It was only after I read Thank You For Listening that I realized I was going to have to listen to this one on audio. I flew through this book in one night and loved it and I didn’t even recognize that the author is an awesome narrator in her own right. (I rarely listen to books.)

This one got me in my feels. Sewanee used to be an actress and then due to a tragic accident, became an audiobook narrator and one of the best in the business. Brock McNight is a male narrator that sets people on fire with his voice. The two are paired together for one final project and the banter between them brings the heat.

This book has every trope (seriously, the chapters are labeled with them) and works for the book. The secondary characters like Sewanee’s grandmother and best friend are just as great. They help Sewanee with finding love and self acceptance.

This book is out now! Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books for this eARC.

4.25⭐
PG-13 because the only steam... Is reading steamy scenes from other books?

June French is my fictional writer hero!

If you enjoyed Book Lovers and want to read another meta book about bookish people, look no further. Julia Whelan, the renowned audiobook narrator, presents a book... about audiobook narrators! Which was honestly the coolest thing about this whole book because it really gave the reader a behind the scenes view of what it's like to record audiobooks.

This book was fun because it brought together different tropes and spun them around to really create a book that's part romance (Brock McNight is a hottie) and also part women's fiction as Sewanee learned to better accept herself and her disability. The banter in this book was fun though also extremely pretentious and this is definitely one of those books where the writer wants you to know you're reading about Smart People ™.

I enjoyed how this book came full circle and connected everything together, though at times the pacing was a bit off. Overall, I enjoyed this book and definitely had some moments where I couldn't put it down! If you enjoy romances that aren't quite romance and bookish adjacent books, this one is for you.

My favorite audiobook narrator writing a book about an audiobook narrator with (spoiler alert, ha) a HEA?! Yes. Please. My only regret? Not LISTENING to this gem.

*Although this book is now available for purchase, I was honored to read an ARC of this book via NetGalley and the author/publisher. All opinions are my own.*

What an amazing story, I love Julia Whelan as a narrator and as an author, this new book is set in her world, so its real and a delight to read and hear. Sewanee and Brock owned me. I love Swan's story so much, how she turned her life around and found herself, and in the process she found something she never imagined, well more than one thing. The story is good paced, the story line is well balanced that will hook you in and keep you reading, is simply fantastic!

Sewanee was an actress until an accident ended her career. She took her talents to audiobooks and has found joy and success as a narrator. When she attends a book convention, she has a one night stand with a charming stranger. But then, when she takes on a romance book for one of her favorite authors, that handsome stranger comes back into her life…

Julia Whelan is a queen. I love her as an audiobook narrator and how perfect that she wrote a romance about an audiobook narrator. Literal perfection. The writing was incredible - this book was witty and full of heart. It had me laughing at some parts and crying at others. I really felt all of the emotions here. The banter and chemistry was amazing and there is no way to read this and not root for the heroine. This book is incredible and if you haven’t read it you need to.

Thank you to Avon Books for the advance copy.

I am isolating at home with Covid and this was the actual most perfect thing to read this week- this is an insanely smart and clever (meta?) comfort read. The chapter titles alone are a great example of how to poke fun at a genre and subvert its tropes while still functioning essentially as a love letter to that genre.

I ate it up.

There isn't a character present in this book that I did not love- Sarah, Sewanee, Alice, Nick, Brock, Mark, Stu, Marilyn (UGGGH STU AND MARILYNNNNN- they need their own book), Adaku, BlahBlah, even HENRY for Pete's sake! A few of the character backstories are borderline absurd (I'm fairly sure this is intentional), and yet somehow Whelan makes them feel totally natural. It's uncanny. The format is also choppy (again, I think this was done with intent) and yet IT STILL WORKS.

For those looking for a lot of steam, you won't find tons of it here, but what steam there is will absolutely have you flushing. That also could have been the Covid. Whatever.

Okay. So Julia Whelan is a smart and funny writer and she's now an auto-buy for me. Cool, there's your TL/DR.

“Cover up whatever you please for the world, but in intimacy? Hide nothing. In intimacy, everything is beautiful."

Thanks to Avon Books and NetGalley for the review copy!

First, let’s get this out of the way: I hate the term women’s fic. No need to dismissively label an entire genre just because it focuses on a female protagonist’s journey. Just call it fiction. We’re not going around labeling Franzen as men’s fic, are we? (Wait, ARE we?!?) So, yes, while I have labeled it as women’s fiction per the publishing industry standards, please let it be known that I rolled my eyes the entire time I was doing it.

Julia Whelan is a new to me author but for those of you who are big into audiobooks, you may have heard of her (or just heard her voice) because she’s quite the prolific audiobook narrator. Per her Goodreads bio, she has narrated over 500 (!!) books and is Grammy-nominated for audiobook directing! She is also a former child actress, having gained some degree of fame on a hit tv show in the late 90s and early aughts.

So, then, it makes sense that her second book is all about an audiobook narrator named Sewanee (pronounced SWAH-nee) Chester, a one-time tv actress on the cusp of major movie star fame who had to pivot to a different career path when a tragic accident causes her to lose an eye.

While there is a strong romantic element to this book, complete with a HEA, it very much doesn’t feel like a romance novel. One can certainly argue about whether the romantic storyline drives the plot of the story (I would land on the side of no, it doesn’t). Really, the story is about Sewanee and her journey of self-love and self-acceptance and growth, all of which in turn make it possible for her to find and accept love from another person.

Sewanee, with her complicated internal life and difficult family dynamics, engages in a steamy one-night stand with an Irish charmer by the name of Nick who she meets at the end of a book conference in Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…unless you’re the protagonist of a women’s fic with strong romantic elements. She doesn’t even give him her real name, no contact information is exchanged, despite these two strangers experiencing a deeply profound emotional connection and an incredibly sexy physical one.

Back to her regular life in Los Angeles, Sewanee, who got her start in audiobook narration with romance novels under a pseudonym but has since stepped back from the genre, is compelled to return to the genre to record a romance novel by the late June French. She needs money to help pay for her beloved grandmother’s care and so she agrees to the terms, recording these books with Brock McNight, one of the most popular romance audiobook narrators whose real identity is a mystery to his legions of fans.

The two never meet before they embark on a working relationship that takes on an epistolary form via emails and then texts. I adore an epistolary romance and a good chunk of the book is the two of them bantering back and forth via texts. It’s both light and funny and breezy and also deep and emotionally vulnerable, revealing both of these characters to the reader through concise bursts of dialogue.

I’m not going to spoil much beyond this but I’ve been reading romance novels for almost 3 decades so it didn’t take a lot of time to connect the dots in this book. That being said, knowing what’s coming doesn’t in any way detract from all the reasons why the book works and there are still many more surprises around the bend.

I adored both of these characters but let’s be honest, it’s Sewanee who is the real star of the show. Hurting from dreams unrealized and unable to completely move on, Sewanee’s pain is real and gripping and you feel every single moment of her struggle to accept who she is and her attempt to reconcile it with who she was.

The side characters are also amazing, mostly serving to further Sewanee’s journey but they all have distinctive voices of their own, fully formed characters with dreams and hopes and loss.

In a lot of ways, this book is a love letter to the romance genre so it’s interesting that the book itself can’t really be considered a romance novel. Sewanee and Nick (and then Sewanee’s alter ego, Sarah and Brock) talk about tropes, about the euphemisms used in sex scenes, and about why Sewanee stepped back from narrating romance books and why Brock wants to escape it himself.

It’s a fascinating way of looking at HEAs and why we love them so much, what they mean to us, and how we use them to deal with our daily lives. One of the most poignant lines in the book comes from Sewanee explaining to Nick how her thinking has evolved about romance and the whole idea of a HEA.

I don’t think you can know if you lived happily ever after until your life’s over.” She set down her glass. “Maybe that’s why your whole life flashes before your eyes when you die. So you can see the movie from beginning to end and know.

…

Anyway, it’s not ridiculous. It’s not bullshit. It is possible. It’s not fantasy or reality. A happily ever after is built by both, together, over a lifetime.

There’s something so lovely about a woman on a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance learning that the whole idea of a HEA is also built on a journey that never really ends. We read these fictional books about fictional characters and their stories end with the book giving us their requisite HEA. But in reality, that’s really just the beginning of the story and this book manages to encapsulate that idea much more eloquently than I ever could.

I feel like this whole review kind of got away from me and I rambled but let me just be clear on a few things:

This book is a (ughh) women’s fic with a strong romantic element and;
I very much loved it.
Grade: A

Content Notes: Sewanee suffers a horrific accident that causes the loss of an eye; the accident is referred to in detail via flashback; toxic father/daughter relationship, off-page cheating between side characters, side character is hospitalized for exhaustion, reference to mental health issues and therapy, off page alcoholism of minor character, sick grandmother with memory loss and eventual death;

After reading Julia Whelan's debut novel I knew I needed to read the latest. I have seen a comment that I totally agree with, she is everyone's favorite narrator. For this book I was gifted with the book and audio, and I will address both. At first, I thought it was going to be a true story, but learned I was wrong, and it was a delightful surprise. Sewanee Chester (Swan) was and up-and-coming actress with a bright future ahead of her. When she is involved in a tragic accident her life changes., but she finds a way to utilize her acting abilities. She begins narrating audiobooks. She is able to do all kinds of accents, different characters, different genders, etc. This also gives us a chance to get some behind the scenes information on how this process works.

When an author's dying request is that "Sara" and one of the most popular, if not the most popular male narrators, Brock, are to narrate a romance book together, Swan is hesitant. She does not believe in Happily Ever After. But, as they two meet and join forces, there is lots of playful banter that just gets better and better.

I loved this book and will happily give it five stars! I love the humor, heart, hot bits, banter, I just loved it all.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Perfection on the page.
Perfection on audio.
I loved everything about Thank You for Listening.

Swan finds herself meeting not just one great guy, but two over the course of just a few months. One (Nick) she met at a conference she wasn’t even supposed to be at. Then the other (Brock) after she agreed to co narrate a romance novel, which she said she would never do again. Like opposite sides of a coin, both of these men bring something out in Swan she desperately needs.

Julia Whelan delivered with this new book. She provided amazing, lovable, yet flawed characters. A little romance. Lots of banter and whit. Quirky residents of her grandmothers nursing home (who would have a book/show all themselves). All while recognizing all the romance clichés that are often in books and addressing head on, and making light of them … since it was a romance book within a book.

But most of all Thank you For Listening is about hope and love and accepting yourself, not just because others do or believe you should, but because you truly do.

An engaging story about loving yourself at every point in your life journey, Thank You for Listening is a beautiful story of self-acceptance.

That's what I want you to go into this book expecting. Not a steamy love story. Because expecting one left me a wee bit disappointed.

Now there's romance in here (and a good one at that), don't get me wrong. But there are no fully spicy scenes and only one spicy encounter. This book has been completely marketed to me as romance so I was expecting spice upon spice. It was even teased in the book! But it never happened. Sadness. Can we get an email newsletter scene or something?

Other than my spice loving heart being broken, this book is gold. It has complicated and loving family relationships, a look into the background scene of audiobook narration, and some top notch romantic banter. This book is very self-aware of its tropes and I adored that.

It definitely rides the line between women's fiction and romance (which is talked about in the novel). I appreciate how well constructed this book is and really love the characters, plot, and writing, but when you tease spicy scenes, it's best to just deliver them.

Thank you for reading.

4.5/5

My Goodreads status update for this book at 65%: “Omfg this is so freaking good, literal perfection, it's 4am and I don't want to stop reading please send help.”

So obviously, this was such a joy to read! It’s wonderfully self-aware, both employing and poking fun at a variety of romance tropes, which to me is one of the best things about this “books about books” sub-genre which has been so prevalent lately.

I loved Sewanee and her growth and self-acceptance throughout the book, as well as the focus on her familial and friend relationships. The glimpse into the audiobook world was also so much fun, and you can tell that Julia Whelan knows exactly what she’s talking about.

The chemistry between Sewanee and Brock was absolutely incredible. Epistolary romances can be really tricky to do, but when they’re done well, oh yeah baby. There’s a large middle section of the book that is mostly told through their email and text exchanges and I just ADORED it. As mentioned above, I stayed up until 4 in the morning reading and grinning like a fool because it was just so good. Seriously all the stars for the middle half of the book!

The ending did drag a teeny tiny bit for me, I just wasn’t as invested for some reason. The textual sparks that I loved so much didn’t quite translate to the in-person interactions. But that didn’t take much away from my overall enjoyment and honestly this was very nearly a 5 star read.

I also find it interesting that other than one incomplete scene, this is pretty much a closed door romance. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that there were several moments in the book where they specifically talked about what defines a romance novel, and one of the things is sex. I don’t actually agree with that assessment, but it really threw off my expectations for this particular book.

I highly recommend this one if you enjoy sizzling text banter, audiobooks and romance novels in general, old (and new!) Hollywood glamour, and the mistaken/mystery identity trope.

Thank you so much to Avon and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Audiobook narrator, Sewanee Chester is unhappy. A former actress, she switched careers due to a tragic accident that she still hasn’t healed from emotionally. Sewanee also quit recording romance novels five years ago when she decided she didn’t believe in a happily ever. She receives an offer that she can’t refuse but it’s narrating romance, and working with the hottest male voice around, Brock McKnight. Sewanee and Brock begin emailing and texting to discuss their productions, but soon it turns personal and she agree to meet in person. Has Sewanee finally met her HEA?

Thank You for Listening is funny, sad, romantic, and entertaining. Easy to read and hard to put down, I devoured the book in a few days. Sewanee and Brock’s witty banter and innuendos led to some pretty amazing chemistry in their relationship. Also, I love it when I learn something new from a book. In this one, I learned about the process of producing an audiobook, all the research, pronunciation issues, and dialogue or dialect discussions. I’d never really have it a thought before and I found it very interesting on top of the actual story.

When audiobook narrator, Sewanee, is asked to return to her romance novel roots and be one of the two voices for the final audiobook of a beloved author under her old pseudonym, she must learn to re-love the genre she thought she had moved past. The other voice actor for the project is the mysterious Brock McNight who has made a name for himself exclusively reading romances novels. The two must work together on the book while trying to keep their true identities a secret. On top of the job, Sewanee is navigating dealing with her best friend making it big in Hollywood and a beloved grandmother who is battling dementia and is beginning to need more care.

This book was a delight to read and I’m sure that the audiobook, as it was read by the author, would be equally delightful. The book is entirely from the perspective of Sewanee and would not work as a dual POV book. I loved the structure of the book as it was broken down into plot sections like “a woman goes on a journey”, “the notorious rake”, “snowed in”, “the proposal”, and “the reconciliation” rather than normal chapter titles or just numbers. My favorite was a large section near the middle of the book that was mostly epistolary containing large blocks of emails and text messages. Having the chapters this way kept the pace of the book going and told me exactly what I was getting without revealing too much.

I adored Sewanee. I found aspects of her character very relatable wile other aspects were just over the top enough to make her a wonderful romance heroine. I liked her relationship with Brock and while the twist was obvious, it was still very fun to read. I liked the various side characters and felt that the really added to the story and helped me to really see Sewanee as a real person. The tone of this book is what I would consider a dramedy with comedic aspects breaking up the more serious scenes. Overall I loved this book and cannot believe that it is only the second book written by Julia Whelan.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When she was just twenty-four, Sewanee (Swan) Chester was in a horrific accident that scarred her psychologically and physically. At the time, she was an aspiring actress, but now she narrates audiobooks for an appreciative fan base. In "Thank You for Listening," Julie Whelan pokes fun at the cliches and formulaic plots of tacky romance novels. Although Swan dislikes narrating romances, she agrees to take a lucrative job that entails recording stories about good-looking men and women who find true love and live HEA (happily ever after). Swan needs the money to finance her beloved grandmother's costly stay in an assisted-living facility.

The novel is most touching when Whelan focuses on Swan's devotion to her grandmother, who has severe memory loss. The least realistic aspect is Swan's unexpected encounter with a gorgeous man in Vegas, with whom she spends a torrid night before parting. For some inexplicable reason, the lovers initially lie about their identities. The growing attraction between these two is as improbable and cliché-ridden as the romance audiobooks that Swan records.

Swan's relationship with Nick progresses in fits and starts, which breaks up the novel's flow. The tale's most intriguing passages involve the fascinating art of narrating audiobooks. In order to do the job well, the narrator must speak naturally and be able to convey subtle emotions. To rise to the top of her field, she must also be an excellent actress who forms a bond with her listeners. Swan earns our sympathy for the challenges she faces, but "Thank You for Listening" is too predictable and bland to win our hearts.

What a fun read. I have been in a book slump but this book pulled me right out and entertained me immensely. I loved the main characters and their interactions were just a lot of fun.

Definitely and interesting and somewhat twisty take on the traditional romance genre. I loved the text/email format parts of the book. I think it broke it up and made for some relatability. BlahBlah was the best, of course. While there were some sad and dramatic parts, I also enjoyed the intermingled genres and plays on that. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a book that isn’t quite what you would expect.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon, HarperCollins for the advanced copy.

what do you know, julia whelan can write! i've listened to a number of audiobooks she's narrated, and while this premise isn't terribly far afield from her usual work, it's very charming

Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan - My thanks to Avon and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book and give my unbiased opinion of it in the following review.

This was a truly unique book about a woman who was an up-and-coming actress who, after an unfortunate accident, becomes a narrator of audiobooks. The author who is also an audiobook narrator gave some fun looks into the behind the scenes of making audiobooks that I thought were interesting and entertaining. The main character, Sewanee, takes on a project with a male narrator. No one knows his true identity, but he is considered the rock star of audiobooks. The two of them bond through correspondence regarding the project and become very close. I loved the sections where they are getting to know each other through messages. While this sounds like a light and fluffy romance, it is definitely not all sunshine and flowers. Both characters have a lot of issues to work through. At times I was just wanting to get to the romance when the story had taken a more serious tone, but when it was all wrapped up I was truly satisfied with how everything was resolved.

I know of Julia Whelan mostly from her brilliant audiobook narrations, and this is the first book of hers that I've read. I enjoyed it and learned a bit about what narrating books is like. It's a fun story and I like the characters of Swan and Nick.

📚Review📚
"Feelings aren't constant, they're transient. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. You can believe in them, but you can't know them. How can you know what something is before it becomes it? It's like....". "Like a caterpillar and a butterfly". (From the book)
An audiobook narrator is in search of a new road and agrees to a romance novel though she doesn't believe in them. What Sewanee finds in the process is the story of the book. Can't reveal too much since anything else is a spoiler.
This book is an utter delight. It is funny, charming, cute and at the same time filled with emotions. And it is a bit steamy as well.
Liked: The humor in this book. The characters other than one were really amazing. This book does not take itself seriously but at the same time it is serious in how the characters are portrayed.
Did not like: Nothing honestly. I did not want the book to end.
4.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you NetGalley , Avon and Harper Voyager for the ARC of this book.