My Audiobook Marathon 2020

Have you started the audiobook challenge 2020 yet?!?

I did the prompts together with a few other audiobook crazies from my Facebook group as a marathon from January 1st to 30th. We listened to one audiobook with a different topic every day. And I can tell you, I’ve never been this far away from a reading slump! It was so much fun to have all this variety in my listening.

I’m a mood reader but I have a tendency to stick to what I know. I haven’t been particularly adventurous in the last years when it came to choosing my books. So this challenge was a great change of pace and I listened to a lot of outstanding audiobooks that I normally wouldn’t have chosen.

If you want to start the challenge, find all the prompts here: The Audiobook Challenge 2020

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The Audiobook Marathon Diary

Here’s my “audiobook marathon diary” with the books I picked for each prompt.

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Day 1: One Narrator

I started the marathon with Once Ghosted Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole. I love this author and have been meaning to listen to this Lesbian Romance. It’s narrated by Karen Chilton and I always enjoy listening to her.

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Day 2: Dual Narration

This day was the perfect opportunity to finally finish the Legal Magick series by Alisa Woods. I enjoyed the first two parts very much. Book 3, Verity Strange, had some weaknesses but it was great to finish the overarching storyline and overall, this is a fun trilogy.

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Day 3: Duet Narration

This was my first time reading a May Sage book and I had an absolute blast! It was easy to find my way into the story and world of Kitty Cat and I was thoroughly entertained.

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Day 4: Full Cast

How could I *not* listen to a story called The Horror of Glam Rock?!? I absolutely adored the Big Finish productions of Torchwood, so I was thrilled to find some of their Doctor Who dramatizations on Scribd. I’m definitely recommending this to fellow fans!

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Day 5: New Narrator

For this prompt, I went through new books in Audible Escape and found Jesse’s Girl by Tara September, narrated by Verla Bond. She was fantastic and has tons of potential to become a real romance audio favorite!

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Day 6: Read by the Author

I loved A Wedding Thing by Shea and Larami Serrano! It was so raw and emotional. It’s always easy to forget that other people struggle, too. I think that’s why I really liked this story, it was about love but also about the very real and serious problems you might have to face when you want a family.

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Day 7: Famous Narrator

Oh wow, The Deep was a book I normally wouldn’t have picked up. But I’m so glad I read it! It’s an intense story about memories, transgenerational trauma, and mermaids. It’s narrated by Daveed Diggs and I can only recommend it to… really, everyone!

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Day 8: Audiobook-Only

I loved this Audible full-cast production of Emma! The main narrator is Emma Thompson and it was a very engaging and fun book. Even for me as someone who normally never reads Classics.

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Day 9: A Singing Narrator

With a length of 19h, it wasn’t that easy to get through the unabridged version of The Fellowship of the Ring during the marathon, haha! And it also wasn’t that easy to find books with singing narrators. But you can always count on Rob Inglis 😉 This is my favorite Lord of the Rings audiobook!

Day 10: A Story Podcast

I listened to the Selected Shorts podcast, recordings of short story readings in front of an audience. I’ve listened to two episodes so far and enjoyed both of them a lot.

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Day 11: Narration with a British Accent

I love KJ Charles’ LGBTQ books! Gilded Cage is the newest release which is also part of the January AE list. The heroine was kickass and the narration by Victoria Aston and Cornell Collins was outstanding!

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Day 12: Accent different from yours

For this prompt, I chose a narration by KC Sheridan. I love her voice and accent! A Crack in Everything wasn’t an easy story but L.H. Cosway has such a beautiful, poetic, melancholic writing style.

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Day 13: More than 1000 Audible Ratings

I missed The Christmas Pact in December and this prompt was the perfect opportunity to catch up. It was a fun but very predictable Romance. I liked the hero’s sensitive side a lot!

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Day 14: #OwnVoices

This was one of my favorite prompts and George was absolutely incredible! I loved Jamie Clayton’s narration so, so much and the story was absolutely beautiful and very moving. One of my audiobook marathon highlights!

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Day 15: Short Story

For this one, I continued with the collection of Dresden Files short stories, Brief Cases. It’s a great audiobook that I wouldn’t want to have missed. Interesting side characters are explored and the narration is awesome!

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Day 16: Cozy Mystery

Murder at Mountain Vista was a very cute story set in a retirement home with a great narration by Joyce Bean.

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Day 17: Romance

Love Her or Lose Her was my first Tessa Bailey book and I enjoyed it very much. I’m loving this married couple theme we’re seeing more often now!

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Day 18: Mystery

I’m a wimp so for this prompt, I chose a less suspenseful Mystery, Once Upon a Haunted Moor. It was very atmospheric, definitely captivating, and I liked Tim Gilbert’s voice very much!

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Day 19: Urban Fantasy

This day was the perfect opportunity to kick myself and start a new UF series. I’ve been putting that off but I now see why so many people recommend The Iron Druid Chronicles!

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Day 20: Women’s Fiction

Evidence of the Affair is a novella of letters between a man and a woman whose spouses are cheating on them. I was utterly captivated and absolutely loved the (pretty unexpected) ending!

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Day 21: Historical Fiction

For this one, I finally listened to Let Us Dream! It was a beautiful, strong story from a time I haven’t read much about before.

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Day 22: Nonfiction

This was my first ever nonfiction audiobook! Embrace your Weird was very engaging and definitely funny, but most of all I found it inspiring and truly helpful.

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Day 23: Lesfic

For this one, I picked a YA Romance with my favorite narrator: Angela Rysk. To Have Loved & Lost was a very touching story. Eliza Andrews handled the topic of recovering from loss so well.

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Day 24: Smuttier than your usual

I went with MPreg for this one which is a theme I had so far avoided. Admittedly, Striped and Bear didn’t actually have much of the promised MPreg but it was a hot and entertaining quick listen.

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Day 25: High Fantasy

I read a lot of Fantasy a decade ago but kind of got away from it. I had hoped Hopeless Magic would be like Curse of the Gods but the story felt rushed and I kept getting lost. It was the only disappointment in my audiobook marathon 🙁

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Day 26: Science Fiction

I love listening to Joel Leslie so this was a good opportunity to get his “spacecats”, Human Omega: Discovered on the Slave Planet. This was a very gritty story but it didn’t go far into topics of rape and torture which I appreciated. Great book!

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Day 27: Middle Grade

I’m so glad I included this prompt in the challenge because I absolutely loved The Girl Who Drank The Moon! I would never have picked this up otherwise. It’s such a strong, witty, and touching story. And wonderfully narrated by Christina Moore.

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Day 28: Poetry

Rummage was so friggin amazing! The poems let me through the entire array of emotions and it was a really special experience. Do grab it in KU!

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Day 29: Classic

Okay, you’re gonna hate me for this one, but I didn’t quite feel Little Women. I haven’t read the story before but I couldn’t connect with it. Maybe I’m too old or from the wrong continent. I dunno… It was an okay listen and a cute production.

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Day 30: Less than 60 Audible ratings

Honestly, I have no idea why The Scandalous Diary of Lily Layton has so few ratings. It’s absolutely fantastic! Super hot, very romantic, not too taboo for my sensitive ears, and really good fun.

Go here to print the list of prompts and do the audiobook challenge in your own time or as a marathon with 30 audiobooks in 30 days: Audiobook Challenge PDF

Audio Booklists

3 thoughts on “My Audiobook Marathon 2020”

  1. Thanks again for listening to Jesse’s Girl and for trying out a new narrator too. I worked with Verla Bond again to read my second novel Mine to Five too 🙂

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