It’s a fantasy romance and a historical romance. And as far as narrators go, Vikas Adams shines, tackling the fiery Bethesda and the eternally chill Julius with equal aplomb. Rachel Aaron’s delightful urban fantasy never takes itself too seriously, interweaving threads of dystopian fantasy and science fiction into her dragon-centered plot. He’s got one month to prove himself worthy of his true draconian shape - or make peace with living the rest of his life sans scales. So she traps him in human form and sends him to fend for himself in the Detroit Free Zone, a rough-and-tumble metropolis in magical Michigan. The imposing Heartstriker matriarch - a real tiger mom, if you can call a dragon that - wants her youngest son to toughen up and stop being such a nice dragon. But to his mother, Bethesda, this wallflower-ish attitude is less life-hack, more character flaw. His solution is to lay low, keeping well of his predatorial cousins’ ways.

As the runt of the powerful Heartstriker Clan, Julius tends to get picked on by his more menacing relatives. We (marginally) prefer Jim Dale’s version ourselves, but if you’d like to try both out, here’s Steven Fry’s audiobook. That said, there are two definitive narrations of Harry Potter and it’s a bit of an ongoing debate over who offers the better one: Jim Dale or Steven Fry. The Harry Potter audiobooks serve up their own feast of the imagination, re-building the wonder with which you first read the books and re-immersing you into the phenomenon that is the wizarding world.

As wild as that is, that’s not the only revelation lying in store for Harry when he learns by owl post that he’s a wizard - and is about to be whisked off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for seven years’ worth of adventure, intrigue, danger, and lasting friendships.

Harry Potter is an ordinary boy of 11, except for one tiny detail: he defeated the Dark Lord of the wizarding world when he was only a baby. Any fantastical list would be incomplete without the perennial favorite of adults and children alike: Harry Potter! You’re probably already familiar with this magical delight of a franchise, but let’s go through a quick rundown of the series, for old time’s sake.

Sci fi romance audiobooks