You need to listen to Julia Whelan 's newest book THANK YOU FOR LISTENING when it comes out next week Tuesday - August 2nd. You can read it but honestly hearing Julia Whelan narrate the fiction book she wrote about an audiobook narrator was pure perfection!

I've listened to audiobooks consistently since 2016 and have listened to over 400 audiobooks since then. Julia Whelan was the first narrator I remember absolutely loving and when I needed a new audiobook and I would search my library app by books she narrated! I loved My Oxford Year and I love seeing all of the accolades and praise she is getting!

Thank You for Listening is a beautiful story about an audiobook narrator and is a funny and sweet rom-com while at the same time looking at family, love and self discovery. I pretty much listened to it in one day. I just couldn't stop!

The audiobook is just over 11 hours and I want to listen to it again, I enjoyed it that much! It will probably be in my top 10 of 2022!

So put this at the top of your audiobook list and fall in love with Sewanee and Brock like I did!

This book is pure joy!

As a lover of both audiobooks and romance novels, it felt like this was written specifically for my enjoyment. It was fun to get a behind the scenes look at audiobook creation.

The storyline is great, Sewanee is a former actress turned award winning narrator who only read romance to get into the genre and doesn't believe in happily ever afters. But now she is considering returning to romance for a huge project. As she bonds with her co-narrator, she also considers returning to acting. It's a romance with great humor but it also covers some heavy territory.

Overall, this book is everything I want from a romance novel and I highly recommend it.

This book is a delight! The friendship between Sewanee and her bestie, the relationship she has with her grandma, the sexy banter with Brock - all of it is so good! Do yourself a favor and get this on audio. Julia is the GOAT of audiobook narrators and she absolutely kills it in this book.

I am about a week out from finishing this book and I’m still not sure what to think about it. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t one that I would recommend. First of all, there are a bunch of different storylines/pieces of this book and instead of flowing well together, if felt like they are just chopped together in order to make the story have a place to go. It felt forced. The famous friend, the one night stand, the sick grandma, the deadbeat dad, the mom conveniently in another country for a visit when things get rough… There was some funny moments and overall the plot was cute but it seemed like something that would never really happen. Also, it was definitely smutty which made it even less enjoyable.

This was a cute read! I really liked that there were several relationships I was invested in: the one with the grandmother, the one with the bestie, and of course the one (or TWO haha) with the love interest. There was plenty happening in every different setting to keep me hooked and turning pages. Fun read!

I've long been a fan of Julia Whelan's book narration, but this is the first book that I've read that was written by her. It was a beautiful story, with wonderful relationships, romance, and was a provided fun insight into what goes into narrating a book. Plus I always love a book that has an epistolary element to it.

Sewanee Chester had dreams of becoming a successful actress, and was on her way when an accident left her with scars and only one eye. She went on to build a career as an audiobook narrator but never fully embraced who she became after the accident.

The relationship Swan has with her grandmother, and her depictions of what it’s like watching a loved one slip into dementia really struck a chord with me, and my experience with my own grandmother in her later years. I’ll admit to shedding a tear or two while reading those parts.

I loved Swan’s growth and journey and this is a book I will 100% be reading it again.

As a fan of audiobooks, this one hit the mark for me. Sewanee is a former actress who, after a serious accident, uses her acting skills to narrate audiobooks. When she decides to narrate a romance novel, a genre she said she'd never narrate again, she gets more than she bargains for. This book had some great laugh out loud moments, and the chemistry was definitely there.

Round up from 3.75

While I did enjoy this book there was something missing for me. I absolutely loved the behind-the-scenes we get for the audiobook world. And everything that Sewanee does to prepare and record them. I loved how meta it was and how aware the characters were of the tropes playing into their lives.

But I felt like I was missing out on Sewanee's relationships, I wanted to see more of her with BlahBlah, Adaku and even Nick

Thank you to netgalley and avonbooks for this advanced copy.

I didn't have any plans to read this book. I had actually forgotten that I got an eARC of this from Wednesday Books because I didn't add it to my arcs shelf. When I later got an audio advance copy from Libro.fm, I finally thought it sounds interesting and maybe I will pick it up when I find myself in the right mood. And I guess I finally was, and this turned out to be quite a fun experience.

I didn't realize that Julia Whelan is such a prolific narrator, mostly because while I do own multiple audiobooks narrated by her, I've only listened only to a couple, the most recent one being Emily Henry's Book Lovers. Which is I kept thinking that wow this voice sounds so familiar. And she really is spectacular in her narration. While the writing itself is good - a nice balance of romance, family drama, self-reflection and more - it's Julia's narration that steals the show, as well as the actual premise and it's execution. As both our main characters are audiobook narrators in the book, the author does a wonderful job giving us a glimpse of the behind the scenes about what it takes to give us readers the best produced audiobooks which we so love. As it's also a romance novel that our MCs are narrating, we get quite a bit of discussions about the romance genre, the HEA, the tropes, and ofcourse how it feels to be narrating all those sex scenes. I found the romance genre discussions between our characters to be full of cheeky inside jokes and poking fun at the tropey-ness of everything and it was all quite entertaining, and I feel seasoned romance readers will find it quite hilarious ( I bet you all to find the Nicholas Sparks stand-in). On the other hand, we also have the author handling themes like a grandparent's dementia and our main character's coming to terms with her disability and moving forward in her life, and I thought she managed to write it all with empathy and heart. And for all epistolary lovers, you also have some of that here, so basically what I wanna say that this book has a bit of everything, and you won't be disappointed.

The only POV we get is of our heroine Sewanee who was an upcoming actress until she lost one eye in an accident and is now an audiobook narrator. She is no fan of romance novels when we begin the story because she has become cynical, feels like she has lost an important part of her, and almost finds it disbelieving that she can still find happiness, love and contentment. Nick on the other hand has lost a lot in life too and is now scared of taking risks because he doesn't wanna lose more. The way they meet and their relationship develops has all the romance tropes, which they recognize too and make fun of which was quite funny actually. I loved how they really seemed perfect for each other right from the beginning but there were still many issues underneath they had to work through before they were able to accept each other's love, and the author makes this progression seem very realistic. At the same time, their interactions with their friends and families, and how those relationships also played a part in the main character's arcs felt very organic.

While I went in not expecting much, I had a good time with this book and I can definitely say that if you are a romance genre audiobook listener, you can't give this a miss. It's well written, has some interesting characters, takes an inside look at the romance genre and audiobook production, and gives us many laughs and tears on the way. And the way Brock McKnight's voice is described, it really reminded me of my favorite male romance genre narrator and his absolutely sexy voice, making me realize that I haven't heard his narration in a while. Time for a re-listen then? Who knows..

I have been seeing this book everywhere which feels right since Julia Whelan can actually do it all narrate books wonderfully and write books that are compulsively readable. I loved this one.
While this story is definitely a rom com, with rom and com very present and probably at a 50:50 ratio, it’s
way more than that. It deals with tragedy and loss, second chances and believing in yourself. It’s full of flawed characters with intense backstories and sizzling chemistry, and it carefully handles intense topics while being witty, intelligent, entertaining, emotional and funny. It’s a story about moving forward after tragedy and loss and pivoting and realizing that life can still be beautiful even if things don’t turn out exactly how you envisioned it. It is both heartwarming and a little sad - a beautiful tale.
It’s definitely a good one !

It was only after I read Thank You For Listening that I realized I was going to have to listen to this one on audio. I flew through this book in one night and loved it and I didn’t even recognize that the author is an awesome narrator in her own right. (I rarely listen to books.)

This one got me in my feels. Sewanee used to be an actress and then due to a tragic accident, became an audiobook narrator and one of the best in the business. Brock McNight is a male narrator that sets people on fire with his voice. The two are paired together for one final project and the banter between them brings the heat.

This book has every trope (seriously, the chapters are labeled with them) and works for the book. The secondary characters like Sewanee’s grandmother and best friend are just as great. They help Sewanee with finding love and self acceptance.

This book is out now! Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books for this eARC.

4.25⭐
PG-13 because the only steam... Is reading steamy scenes from other books?

June French is my fictional writer hero!

If you enjoyed Book Lovers and want to read another meta book about bookish people, look no further. Julia Whelan, the renowned audiobook narrator, presents a book... about audiobook narrators! Which was honestly the coolest thing about this whole book because it really gave the reader a behind the scenes view of what it's like to record audiobooks.

This book was fun because it brought together different tropes and spun them around to really create a book that's part romance (Brock McNight is a hottie) and also part women's fiction as Sewanee learned to better accept herself and her disability. The banter in this book was fun though also extremely pretentious and this is definitely one of those books where the writer wants you to know you're reading about Smart People ™.

I enjoyed how this book came full circle and connected everything together, though at times the pacing was a bit off. Overall, I enjoyed this book and definitely had some moments where I couldn't put it down! If you enjoy romances that aren't quite romance and bookish adjacent books, this one is for you.

My favorite audiobook narrator writing a book about an audiobook narrator with (spoiler alert, ha) a HEA?! Yes. Please. My only regret? Not LISTENING to this gem.

*Although this book is now available for purchase, I was honored to read an ARC of this book via NetGalley and the author/publisher. All opinions are my own.*

What an amazing story, I love Julia Whelan as a narrator and as an author, this new book is set in her world, so its real and a delight to read and hear. Sewanee and Brock owned me. I love Swan's story so much, how she turned her life around and found herself, and in the process she found something she never imagined, well more than one thing. The story is good paced, the story line is well balanced that will hook you in and keep you reading, is simply fantastic!

Sewanee was an actress until an accident ended her career. She took her talents to audiobooks and has found joy and success as a narrator. When she attends a book convention, she has a one night stand with a charming stranger. But then, when she takes on a romance book for one of her favorite authors, that handsome stranger comes back into her life…

Julia Whelan is a queen. I love her as an audiobook narrator and how perfect that she wrote a romance about an audiobook narrator. Literal perfection. The writing was incredible - this book was witty and full of heart. It had me laughing at some parts and crying at others. I really felt all of the emotions here. The banter and chemistry was amazing and there is no way to read this and not root for the heroine. This book is incredible and if you haven’t read it you need to.

Thank you to Avon Books for the advance copy.

I am isolating at home with Covid and this was the actual most perfect thing to read this week- this is an insanely smart and clever (meta?) comfort read. The chapter titles alone are a great example of how to poke fun at a genre and subvert its tropes while still functioning essentially as a love letter to that genre.

I ate it up.

There isn't a character present in this book that I did not love- Sarah, Sewanee, Alice, Nick, Brock, Mark, Stu, Marilyn (UGGGH STU AND MARILYNNNNN- they need their own book), Adaku, BlahBlah, even HENRY for Pete's sake! A few of the character backstories are borderline absurd (I'm fairly sure this is intentional), and yet somehow Whelan makes them feel totally natural. It's uncanny. The format is also choppy (again, I think this was done with intent) and yet IT STILL WORKS.

For those looking for a lot of steam, you won't find tons of it here, but what steam there is will absolutely have you flushing. That also could have been the Covid. Whatever.

Okay. So Julia Whelan is a smart and funny writer and she's now an auto-buy for me. Cool, there's your TL/DR.

“Cover up whatever you please for the world, but in intimacy? Hide nothing. In intimacy, everything is beautiful."

Thanks to Avon Books and NetGalley for the review copy!

First, let’s get this out of the way: I hate the term women’s fic. No need to dismissively label an entire genre just because it focuses on a female protagonist’s journey. Just call it fiction. We’re not going around labeling Franzen as men’s fic, are we? (Wait, ARE we?!?) So, yes, while I have labeled it as women’s fiction per the publishing industry standards, please let it be known that I rolled my eyes the entire time I was doing it.

Julia Whelan is a new to me author but for those of you who are big into audiobooks, you may have heard of her (or just heard her voice) because she’s quite the prolific audiobook narrator. Per her Goodreads bio, she has narrated over 500 (!!) books and is Grammy-nominated for audiobook directing! She is also a former child actress, having gained some degree of fame on a hit tv show in the late 90s and early aughts.

So, then, it makes sense that her second book is all about an audiobook narrator named Sewanee (pronounced SWAH-nee) Chester, a one-time tv actress on the cusp of major movie star fame who had to pivot to a different career path when a tragic accident causes her to lose an eye.

While there is a strong romantic element to this book, complete with a HEA, it very much doesn’t feel like a romance novel. One can certainly argue about whether the romantic storyline drives the plot of the story (I would land on the side of no, it doesn’t). Really, the story is about Sewanee and her journey of self-love and self-acceptance and growth, all of which in turn make it possible for her to find and accept love from another person.

Sewanee, with her complicated internal life and difficult family dynamics, engages in a steamy one-night stand with an Irish charmer by the name of Nick who she meets at the end of a book conference in Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…unless you’re the protagonist of a women’s fic with strong romantic elements. She doesn’t even give him her real name, no contact information is exchanged, despite these two strangers experiencing a deeply profound emotional connection and an incredibly sexy physical one.

Back to her regular life in Los Angeles, Sewanee, who got her start in audiobook narration with romance novels under a pseudonym but has since stepped back from the genre, is compelled to return to the genre to record a romance novel by the late June French. She needs money to help pay for her beloved grandmother’s care and so she agrees to the terms, recording these books with Brock McNight, one of the most popular romance audiobook narrators whose real identity is a mystery to his legions of fans.

The two never meet before they embark on a working relationship that takes on an epistolary form via emails and then texts. I adore an epistolary romance and a good chunk of the book is the two of them bantering back and forth via texts. It’s both light and funny and breezy and also deep and emotionally vulnerable, revealing both of these characters to the reader through concise bursts of dialogue.

I’m not going to spoil much beyond this but I’ve been reading romance novels for almost 3 decades so it didn’t take a lot of time to connect the dots in this book. That being said, knowing what’s coming doesn’t in any way detract from all the reasons why the book works and there are still many more surprises around the bend.

I adored both of these characters but let’s be honest, it’s Sewanee who is the real star of the show. Hurting from dreams unrealized and unable to completely move on, Sewanee’s pain is real and gripping and you feel every single moment of her struggle to accept who she is and her attempt to reconcile it with who she was.

The side characters are also amazing, mostly serving to further Sewanee’s journey but they all have distinctive voices of their own, fully formed characters with dreams and hopes and loss.

In a lot of ways, this book is a love letter to the romance genre so it’s interesting that the book itself can’t really be considered a romance novel. Sewanee and Nick (and then Sewanee’s alter ego, Sarah and Brock) talk about tropes, about the euphemisms used in sex scenes, and about why Sewanee stepped back from narrating romance books and why Brock wants to escape it himself.

It’s a fascinating way of looking at HEAs and why we love them so much, what they mean to us, and how we use them to deal with our daily lives. One of the most poignant lines in the book comes from Sewanee explaining to Nick how her thinking has evolved about romance and the whole idea of a HEA.

I don’t think you can know if you lived happily ever after until your life’s over.” She set down her glass. “Maybe that’s why your whole life flashes before your eyes when you die. So you can see the movie from beginning to end and know.

…

Anyway, it’s not ridiculous. It’s not bullshit. It is possible. It’s not fantasy or reality. A happily ever after is built by both, together, over a lifetime.

There’s something so lovely about a woman on a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance learning that the whole idea of a HEA is also built on a journey that never really ends. We read these fictional books about fictional characters and their stories end with the book giving us their requisite HEA. But in reality, that’s really just the beginning of the story and this book manages to encapsulate that idea much more eloquently than I ever could.

I feel like this whole review kind of got away from me and I rambled but let me just be clear on a few things:

This book is a (ughh) women’s fic with a strong romantic element and;
I very much loved it.
Grade: A

Content Notes: Sewanee suffers a horrific accident that causes the loss of an eye; the accident is referred to in detail via flashback; toxic father/daughter relationship, off-page cheating between side characters, side character is hospitalized for exhaustion, reference to mental health issues and therapy, off page alcoholism of minor character, sick grandmother with memory loss and eventual death;

After reading Julia Whelan's debut novel I knew I needed to read the latest. I have seen a comment that I totally agree with, she is everyone's favorite narrator. For this book I was gifted with the book and audio, and I will address both. At first, I thought it was going to be a true story, but learned I was wrong, and it was a delightful surprise. Sewanee Chester (Swan) was and up-and-coming actress with a bright future ahead of her. When she is involved in a tragic accident her life changes., but she finds a way to utilize her acting abilities. She begins narrating audiobooks. She is able to do all kinds of accents, different characters, different genders, etc. This also gives us a chance to get some behind the scenes information on how this process works.

When an author's dying request is that "Sara" and one of the most popular, if not the most popular male narrators, Brock, are to narrate a romance book together, Swan is hesitant. She does not believe in Happily Ever After. But, as they two meet and join forces, there is lots of playful banter that just gets better and better.

I loved this book and will happily give it five stars! I love the humor, heart, hot bits, banter, I just loved it all.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Perfection on the page.
Perfection on audio.
I loved everything about Thank You for Listening.

Swan finds herself meeting not just one great guy, but two over the course of just a few months. One (Nick) she met at a conference she wasn’t even supposed to be at. Then the other (Brock) after she agreed to co narrate a romance novel, which she said she would never do again. Like opposite sides of a coin, both of these men bring something out in Swan she desperately needs.

Julia Whelan delivered with this new book. She provided amazing, lovable, yet flawed characters. A little romance. Lots of banter and whit. Quirky residents of her grandmothers nursing home (who would have a book/show all themselves). All while recognizing all the romance clichés that are often in books and addressing head on, and making light of them … since it was a romance book within a book.

But most of all Thank you For Listening is about hope and love and accepting yourself, not just because others do or believe you should, but because you truly do.

An engaging story about loving yourself at every point in your life journey, Thank You for Listening is a beautiful story of self-acceptance.

That's what I want you to go into this book expecting. Not a steamy love story. Because expecting one left me a wee bit disappointed.

Now there's romance in here (and a good one at that), don't get me wrong. But there are no fully spicy scenes and only one spicy encounter. This book has been completely marketed to me as romance so I was expecting spice upon spice. It was even teased in the book! But it never happened. Sadness. Can we get an email newsletter scene or something?

Other than my spice loving heart being broken, this book is gold. It has complicated and loving family relationships, a look into the background scene of audiobook narration, and some top notch romantic banter. This book is very self-aware of its tropes and I adored that.

It definitely rides the line between women's fiction and romance (which is talked about in the novel). I appreciate how well constructed this book is and really love the characters, plot, and writing, but when you tease spicy scenes, it's best to just deliver them.

Thank you for reading.