Clara Hayes

Clara Hayes

Clara Hayes is the founder and lead reviewer at Audio Book Spot. A lifelong listener, she has worked her way through thousands of hours of audio across every genre — epic fantasy, literary fiction, romance, thrillers, and memoir. Clara reviews with the listening experience front and center: narrator performance, pacing, production, and whether a title truly rewards the hours it asks of you. Her goal is simple — to help you spend your listening time on audiobooks you'll actually love.

Catching Fire Audiobook

You know the exact feeling I mean. I’ve spent real hours with the Catching Fire audiobook, so here is the verdict. You reached the last page of The Hunger Games, heard that final line settle into silence, and realized you…

The Hunger Games Audiobook

Few books have burned themselves into the last two decades of pop culture the way The Hunger Games has. Here’s what the Hunger Games audiobook is really like. It launched a thousand imitators, minted a blockbuster film franchise, and turned…

The Wall of Winnipeg and Me Audiobook

Mariana Zapata has an unofficial crown, and readers hand it to her again and again: she is the undisputed queen of the slow burn. Here’s my honest, spoiler-free take on the Wall of Winnipeg and Me audiobook. Where other romance…

Meet Me at the Lake Audiobook

For a solid year I had Meet Me at the Lake filed in my head under “breezy summer fling” — the sort of sun-and-sunscreen romance I could enjoy on a dock and forget by September. Let me walk you through…

The Hating Game Audiobook

Two desks shoved nose to nose, and a staring contest neither combatant will admit is happening. Settle in for my take on the Hating Game audiobook. Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman sit locked across from each other, timing each other’s…

Part of Your World Audiobook

Ten hours and five minutes. Here’s my honest, spoiler-free take on the Part of Your World audiobook. That is exactly how long Julia Whelan and Zachary Webber keep you stranded in the tiny town of Wakan, Minnesota, and by the…

The Deal Audiobook

The “fake-tutoring-to-real-feelings” hook is the exact college sports romance trope that The Deal nails, and Elle Kennedy plays it with more heart than I expected going in. A few spoiler-free thoughts on the Deal audiobook, then. Hannah Wells needs an…

Icebreaker Audiobook

The Maple Hills rink smells like cold rubber and burnt concession-stand coffee, and at six in the morning the ice belongs to exactly one person. Consider this your spoiler-free guide to the Icebreaker audiobook. Anastasia Allen has it booked, her…

The Unhoneymooners Audiobook

Verdict up front: this is the rom-com I hand to people who insist they hate rom-coms, and it wins almost every time. The Unhoneymooners is a little over nine hours of two stubborn, over-caffeinated adults getting shoved onto a free…

Love and Other Words Audiobook

Behind a door in the Healdsburg vacation house, wedged into a converted closet lined floor to ceiling with paperbacks, an eleven-year-old Elliot lifts a heavy book off the shelf and hands it across to Macy without a word, and she…