My 4 Favourite Audiobooks of 2024 – Part One
A new list! I love a list. I only just started listening to audiobooks last year, and it’s not just about the story – it’s also about the narrator/s.
One of my biggest issues with audiobooks has always been the length, as I am a fast reader and I don’t have the patience to listen for, say 11 or 12 hours, when I could have read it in five. I also fall asleep when I’m listening and then I have to find where I was, which is harder than on my Kindle.
But the outright biggie is the narrator. I can tell in the first few minutes whether I’m going to like them, and if I don’t (which is totally personal) I won’t buy the audio book. I’ll read it on my Kindle instead.
However, audio books are brilliant when walking or driving the car, rather than listening to music. It passes the time in such an entertaining way. So here goes with the first quarter of 2024.
The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell
I’ve read quite a few of Laura’s novels, The Silent Companions being one of my favourite all-time novels. I’ve also read The Corset and Bone China, which I loved, but The Shape of Darkness is up there with The Silent Companions (almost).
I listened to it on Audible and it worked really well as an audio book (not all do for me). It is told from the points of view of Agnes and Pearl, which made it really easy to follow – I struggle with audio books when the story jumps around in time – but this was perfect. I like the narrator too, which is very important to me. She even sings beautifully when she is being Pearl’s half-sister Myrtle.
For my full review click here
The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell
My second Laura Purcell this month and unfortunately I think I have now read all of her Gothic novels. The Whispering Muse is by far the most shocking – in parts it was really quite gory and grisly.
Lively and intelligent, Jenny Wilcox’s life has been reduced to working as a maid after her brother Greg ran off with the Mercury Theatre’s leading lady and all Jenny’s savings. Then one day she is summoned by theatre owner, Mrs Dyer, and she is sure it’s something to do with the money Greg owed. But no, Mrs Dyer has a proposition to put before her. She is to be the dresser to the new leading lady, Lilith Erikson, but she warns her that Lilith is not easy to work with. You can say that again!
For my full review click here
Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
It’s taken me a while to get round to reading this book – I say read, but I actually borrowed the audiobook from our local library. It was beautifully narrated and I think I probably preferred listening to it rather than reading it on my Kindle.
It’s been reviewed so many times that I’m not going to go into great detail. Suffice to say that it’s the story of a young girl called Kya, known as the ‘Marsh Girl’, who is left by her family to survive on her own in the swamps around the quiet fishing village of Barkley Cove. We first meet her when she is just six years old.
For my full review click here
The Black Feathers by Rebecca Netley
This is all very The Turn Of The Screw meets Rebecca, told in the first person and becoming more sinister with each chapter. Annie Stonehouse is plagued by ghosts, but are they really there? Or is this some terrible figment of her imagination, fed by the secret loss of her first child, who was taken away from her at birth, and Iris’s mediumship and her ‘spirits’.
Annie has just married Edward Stonehouse and after travelling for some months, they finally arrive at his rambling mansion Guardbridge, where she meets his psychic sister Iris and her carer Mrs North, known affectionately as Southie. They have brought with them new baby John and his nurse Agnes. But Iris struggles to love John, because she still mourns the loss of the infant son she refers to only as ‘you’.
For my full review click here
