September 2025 Earphones Award Winners

Greta Jung's narration quickly establishes the reasons for 17-year-old Korean American Winter Moon's sarcasm. Her tone becomes understandable when Winter's selfish, caustic mother comes into the picture. Jung also depicts Winter's tenderness toward her loving grandmother, Halmoni, and her heartbreak at Halmoni's death. These are only some of Jung's portrayals of complex... Read More

Narrators André Santana and Angel Pean add emotional depth to this moving story. In the aftermath of the Civil War, emancipated siblings Coleman and June cannot escape the Harper family of Baton Rouge. Mr. Harper, seeking his fortune in a Mexican silver mine, forces June to accompany him and later demands that Coleman bring his wife's jewelry for barter. Coleman obeys but also... Read More

If social media numbers and my math are correct, Jen Hatmaker has 1,518,500 combined followers on Facebook, Instagram, and X--and they will love this book. Those who have watched her videos or listened to her podcasts will immediately recognize her distinctive speaking style in this memoir recounting her journey from the trauma of divorce and evangelicalism to the healing and... Read More

Mimi doesn't like Waipo's favorite tea. How long can she avoid drinking it without hurting her grandmother's feelings? Katharine Chin delivers the answer in a heartfelt performance. Waipo repeatedly offers liangcha to Mimi, who thinks it's gross and yucky. Chin captures the humor in Mimi's efforts to get rid of the tea, as well as the tension when Waipo and Mimi clash over the... Read More

Golden Voice Narrator Michael Crouch brings his expert skills to this complex historical drama. While WWII still rages in the Pacific, a secret spanning generations begins in Bonhomie, Ohio. Cal Jenkins and Margaret Salt, who are married to other people, share a kiss in a hardware store upon the news of victory over Germany, and this starts a massive trickle-down effect... Read More

Logan Rozos expertly narrates a heartfelt queer romance. Eli, an editorial assistant who wants to be a writer, has sworn off romance. Finally, his friends set him up on a date with handsome but awkward Peter--which turns out to be a bust. Now Eli's boss wants him to continue seeing Peter and to write a series of articles about it to provide dating tips for readers. Eli's first... Read More

Many listeners will recall Edoardo Ballerini's lucid narration of Stephen Greenblatt's 2013 audiobook, THE SWERVE. It was an inspired match between one of today's finest Renaissance scholars and one of the very finest audiobook narrators. Author and narrator match again in this insightful biography of Shakespeare's predecessor and early model, playwright Christopher Marlowe. In... Read More

This oral history of the Manhattan Project and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is dramatically made aural, thanks to the talents of some 30 narrators, plus the author. Like its predecessor, WHEN THE SEA CAME ALIVE, this audiobook features snippets of first-person accounts of those who lived the history. Artfully arranged into a cohesive whole, they vocalize the... Read More

Almost 30 years after his first visit to Trastevere, author and narrator Mark Radcliffe returns, this time with his wife, Bella, and their Cavapoo, Arlo. Five-year-old Arlo provides a delightful twist to this story with his cheerful dog's-eye perspective of their three-month Roman holiday. Radcliffe's English accent and breezy delivery are charming--but it's his portrayal of... Read More

Robert Fass's performance gives this utterly believable novel the life it deserves. Fictional writer Jed Rosenthal is playing detective--he's curious about why his grandparents, Babs and Lou Rosenthal, and their closest friends, Essee and Irv Kupcinet, suddenly ended a lifelong friendship some years ago. Tracing the two families' histories unveils a series of real events.... Read More

Morag Sims and Will Watt provide fittingly erudite performances of this layered audiobook. Cambridge is home to a top-tier academic Magick program. When an esteemed professor is killed, star graduate students Alice and Peter embark on a quest to rescue him from hell. How else to get that coveted recommendation? The underworld is soon revealed to be a university campus of its... Read More

Perfectly cast, raspy-voiced Sean Patrick Hopkins narrates this grief-filled horror story, based on true events. Seventy-seven-year-old Glenn Partridge has never gotten over the brutal unsolved murder of his young son 40 years ago. Partridge kept copious notes and lists of suspects and constantly called the police for updates. His wife, hoping to divert him, enrolled him in a... Read More

Golden Voice Hillary Huber masterfully delivers two very different stories that dramatically collide: a tragic family saga unfolding around the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and a fast-paced thriller set in Arizona. In this fourth series entry, Frankie Elkin searches for a missing Afghan immigrant woman, quickly discovering that no one is truly who they seem. New... Read More

Golden Voice narrator Kimberly Farr reflects the shimmering light of Mary Oliver's poetry and amplifies the meaning in her appealing prose. Farr simply gets Oliver's nuance and grace and sound; as narrator, she has a gift for pace and knows just how to intensify and heighten the language. This extraordinary collection of two volumes of poems and a third of prose shows the... Read More

Kate DiCamillo's third installment in the Norendy Tales soars with a controlled narration by a very proper-sounding Allan Corduner. A childless shoemaker and his wife are surprised when a tiny child appears one day in a boot in his shop. He names her Evangeline. Corduner gracefully captures the tension that grows between the husband and wife as they focus on the child's... Read More

When book conservator Tory Van Dyne comes face-to-face with the ghost of Agatha Christie, hilarity and hijinks make this audiobook a must-listen. Because the afterlife is too dull for the Queen of Crime, Christie is given special dispensation to return to Earth to solve a murder. From the Christie Room of the Mystery Guild Library, Christie; Tory; Tory's actress cousin, Nic;... Read More

This spirited memoir is narrated by its author, the talented, lovely actress Dylan Mulvaney. Her robust and delightful performance fully conjures the colorful life she's lived--from her first budding aspirations for the stage to the inspiring woman she is today. Of course, the audiobook heavily focuses on her gender transition later in life and the negative feedback she's... Read More

Actor Richard Attlee has the rare ability among audiobook narrators of extracting full value from each word and syllable while seeming to do nothing at all. What in a lesser narrative might have seemed affected here achieves a singular ease and naturalism. Art historian Pears's richly detailed, expertly written "Love Story from a Lost Continent" comes from firsthand... Read More

This account of two Black writers makes for a memorable audiobook. Both narrators are masters of cadence and pace. The unnamed first-person protagonist, portrayed expressively by Golden Voice Narrator JD Jackson, wins a National Book Award. Ronald Peet eloquently portrays the writer Soot. Both writers are wounded--one by a knife and the other by loss. Europe is the setting for... Read More

Narrator Sam West effortlessly sweeps listeners along in this magnificent sequel to IMPOSSIBLE CREATURES. When Anya's grandfather, the king of Dousha, is murdered and her beloved father is accused of the crime and imprisoned, Anya will do anything to help him. Help comes in the form of Christopher, a guardian of the magical Archipelago where Anya lives, along with a bevy of... Read More

Narrator Victoria Villarreal elevates this ghostly mystery with her impressive vocal range. Malamar Veracruz has never escaped the shadow of her sister, Elena, who disappeared when they were teenagers. With no choice but to mature quickly, she raised her baby brother in a fractured home with an alcoholic father and an abusive mother who blamed Malamar for Elena's disappearance.... Read More

Genevieve Gaunt deftly conveys this time-travel/ghost story set in both 1895 and 2013. After a contemporary family unexpectedly inherits a mansion on the Cornish coast, they hear anguished crying nightly but find no obvious cause. Gaunt offers superb historical and contemporary speech patterns and outstanding voices for the young. The family consults Pixie Tate, a "time slider"... Read More

Anne-Marie Piazza gives a spirited performance in this historical mystery. She embodies the spunkiness of Kat Holloway, a cook and mother who turns amateur sleuth to save her beau, Daniel McAdam, a police informant for Scotland Yard. When McAdam goes undercover, working for a viscount in Belgrave Square, Holloway uses her cunning to keep him safe. Piazza has a delightful... Read More

Isabella Star LaBlanc provides a superior narration of Boulley's third YA novel, this one featuring eighteen-year-old Lucy Smith. First-person chapters taking place in the past are interspersed with those in the present, moving forward chronologically until time is synced. LaBlanc portrays young, openhearted Lucy, who responds lovingly to her father's protective care. Later,... Read More

The advantages and perils of technology have long been examined in fiction, and this audiobook offers an excellent, profoundly human view of the topic. Helen Laser is outstanding as Jane, a teenager who is living off the grid in Montana with her father. As Jane learns more about her history, Laser's portrayal subtly changes to reflect her growth. Jane's voice shifts from that... Read More

Will Packer, producer of numerous Hollywood hits, brings his talents as both author and narrator to this inspiring collection of career and life lessons. Known for being "all in" on his projects, Packer delivers masterful storytelling enhanced by cameo appearances from celebrities, lively music and sound effects, and a sideline commentator who keeps him honest. His narration... Read More

James Rottger presents this timely story with verve, his Scots accents reflecting its varied locales. When thoughtful Dr. Neil Anderson is misunderstood by a student, a serious complaint results. After he discovers his girlfriend's unfaithfulness, he retreats to the Isle of Mull, rather than defend himself. Rottger lustily utters the strong feelings of longtime friend James,... Read More

Trust narrator Joy Nash to make the zombie apocalypse a barrel of laughs. Edie Brandstrup is constantly on the lookout for zombies. Sure enough, some escape from a nearby prison. Rushing to save her neighbors, Edie first heads for Gaston "Max" Boucher, a brainless surfer dude who turns out to be a French vampire with hidden depths. Edie's mockery of Max in the form of incessant... Read More