Best of 2013 Audiobook Blog Hop

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Happy 2014 everyone! The arrival of the New Year signals the start of the Best of 2013 Audiobook Blog Hop. The multiple participants (over 40 at last count) are highlighting their favorite 3 audiobooks from 2013. Thanks to Audible, you have an awesome opportunity to win a 6 month (single credit) membership to Audible.com! This hop is hosted by The Book Nympho, Hot Listens, and Geeky Bloggers Book Blog.  It runs from January 1, 2014 to January 15, 2014.

Underneath the Giveaway entry form, you’ll find a list with links to all the blogs participating in the Hop. Visit each to see their Top Three Favorite’s for 2013, along with more chances to enter the Audible membership giveaway and other site specific giveaways.

Here at AudioGals, it’s difficult for us to unanimously choose just three audiobooks. Instead we have chosen the three author/narrator teams we believe made the strongest contribution to romance audio in 2013.

 

For My Lady's HeartKinsale-FlowersfromtheStorm-shadow

Completely in charge of her audio releases, Laura Kinsale came on strong, blowing us away with the combination of her writing and Nicholas Boulton’s performances. Of the seven Kinsale titles released in 2013, our top choices are Flowers from the Storm and For My Lady’s Heart.

 

Breaking PointSurrender

Pamela Clare continued to shine with further releases in her romantic suspense I-Team series and the release of her historical MacKinnon’s Rangers series – something that caused quite a bit of excitement around here.  Kaleo Griffith delivered all with style. Our top Clare choices are Surrender and Breaking Point.

 

The Raven PrinceThe Leopard PrinceHachette Audio thrilled romance listeners with their release of Elizabeth Hoyt’s Princes trilogy – long wished for by romance listeners. And to make it even better, they chose Moira Quirk to narrate these favorites. Ms. Quirk simply amazed us with her performances. Our top choices are The Raven Prince and The Leopard Prince.

 

We have numerous giveaways scheduled for January and February beginning next week with multiple titles highlighting narrator Renee Raudman. Then be watching for Up From the Grave – the final novel in Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress series, Do or Die – the first in Suzanne Brockmann’s Reluctant Heroes series, and Loretta Chase’s highly anticipated Lord of Scoundrels in audio. And that’s only part of what we have in store for the next two months. Be sure to check back with us!

 

And now with cheers to The Book Nympho, Hot Listens, and Geeky Bloggers Book Blog – the Best of 2013 Audiobook Blog Hop giveaway entry form:

The Rules:

  • Fill out the Rafflecopter Form
  • Must be able to accept a book from Audible
  • Must be over 18 to enter
  • Must enter by Jan 15th at Midnight EST

Enter here – a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don’t forget to visit all the blogs on the list for incredible giveaways and their list of favorite audiobooks between now and January 15th!    

 

Brenda

25 thoughts on “Best of 2013 Audiobook Blog Hop

    1. Felicia it’s taken me half the day to check out all the blogs on the Hop! What a great job you and your fellow hosts did putting this together!

      You just have to love Kaleo Griffith’s Scottish accent in Surrender. :)

  1. Happy New Year from Oklahoma, USA. crystalbluern at onlineok dot com Waiting for Up from the Grave: Night Huntress By Jeaniene Frost Narrated By Tavia Gilbert Night Huntress Series, Book 7.

    1. I’m definitely anticipating Up From the Grave right along with you Debra. I’m sad it’s the last in the Night Huntress series but can’t wait to see what Jeaniene Frost will bring us next!

  2. All of those are great combos but I have to say, I have an incredible amount of respect for how Laura Kinsale went about getting her books into audio. That’s an incredible pairing of author material and narrator. I’ve only listened to For My Lady’s Heart so far (I’ve been accumulating the rest in anticipation of when I want a favorite to re-read via audio) but Nicholas Boulton is so very good.

    1. I couldn’t agree more about Ms Kinsale’s choice of narrator for her books Kelli. Her hands on approach combined with his awesome abilities turned out audiobook masterpieces.

  3. I stick to mostly paranormal titles so I haven’t listened to any of these; I do listen to the occasional Erotica audiobook though to help keep things interesting.

    Happy New Year!

    1. Carmel I love the paranormal genre as well – I’m going to have to try Diana Rowland after seeing your favorites.

      You might be surprised at the heat Elizabeth Hoyt delivers in The Raven Prince ! ;)

    1. With Moira Quirk narrating you can’t go wrong with these Hoyt titles. Do you know I have yet to listen to Kristine Hvam? She’s on my list after seeing her as your narrator of the year. :)

  4. Check out Nicholas Boulton’s sound samples here or at Audible Jennifer – they’ll bump Ms Kinsale up your list. ;)

    1. Yes Berl, finding new narrator names that other listeners trust to deliver was nearly as exciting as finding new Authors/Titles! :)

  5. Happy New Year! I purchased all the titles Laura Kinsale has released up to date. I have yet to listen to The Shadow and the Star because these last weeks have been crazy and these audiobooks deserve to be savored slowly. Altthough I loved all the titles, Flowers from the Storm blew my mind away and became the standard by which all audiobooks will be measured in the future: a match made in heaven between a brilliant author and a sublime narrator/performer.

    I loved The Raven Prince to pieces and Moira Quirk’sperformance was superb. I listened to the entire Elizabeth Hoyt’s backlist on audiio and I really enjoyed all th titles narrated by Moira Quirk and Ashford McNab (Thief of Shadows was my favourite of the Maiden Lane series), the Legends of the Four Soldiers narrated by Anne Flossnick were good but the book contents and narration lacked that extra something the other series had. And sadly, the most recent Duke of Midnight was a DNF for me in audio format. The nuances in the narration were OK but for me it was painful to listen to Claudia Harris’rendition of the hero’s voice. I had to finish the book in e-book format.

    I’ve just started to listen to Pamela Clare’s Surrender as per the recommendation of the Audiogals’Guide to Audio Romance and so far so good!! It promises to be an A in both content and narration.

    This year I also discovered Lisa Kleypas and Courtney Milan in audio. Lisa’s historicals are simply delightful in Rosalyn Landor’s expressive and soothing voice, or Susan Duerden’s. The same goes for Courtney’s titles.

    Looking forward to Loretta Chase’s titles, Lord of Scoundrel and Mr Impossible in particular.
    There are so many other audiobooks to discuss, so little time to do so.. Enjoy!!!

    1. Thanks so much Bea – it’s fabulous to know that sharing our picks throughout the year helped others to have some great listens in 2013!

      I’m with you on those Loretta Chase audios – fingers crossed for a great narrator! And you’ve named my top two favorite titles by her as well. :)

      ETA: Moving to the tech side for a minute here Bea – I have you to thank for moving me to try out my 64 GB Mini SD card in my Sansa Clip+ – it worked out perfectly! I’m so happy with the result!

      I used a card reader to insert the Mini SD into my computer in order to reformat it Fat 32 just like that article I linked you to said (I used a free software download for that as suggested too). I put the newly reformatted Mini SD into my Clip+ and voila the it was recognized instantly. My computer sees the SD card inside the Clip+ so I can drag audiobooks or music right onto the card or onto the player and best of all Audible Manager sees the 64 GB of extra storage too. I can download my Audible books straight to the SD Card or to the Clip+.

      Woo Hoo – score one for the geek in me. LOL

      1. Thank you for the tip Brenda! That sounds like heaven to me, my inner Gollum rejoices at the opportunity to have all my precioussss audiobooks in only one Micro SD card. We finely aged tech-challenged women like me need to find our geeky side too with the help of gals like you. I’ll try to follow your guidelines as the article instructed. I’ll let you know if I succeed. Off to buy a Sansa Clip+ and a 64 GB sd card.

  6. First, let me thank you for taking part in this hop :)
    I have all of Ms. Hoty’s books on my audio library, I will immediately add these two titles to the front of my TBL, I adore her other series, so between you picking them as the best, and what I already know about her writing, I know they are a total win!!
    I have Laura Kinsale in my wish list, but it’s soon to be on my audio library :) thanks to your recommendation.

    I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year!

    1. Here’s to 2014 “clinking glasses” outdoing the excellent year 2013 proved to be Loupe. There’s never been a better time to be a romance audiobook lover! ;)

  7. I can’t wait for Deborah Harkness’ new All Souls book that comes out in July. Her Discovery of Witches on audio was amazing, as was the 2nd in the trilogy.

  8. I had my Kindle Fire HD tablet almost a whole year before I “tried” out an Audiobook. Actually, I was on my library’s website, and was looking for a way to read Penguin books more easily on my tablet and came across Open Drive’s media console which allowed me to read books downloaded to it in Adobe Epub book.(So much nicer than screwing around with USB) What I realized after downloading the app was that I could now listen to Audiobooks from the library too!

    So I went back to AAR looking for Lea’s posts”Speaking of Audiobooks,” to see what would be good to download. I finally decided on The Spymaster’s Lady which I had been meaning to read.

    I loved the experience. So I glommed all of Lea’s back column’s which led to this blog. Thanks to whispersync, I am the proud owner of about 12 audiobooks, and have listened to another dozen or so from my library. My absolute favorite (and one I now own) is Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm which is the perfect book for audio, particularly with Nicholas Boltin’s characterizations. He captures Christian’s halting speech so wonderfully.

    I just wanted to say thank you to Lea and all of you at AudioGals – you helped me navigate some uncharted territory with wonderful ease.

  9. Terry, it thrills me that you have discovered some excellent listens through Speaking of Audiobooks! There is so much good info buried in those 4+ years of columns – partly because listeners contributed a good deal as well. It was like we were all discovering romance audio together.

    Please keep coming back either here or Speaking of Audiobooks. I’d love to hear more of your progress.

  10. I am almost finished the first book in the Night Huntress books by Jeaniene frost, I will definitely be back to check out your post for book 7! I listened to my first Audio book in December and am now completely addicted to them <3

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