The Best Audiobooks of April 2025

Romance novelist phenom Emily Henry said her latest book, Great Beautiful Life, is the most challenging book she’s written to date, and Publishers Weekly calls it “a stunner.” Not just a steamy enemies-turned-lovers romance, this also weaves in historical fiction, family drama, and a mystery. Fan-favorite narrator Julia Whelan, who has earned several Earphones Awards for her work on prior Henry megahits (Book Lovers, People We Meet on Vacation, and Beach Read), brings her usual depth and emotion to this multi-faceted love story.  

This is a classic cat-and-mouse thriller from an author at the top of her game. Although it’s a worthy sequel to Rose’s blockbuster, The Perfect Marriage, it also stands on its own as a twisty thriller. A large cast of narrators adds colorful context to the story of Sarah Morgan, a former lawyer whose first husband was convicted of his lover’s murder, and whose current husband’s mistress is missing. Of course, there are secrets, and, of course, there are desperate efforts to conceal them. Will Sarah’s second attempt at a perfect marriage turn into a perfect crime or a perfect divorce? 

National Book Award-winning and bestselling author McCann often narrates his own books, and this is one of his best performances, which AudioFile Magazine praised as “masterful… outstanding listening.” His Irish accent is obviously the perfect match for his Irish protagonist, another Irish writer, who is also relating his own story. The theme is connections and how they can be broken — both the actual underwater cables that carry so much of the world’s global communications, as well as the more abstract bonds that link people together. Both can be broken, but can both always be repaired? 

It’s always exhilarating for audiobook listeners to hear new narrators, and the curiosity always ramps up if the narrator is a well-known actor reading for one of the first times. Here, Dakota Fanning, a movie star since the age of seven, does not disappoint. Her approach is smooth and self-confident as she captures the nuances amongst the characters’ complicated relationships. It helps that she has very solid material to work with in blockbuster novelist Jennifer Weiner’s family drama of forgiveness and second chances, which moves between eras with a nostalgic nod to the pop culture of the 2000s.  

Sarah J. Maas is one of our most consistently popular audiobook authors, with her bestselling Court of Thorns and Roses series pulling in new romantasy readers every day. Maas fans are especially lucky when publisher GraphicAudio converts her adventures to full-cast, enhanced, immersive audio versions, which is the case with this title. In this sexy, breathtaking second installment of book three in Maas’s action-packed Crescent City series, the story reaches new heights as Bryce and Hunt’s world is brought to the brink of collapse, with its future resting on their shoulders. 

The Sirens is another mesmerizing genre-bending and time-bending tale about sisterhood, resilience, and the power of dreams by Emilia Hart, whose debut novel,Weyward, is a former Barnes & Noble Best Audiobook of the Year. From the very first notes of the melancholy music in the opening credits, you are gripped by a sense of mystery and magic. And then Barrie Kreinik begins her majestic and masterful narration, wrapping the characters in Irish and Australian accents and even delivering a poignant rendition of a folk song. This special production also includes a 20-minute conversation with Hart, and we bestow extra bonus points for the enchanting book cover. 

Fourteen years after Tahereh Mafi debuted Shatter Me, her young adult dystopian romantic thriller series, she returns with a spin-off series set in the same storyverse. It has been ten years since the notorious duo, Juliette Ferrars and Aaron Warner Anderson, led a worldwide rebellion and established the New Republic of the West. But The Reestablishment is ready to make a devastating move, and they have the perfect assassin for the job. Both narrators are well-known to fans of immersive audiobook editions by Rebbeca Yarros and Sarah J. Maas. 

It’s not surprising that so soon after publication, The Next Conversation is already a New York Times bestseller because everyone can benefit from tips about how to better communicate. Author and social media influencer Jefferson Fisher has many millions of fans and followers because he provides concrete suggestions for how to navigate all kinds of conversations using his three-part system: say it with control, say it with confidence, say it to connect. Listen to him walk you through each stage with relatable examples, and you’ll be ready to approach any situation as a more effective communicator.   

It has been almost 20 years since Amanda Knox became a household name for being accused, tried, and convicted for the murder of her roommate during a college semester in Italy. Those events, which included four years in prison before she was exonerated, remain central to her life, as she searches for meaning, purpose, and a healthy path forward that can also serve as inspiration to others suffering from injustice or serious hardships. She reads her own words, as she did in an earlier memoir, never shying away from her mistakes and regrets alongside her victories, making the audiobook version powerfully personal. 

Every time we recommend a book about The Beatles, we marvel that there is always more to uncover, but there always is! Taking its cue from Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics(B&N Best Book of the Year in 2021), this must-listen for Beatles fans looks at Lennon and McCartney’s songs to understand their personal relationship, and vice versa, from their first collaborations as teens to Lennon’s untimely death in 1980. The Guardian raves, “[it] offers not only a lesson in listening (again) but an enthralling narrative of friendship, creative genius, and loss.” The audiobook is read by British comedian and actor Chris Addison and features a bonus conversation between the author and popular Beatles podcast host, Geoff Lloyd. (For a related bio, check out this refreshing look at Yoko Ono.) 

This is a Holocaust family memoir like no other. Welsh writer and poet Joe Dunthorne was researching his grandmother’s escape from Germany as a young girl in the 1930s when he found something else—evidence that his Jewish great-grandfather made chemical weapons for the Nazis. Dunthorne narrates this deeply personal memoir with expected poignancy, as well as some unexpected humor, reflecting on the hard choices people make, the myths families create, and the impact of inherited guilt.