It won’t surprise anyone if I say that 2020 has been an unusual year. 2019 was my first full year of listening, and I had found a pretty good rhythm. I would listen in the metro, on the train, on the bus, on my walks. 2020 put a stop to all that travelling and I had to create new listening opportunities.
It took a while for me to be comfortable listening to a story with someone else in the house, and to find activities I could do at the same time (dyspraxia makes it difficult to multitask). One of the wonderful surprises of the year – not everything was bad this year, a lot of good things happened to me – was finding out that I enjoy jigsaw puzzles, I’m good at them despite lousy fine motor skills, and – and it’s a significant and – I can listen to audiobooks while I’m working on a puzzle.
I listened to a lot fewer audiobooks this year than in 2019, but I also was a lot pickier. Since the first time we went in lockdown, in March, I’ve been monitoring my mental health more closely, which means I’ve been cautious as to what I listened to. So while I listened to a smaller number of books, I loved a bigger percentage of them.
Like last year, I got codes from authors or narrators for some of these (thank you!), others I got with my own credits. Whether I paid for them or not, if they’re on this list, it’s because I loved them. Here they are, in chronological order of reviewing:
#1 Wild Things by Karin Kallmaker, narrated by Abby Craden
#2 Brooklyn Summer by Maggie Cummings, narrated by Lori Prince
#3 Powdered Souls (Snow Sub Series, Book 1) by Dixon Reuel, narrated by Garrett Michael Brown
#4 Coming Home by KJ, narrated by Ruth Guice
#5 Curtis and Reynolds series by Carolyn Elizabeth, narrated by Lori Prince: Gallows Humor / Dirt Nap
#6 Tales from Ardulum by J.S. Fields, narrated by Lynn Norris
#7 Being Hospitable (Desert Rose Hook-Ups #1) by Meka James, narrated by Phoenix McKay
#8 Phoenix of Hope series by Zora Marie, narrated by Senn Annis: Cast in Fire / Tempered in Ice
#9 Fire on the Ice (Snow & Ice Games #4) by Tamsen Parker, narrated by Jill Smith
#10 Western Shores (The Compass Series Book 4) by Lise Gold, narrated by Addison Barnes
#11 Bet Against Me (High Stakes #1) by Fiona Riley, narrated by Melissa Sternenberg
#12 The Scent of Rome by Lise Gold, narrated by T.J. Richards
#13 Those Who Wait (Those Who Wait #1) by Haley Cass, narrated by Lori Prince
#14 Rough Around the Edges by Crystal Chard, narrated by Katheryn Siggers
#15 Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur, narrated by Lauren Sweet
I made the decision to only include in the list audiobooks released in 2020, but some of my favourite listens were released earlier. I have to mention at least E.J. Noyes’ Ask, Tell and Ask Me Again, narrated by Abby Craden, Cari Hunter’s Dark Peak series, narrated by Nicola Victoria Vincent, and G Benson’s Who’d Have Thought, narrated by Tanya Eby.
Jude in the Stars 