Author: Kendra Winchester

A month ago, I had never heard of this book, and when I finally read the synopsis, I wasn’t very interested. A fantasy story originally published as a serial, collected into “novels”, and now made into an audiobook? I 100% did not think that this was my speed.

But for whatever reason, I decided to give it a shot. Immediately, Jason, our protagonist, finds himself thrown into a World of Warcraft-like universe where he has to battle it out with creatures to gain experience. He accidentally interrupts a ceremony of some cultist cannibals, rescuing some high level adventurers along the way. They take Jason under their wing, and we learn more about this strange world as Jason does.

I’ve never even heard of the LitRPG (Literary Role Playing Game) genre before, but I feel like it was made for me. The genre features characters who interact with their world like they are in a video game. It’s like my love of video games and books just collided in the best possible way.

Since He Who Fights with Monsters is a serial, the pacing is very different from something like a novel, which is a singular, contained story. Listening to the first volume in the series (there are four bound volumes of the story to date), I could see the different story arcs, like trade paperbacks of comics or seasons of a television series.

Heath Miller, the audiobook’s narrator, performs the story incredibly well, truly capturing Jason’s loudmouth sort of personality. Jason’s characterization acts as the primary thread that ties the incredibly long and complex story together, and Miller keeps up with the task. The first volume is almost 30 hours long, but I listened to it in about three days.

I’d love to know if any of you have any other LitRPG audiobook recommendations!

Like much of the literary world, I read All the Light We Cannot See and felt mesmerized by its spiral structure. I usually am not a huge fan of WWII historical fiction, but I couldn’t stop listening to the story.

This year, I surprised myself with how much I was looking forward to Doerr’s new book Cloud Cuckoo Land. The book contains many perspectives, time periods, and genres—I felt overwhelmed at the start! I actually bought a print copy to follow along and keep track of the different characters. I’m about halfway through, and still find myself flipping back and forth, trying to keep track of who was who (and when).

But other than that, I’m enjoying the different perspectives. In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m listening to a David Mitchell novel—I have no idea how all of the different elements will come together, but I’m enjoying the ride!

I will include part two next week, but in the meantime, let me know your thoughts!

Narrated by Marin Ireland and Simon Jones

This novel follows a woman devastated after a failed career. She self medicates with alcohol, lost in a haze. But her love for her son Tommy breaks through the fog. She must somehow conquer her addiction or possibly lose her son.

Narrated by Lisa Harding

Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the bookstore he inherited from his grandfather. But then a talking cat comes to save the day. Before he realizes (it or what is happening), Rintaro Natsuki finds himself solving a series of mazes to set captured books free. Cat, books, and puzzles—what could be cozier than this?

Narrated by Kevin Shen (Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and Jade Fire Gold by June C. Tan)

One year after her husband’s death, Renu Amin decides that now is the time to sell the family home. As she begins to pack up her life, she begins to wonder if she chose the wrong life. Her son Akash, has it all. When he shows up to help his mother pack the house, family secrets begin to come to the surface, changing both of their perspectives on their family.

Narrated by Vikas Adam (A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski and City of the Plague God by Sarwat Chadda)

It’s finally here, the poetry collection we’ve been waiting for all year long! Ever since Amanda Gorman’s incredible performance at President Biden’s inauguration, thousands of people pre-ordered her poetry collection. But like most performance poet’s work, these poems really shine as Gorman narrates them aloud.

Narrated by Amanda Gorman

For as long as I can remember, my dad has talked about how much he loves The Wheel of Time series. As a fellow fantasy lover, I wanted to enjoy the story as much as he did. I even carried a mass market paperback of the book around with me an entire summer, but I just couldn’t get into it.

Now, over ten years later, I still planned on watching the miniseries. But then I saw that Rosamund performed a new edition of the audiobook of The Eye of the World, and I knew now was the time!

At almost 33 hours, this audiobook is not for the faint of heart, and I didn’t know if I would like it. But if anyone could make me like an epic story with dozens of characters and an intense back story, it’s Rosamund Pike. From the first few minutes, I fell in love with her narration. She performs all the voices, making each character sound unique. As I got lost in the story, I’d sometimes even forget she was the one narrating.

And let’s talk about the story itself for a moment. You have a set of five young people heading out from their rural village to go…break the world? The whole story is shrouded in mystery, and half the time, I only know what’s going on because I have read a ridiculous number of fantasy titles. On occasion, I’d get lost in their travels and pull up the world map on my computer.

But overall, I’ve been sitting on the edge of my seat, doing extra chores and taking the Corgis out on long walks just to know what is going to happen next. I have no idea if Rosamund Pike plans on narrating the rest of the books in the series, but a girl can hope.

Narrated by Rosamund Pike

There are few series that I highly anticipated where I will literally drop everything and immediately start reading. But Lee’s last book in the Montague Siblings series definitely qualifies. I really enjoyed A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and A Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, but I didn’t think I’d become that attached to the characters. Then the pandemic hit and the third book was delayed a couple of times. I found myself revisiting the first two books, finding peace in their comforting familiarity.

By the time A Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks hit the shelves, I knew I needed a copy ASAP. I downloaded the audiobook and started on one last adventure with the Mantague’s. So back I fell into 1700s England, complete with fantastical plot twists and the siblings’ neverending shenanigans. 

I don’t want to go into too many details as to avoid *spoilers*, but I will say I’ve really appreciated the disability representation in the series. Adrian, the focus of the last book in the series, experiences what we would now call generalized anxiety disorder and OCD. We listen to Adrian describe his spiraling thoughts, which always seem on the edge of being out of control. His mind repeats the same thoughts over and over again. While this might seem too repetitive to some listeners, I found that it effectively communicated what it’s like to live with those conditions.

Of course, narrator Christian Coulson brilliantly performs the audio edition. Coulson narrated the first book as well, and I loved hearing his familiar voice telling the Montagues’ story again. He manages to capture the perfect amount of refined mischief that embodies the siblings’ collective brand of adventures.

Narrated by Christian Coulson (Dark Rise by C. S. Pacat and To Hold the Bridge by Garth Nix)

It all started with Jade City, the Nebula nominated novel about a crime family desperate to control Jade, which gives certain people incredible power. The story continued with Jade War, and now, the third book in the series, Jade Legacy. This much-anticipated conclusion to the Green Bone Saga ties together the complex storylines of characters readers have spent thousands of pages with over the course of the series.

Narrated by Andrew Kishino (We Are Not Free by Traci Chee and Wildwood Whispers by Willa Reece)

There’s nothing like a master at work, and Ann Patchett’s writing is a gift. This collection of essays cover a wide range of topics, including Patchett’s friendship with a woman named Sooki who ended up social distancing with Patchett and her husband due to the pandemic. Patchett reads her essays, making this audio edition quite the treat.

Narrated by Ann Patchett (This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett)

Daina Gabaldon fans rejoiced as the next installment of her Outlander series hit bookshelves just in time for the holiday season. This novel continues the time-traveling saga of a woman from the 1940s stumbling upon a gate into the past, sending her back to Scotland in the 1700s. In the first novel, love, political machinations, and war loom constantly on the horizon for Claire, but her new love interest, Jamie, immediately catches her eye. Complications abound, though, because in her own modern time, she’s already married.

Narrated by Davina Porter (The Miniaturist by Jess Burton and The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry)

Award-winning author Darcie Little Badger returns with her latest novel, A Snake Falls to Earth. Nina, a Lipan Apache girl, has always believed there was more out there than she’s always been told. As the world around her is wracked by a catastrophe, she must figure out how to help her family and her community to survive.

Narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett and Kinsale Hueston (The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones and Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse)

On my fall walks around my neighborhood while Dylan and Gwen fight over who gets to choose where we go next, I like to listen to something on the more peaceful side of things. Perhaps subconsciously I’m trying to restore balance to the universe. One of my recent listens was Win Me Something by debut author Kyle Lucia Wu. The print edition of the novel is out now from Tin House, one of my favorite indie presses.

Wu’s debut follows WIlla, a 20-something biracial Chinese American woman trying to find a direction for her life. When she was small, her parents split, remarried, and started new families with their new partners. Since then, Willa has never felt as if she belonged anywhere.

At the start of the story, Willa finds a new job as a nanny to a white, well-off couple living in Manhattan. Their daughter, Bijou, loves to cook. But since she’s only around nine years old, she needs a lot of help. As Willa cooks with her charge, she begins to feel like she belongs.

The narrative frequently flashes back to Willa’s childhood with meals seated around one table or another. A backroom bar with her dad, a plate of sweet breakfast food with her mom, her grandmother teaching her how to make a family recipe—each of these moments represent a moment where Willa felt incredibly close to her parents, yet still never completely part of their lives.

Natalie Naudus, a new favorite audiobook narrator of mine, performs Win Me Something, perfectly capturing Willa’s insecurities and inner angst about where she belongs in the world. I will definitely be picking up more audiobooks Naudus performs, so stay tuned!

Frances Howard meets the astute, diminished Anne Turner in the Jacobean Court. They strike up a friendship and their fates become intertwined. Political intrigue, marriage proposals, and backroom deals—this work of historical fiction has it all.

Narrated by Sarah Durham (The Lies You Told by Harriet Tyce and Whispers of Scandal by Julie Corbin)

I adore Africanfuturist author Nnedi Okorafor and her fantastical stories. In Noor, we meet Anwuli Okwudili, though she prefers to be called AO. Through a series of issues with her birth and an accident shortly after her birth, AO feels artificial, like her disabled body makes her less human. To her, AO stands for artificial organism. But then, AO comes to accept all that she is: a disabled woman who uses necessary accommodations to live her life.

Narrated by Délé Ogundiran (Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham)

Alexander Woodroe knows his star is falling. After a bar fight, his job and his very career, is on the line. Lauren Clegg has been hired to keep him in line so he has no more drunken fights. This is a romance novel. We know where this is heading. But it’s sure to be one heck of a ride.

Narrated by Kelsey Navarro (Loud Mouth by Avery Flynn and Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs by Jennifer Finney Boylan)

Nebula award-winning author Charlie Jane Anders is back with her third book this year (my goodness!), Even Greater Mistakes. In this short story collection, we meet a range of characters, all with their own fantastical adventures to experience.

Narrated by Luis Moreno, Maria Liatis, and Jen Richards (One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus and Bruja Born by Zoraida Cordova)

Esi Agyekum somehow finds herself the one everyone in her family goes to with their secrets. But as she grows up from girlhood into a young woman, she begins to wonder why men and women’s secrets have different consequences.

Narrated by Anniwaa Buachie (Accra Noir edited by Nana-Ama Danquah)

As a mood reader, I expect for my reading to wander from book to book for no apparent reason at all. One day I might want to read a mystery novel and the next I can’t get enough of a nonfiction book about what happens to our bodies after we die. But for the last few years, I’ve noticed an entirely new-to-me mood: the Sally Rooney mood.

I may be in the minority in that I enjoyed both Conversations with Friends AND Normal People. There’s just something about reading about Irish millennials making poor decisions that’s established itself in my mind as its own particular feeling.

So when I picked up Beautiful World, Where Are You, I expected confused 20-somethings walking around with an intense amount of angst from not actually sitting down and working out their own feelings. And, my stars, does this novel deliver.

Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon all circle around each other as they try to recover from past bad relationships, mental health struggles, and anxiety about the ever looming present. Sometimes you want to sit them down like misbehaving preschoolers and make them talk it out.

Now, I say all this, but I want to be clear; I adore Rooney’s storytelling in Beautiful World, Where Are You. Her stark descriptions and direct style keep her prose straightforward, so that the email, text, and dialogue pop off the page.

Such a heavy emphasis on dialogue could have proved difficult for even the most seasoned audiobook narrator, but Aoife McMahon rose to the occasion. Her ability to capture the voices of each of the four main characters is nothing but brilliant. She packs so much life and vibrancy into her delivery, I found myself completely swept away, just sitting down and staring into space.

Here are a few behind-the-scenes photos of Aoife McMahon reading Beautiful World, Where Are You, provided by Macmillan Audio. I love McMahon’s expressions while she’s reading!

Star-crossed lovers, Kostas and Defne, share stolen moments in a beautiful garden. Once war breaks out, they’re separated. After the war, Kostos returns to the place of his forbidden love. While he says he’s there for work, in reality he’s searching for Defne. Years later, Ada Kazantzakis searches for the answers of what happened to her family.

Narrated by Daphne Kouma and Amira Ghazalla (The Moon-spinners by Mary Stewart and To Save My Child by Emma Robinson)

As a biracial Chinese American girl, Willa Chen has never felt like she fit in anywhere. But after her parents divorce, she doesn’t feel like she fits in at home either. After years of feeling adrift, Willa decides to nanny for a wealthy white couple and sees everything she never had dangled in front of her on a daily basis.

Narrated by Natalie Naudus (One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston and The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang)

Celeste Headlee, the author of We Need to Talk, is back with Speaking of Race, where she discusses how society speaks about race. While many people say they want to speak more about race, research shows we’re more likely to stay in our own bubbles than to engage with those who disagree with us. Headlee examines this data and discusses what that means for us here in America.

Narrated by Celeste Headlee (Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee and We Need to Talk by Celeste Headlee)

Adam Stillwater and Whitney Mitchell are two lonely teenagers who work across the street from each other. They view each other as rivals, but when they are trapped inside by a snow storm, things begin to change. *sigh* I love a good, “oh no, we’re trapped in by snow storm. Whatever shall we do?” story. 

Narrated by Sunil Malhotra and Natalie Naudus (Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo and A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza)

From the author of The Wolf Border comes Hall’s latest novel, Burntcoat, which is set during the spread of a deadly virus. Artist Edith Harkness locks herself in her studio with a man barely more than a stranger to her. As time passes, their relationship changes, but is it changing for the better or for worse?

Narrated by Louise Brealey (The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins)

Based in West African mythology, Skin of the Sea features Simi, a young woman who serves the gods as a Mami Wata, a mermaid. Being a Mami Wata is all Simi ever wanted, but when she rescues a man from drowning, her place as a Mami Wata to the gods is put into jeopardy.

Narrated by Yetide Badaki (Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor and The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi)