The Listseners by Maggie Stiefvater Narrator: Erin Bennett
Published by Penguin Audio on June 3, 2025
Genres: Fantasy
Length: 11 hours, 35 minutes
Format: Audiobook
Source: Purchased
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JANUARY 1942. THE AVALLON HOTEL AND SPA offers elegance and sophistication in an increasingly ugly world. Run with precision by June Hudson, the hotel’s West Virginia born-and-bred general manager, the Avallon is where high society goes to see and be seen, and where the mountain sweetwater in the fountains and spas can wash away all your troubles.
June was trained by the Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, and she has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. Now, though, the Gilfoyle family heir has made a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats. June must convince her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the frontlines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.
She also must reckon with Tucker Minnick, the FBI agent whose coal tattoo hints at their shared past in the mountains, and whose search for the diplomats’ secrets disrupts the peace June is fighting so hard to maintain. Hers is a balancing act with dangerous consequences; the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal, and only June can manage the springs.
Maggie Stiefvater has been one of my go to authors for great stories since I first listened to The Scorpio Races over a decade ago. She was one of the few YA writers I stuck with after moving on from most YA. The Listeners is her first shot at an adult novel and while much different than her prior writings it was interesting, engaging and I flew through it in just a day and an half.
I didn’t look to see what this book was about before I pre-ordered it, so I went in completely surprised by the premise. At the beginning of WWII, when people weren’t sure what to call it and hoped it would be over in a few months, the state department needed a place to house all the foreign Axis dignitaries left in the United States. They picked one of the grandest hotels to host the contingency filled with Japanese, German, Italians and others as hostage negotiations went on to exchange them for American’s in Europe. The Avalon has catered to the wealthy for decades, but this new clientele is outside their normal skillset and the energy they bring to this posh Spa may sour it forever.
What is luxury? In a drought, it was a glass of water; in a flood it was a dry place to stand. Whatever made the Avalon luxurious a year ago would not be what made it luxurious now.
I’m really glad I didn’t know what this would be about. I don’t read many books set in WWII and might not have given it a fair shot. While that is the backdrop of the story, the main plot is this fantastic Hotel that has magical waters that run through it. They are part of what make the hotel special, but there is a price to be paid for the care and maintenance of the water. June has been the general manager of the hotel for years and has tended to the waters, staff and hotel through many circumstances, including the great depression. She has never been through a trial like the one she is about to encounter, keeping the hotel’s waters calm and happy in light of all of the chaos around them.
I enjoyed the story Maggie decided to write. While there are the atrocities of the war happening on the periphery, the main body of the story notices them, but they do not take over the story. Much like how A League of Their Own is a fantastic story set in a time of war and there are moments that happened only because of the war but that isn’t what the story was about. June carries the story with her love of her hotel, now overrun with people who have become the enemy. It is about how she helps her staff with precision and figures out that the man she might have been waiting for all of her life could be one who just showed up in her life and has a history with the waters himself.
There were so many great details thrown in throughout this book that seemed real. While the ending didn’t really give me the epilogue I was hoping for, it did let my imagination take over as to what happening to all the characters I grew to love and the hotel that housed them all. At the end of this story I wanted to visit the hotel, taste the sweetwater and go on a snail hunt. If I’m ever in West Virginia, I might just do that.
The say youth is wasted on the young. What do we hate the foolishness that made us unfoolish?
Narration:
Performance: ★★★★★
Character Separation: ★★★★★
Diction: ★★★★★
Pacing/Flow: ★★★★★
Sound Effects: None
Erin Bennett shouldn’t be a new to me narrator with over five hundred titles, but I couldn’t find anything I’d listened to her narrate. She is seasoned and it shows in the cadence of the voices that fit the historical age of the book to the use of various accents for the different unwilling guests at the hotel. Her narration of June is so fitting and made her feel like a real person.
Listen to a clip: HERE
About Maggie Stiefvater
All of Maggie Stiefvater’s life decisions have been based around her inability to be gainfully employed. Talking to yourself, staring into space, and coming to work in your pajamas are frowned upon when you’re a waitress, calligraphy instructor, or technical editor (all of which she’s tried), but are highly prized traits in novelists and artists. She’s made her living as one or the other since she was 22. She now lives an eccentric life in the middle of nowhere, Virginia with her charmingly straight-laced husband, two kids, two neurotic dogs, and a 1973 Camaro named Loki.
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This sounds really good! I wasn’t going to read it but now I might. Thanks for your review😁
I’m so glad I never looked to see what it was going to be about, because I probably would have passed on it.
I’ve only read her Shiver series, but I loved them and I had a good read with her The Listeners, too. Great review, Robin!
I enjoyed the Shiver series. The Raven Cycle series is so special to me. Glad to see her transition to adult novels still held some of the same kind of magic.
This has been on my TBR for a while now… sounds good.
I autobought it forever ago and never read the blurb for it. So on my tbr forever it seems.
She’s one of my favorite authors, but I don’t know if this one is for me. I did have to buy it though, in the hopes that I might get one of the copies she drew a dachshund on. Glad to hear it was good, and maybe I’ll make sure to give it a try!
Haha…nice. I didn’t know she did that but not surprised.
It wouldn’t be a normal read for me if it was any other author. But since it is Maggie I needed to give it a go. Hope you find time for it as well.
Haha…nice. I didn’t know she did that but not surprised.
It wouldn’t be a normal read for me if it was any other author. But since it is Maggie I needed to give it a go. Hope you find time for it as well.
Huh. I’m curious! Interesting find!
I enjoyed all of her YA books. It is strange to see her go to adult novels instead but a really solid read for me.