
Genre: Romantasy
Series: Crescent City #1
Setting: Crescent City
Characters: Bryce Quinlan, Hunt Athalar, Ruhn Danaan, Isaiah Tiberian, Micah Domitus, Fury Axtar, Juniper Andromeda
POV: third person , multiple
Tropes:
- enemies to lovers
- take-charge heroine
- demons
- angels
- fae
- magic
- slow burn
- forced proximity
THOUGHTS:
Even if you don’t love the story you will love the experience only for the audiobook performance itself.
BLURB: Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life-working hard all day and partying all night-until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She’ll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths.
Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose-to assassinate his boss’s enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.
As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City’s underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion-one that could set them both free, if they’d only let it.
With unforgettable characters, sizzling romance, and page-turning suspense, this richly inventive new fantasy series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas delves into the heartache of loss, the price of freedom-and the power of love.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
by Victoria Schwab

Published: October 6, 2020
Length: 17 hours and 10 minutes
Genre: Fantasy
Setting: France, New York City, New York (United States), Paris (France), Villon (France), Florence, Tuscany (Italy), London, England
Characters: Adeline “Addie” LaRue, Henry Strauss, Estele Magritte, Beatrice Caldwell
POV: third person, dual
Narrator: Julia Whelan
Tropes:
- enemies to lovers
- demons
- dark romance
- love triangle
- criminal heroine
THOUGHTS:
The audio is AMAZING! Probably one of the things that made this so bingeable for me, honestly. It’s got one of my favorite narrators – Julia Whelan, and she’s just fantastic at evoking various voices in the dialogue scenes. You’ll definitely have a great time listening to this.
BLURB: France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.
But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.
Belladonna
by Adalyn Grace

Narrator: Kristin Atherton
Published: August 30, 2022
Length: 13 hours and 14 minutes
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Belladonna #1
Characters: Signa, Death
POV: third person, dual
Tropes:
- enemies to lovers
- forbidden love
- slow burn
- murder mystery
- a hint of spice
THOUGHTS:
The narrator Kristin Atherton manage to give Death a sinister yet steamy voice that could not be more perfect for him and paired with Adalyn Grace’s writing makes for a total win. The audiobook will get you invested in the story in a completely different way. A definite enhancement to an already great story.
BLURB: The New York Times bestselling author of All the Stars and Teeth brings to life a highly romantic, Gothic-infused world of wealth, desire, and betrayal.
Orphaned as a baby, nineteen-year-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each one more interested in her wealth than her well-being—and each has met an untimely end. Her remaining relatives are the elusive Hawthornes, an eccentric family living at Thorn Grove, an estate both glittering and gloomy. Its patriarch mourns his late wife through wild parties, while his son grapples for control of the family’s waning reputation, and his daughter suffers from a mysterious illness. But when their mother’s restless spirit appears claiming she was poisoned, Signa realizes that the family she depends on could be in grave danger and enlists the help of a surly stable boy to hunt down the killer.
However, Signa’s best chance of uncovering the murderer is an alliance with Death himself, a fascinating, dangerous shadow who has never been far from her side. Though he’s made her life a living hell, Death shows Signa that their growing connection may be more powerful—and more irresistible—than she ever dared imagine.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Narrator: Alma Cuervo, Julia Whelan, Robin Miles
Published: June 13, 2017
Length: 12 hours and 10 minutes
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Los Angeles, California (United States), Hollywood, Los Angeles, California (United States), California (United States), New York City, New York (United States), Upper East Side, New York City, New York (United States), Manhattan, New York City, New York (United States), Paris (France), France, Cannes (France)
Characters: Evelyn Hugo, Monique Grant, Ernie Diaz, Don Adler, Celia St. James, Max Girard, Harry Cameron, Rex North, Mick Riva, Robert
POV: first person, multiple
Tropes:
- lesbian romance
- love triangle
- secret relationship
- angst
- marriage of convenience
THOUGHTS:
Alma Cuervo, portraying the title character, Evelyn; Robin Miles as Monique Grant; and Julia Whelan, voicing the sounds bites of the tabloids that dogged Evelyn throughout her life, were the perfect cast to bring these characters and story to life. They had a complete understanding of the characters they were portraying, giving each a voice that suited their character’s persona and were believable in every role they played. They set the perfect tone for he story, captured all the character’s emotions and projected them into their performance, having you feel every.single.one!
BLURB: Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
by J.K. Rowling

Published: November 20, 2015
Length: 8 hours and 18 minutes
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Harry Potter #1
Setting: London, England (1991), Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (United Kingdom, 1991)
Characters: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Lavender Brown, Petunia Dursley, Vernon Dursley, Dudley Dursley, Severus Snape, Quirinus Quirrell, Rubeus Hagrid, Lord Voldemort, Minerva McGonagall, Neville Longbottom, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Percy Weasley, Filius Flitwick, Pomona Sprout, Molly Weasley, Poppy Pomfrey, Oliver Wood, Parvati Patil, Dean Thomas, James Potter, Lily Potter, Seamus Finnigan, Garrick Ollivander, Rolanda Hooch, Katie Bell, Draco Malfoy, Albus Dumbledore, Dedalus Diggle
POV: third person, Harry’s
Narrator: Jim Dale
THOUGHTS:
Jim Dale excels at capturing the nuances of each character, bringing rich depth to this fantastic fantasy world. This audiobook is so amazing that even kids will enjoy.
BLURB: “Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter ‘H’.”
Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!
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2 Comments
Alison
What a great post. I couldn’t agree more. Audiobooks are my go to right now
shesaidyestobooks
Mine too, Alison! 🙌🏻✨♥️