Please can I have your audiobook recommendations?

[EmailsaysOOO]

Please can you suggest an audiobook? I'm after fiction, something with a good plot and interesting characters and not written too long ago. None of the classics. Otherwise, open to all ideas.

As some background, my employer last month sent me a 6 month audible subscription. I've found my way round the website but not sure what to choose. Not sure if I'm going to come across as grumpy, hope not.
The first book I downloaded- Theo Of Golden - I'm going to give up. So boring. I'm having chemo treatment for cancer so maybe that's affecting my patience. If it's not gripped me by the end of chapter two then it won't be worth it. I'm meeting up with the lady from HR who arranged it next week so hoping to get something really enjpyable. No pressure !

Project Hail Mary!

I'm listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl at the moment and it's good. I also recently listened to the Murderbot Diaries series which was great too!

Ooh absolutely! I had it on a loop for a while!

The Ambrose Parry books are great to listen to.
Rivers of London & Chronicles of St Mary's are favourites of mine too.

None of this is true by Lisa Jewell is really good in audiobook format.

I loved Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans also worked really well as an audiobook.

Thanks to everyone who is posting their recommendations. Much appreciated. Going to take my time with the decision 😃

Kristin Hannah The Women and NightRoad are both brilliant on Audible

I recently really enjoyed The Ten Year affair by Erin Somers and Big Kiss Bye-Bye by Claire Louise Bennett although I think The Ten Year Affair was more accessible perhaps. If you want something light then I have enjoyed books by Barbara Trapido but they aren't very modern. I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with Project Hail Mary, I got it because I loved the film but the book was not that great very thin competence porn with no sense of interiority at all. I had to DNF and return it and that is pretty rare for me.

Audible have books that they periodically release for free for some duration of time. I often try things from there that I'm not sure about and occasionally have found new authors that way. They're listed under the "Included" tab.

I've listened to these thriller writers recently:

• Michael Robotham
• Christopher Brookmyre
• Karin Slaughter
• Sarah A. Denzil
• K. L. Slater
• Caroline Overington

It's really important that you like the narrator, so I definitely recommend that you make use of the preview option on Audible. You get the first five minutes or so.

Recent favourites:

We All Live Here by Jojo Moyes, read by Jenna Coleman

How To Disappear by Gillian McAllister, read by Nicola Walker.

The Museum Of Ordinary People by Michael Gayle.

In Memoriam by Alice Wynne

Strike novels and the jackson brody series

Thank you for this thread as I’m looking for audiobooks too and have 3 credits to use on Audible. I absolutely love the narrator-actor of the Coroman Strike audiobooks by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling) and am bereft that I have finished them

We cross-posted 😁

I love the Peter Grainger DC Smith novels, and I am told the audio books are equally good.

Strongly agree.

Jodi Taylor’s chronicles of st Mary is totally my fav series ever. But then there is the time police. And that may be my favourite series ever. Hmmmmm. Don’t think i can choose.

Shogun by James Clavell.

I’ve just listened to the latest Rob Rinder book and the narrator is really good. I’ve really enjoyed the whole series. Based on courtroom drama, and the workings of chambers. With a main character storyline too.

A lot of the ones I usually recommend now seem to be no longer available ☹️. For example Anna Massey reading Rebecca.

The Diary of a Provincial Lady series. I have the version read by Georgina Sutton

I’ve also enjoyed some dramatisations like Terence Rattigan and the John Moffat Poirot series if they’re not too old fashioned.

And some more recent “cozy crime”, Marlow Murder series by Robert Thorogood, Vera Wong by Jesse Sutanto, Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. I’ve listened to the first in the series of each of those.

Oh and I nearly forgot, The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters read by Juliet Stevenson.

Agree that the narrator makes or breaks the listening experience.

The Strike series works fantastically as an audio recording series. Start with Cuckoo’s Calling.

the all cast new recordings of Harry Potter are fantabulous.

Enjoying the narrator is essential

The Puzzle Women by Anna Ellroy.
I first had it as an audio book but actually got a hard copy later. It's one of those books that will stay with you a long time.

From Google:
Dual-timeline historical fiction novel set in 1989 and 1999. The story follows siblings Rune and Lotte, who escape their abusive father in Berlin just as the wall is falling. Years later, a mysterious notebook surfaces, leading Lotte to seek out the real-life "Puzzle Women"—a group of women in Germany tasked with tirelessly reconstructing secret police (Stasi) files that were shredded

O Caledonia on BBC Sounds

Seconding the Rivers of London series, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is an amazing narrator. I also enjoy non-fiction books, if you're interested in words and language any of Mark Forsyth's books narrated by Simon Shepherd are great, and I also loved Unruly as read by David Mitchell himself.

A good narrator makes all the difference.

I am pretty much solely audible now. The one I have recommended to friends (and they have loved it too) is The Truth About Ruby Cooper. It’s new (only out in hardback I think) and is part family drama / saga, it’s got family dynamics, mystery, addiction, a bit of humour. I absolutely loved it and the author (Liz Nugent who is Irish) has a real knack for making you really get inside the characters’ heads.
Slightly more ‘ITV drama / domestic noir’’ is ‘Don’t let him in’ brilliantly narrated by Richard Armitage.