Julia Whelan

Active: 2011–present

Julia Whelan is an American audiobook narrator and novelist widely regarded as one of the finest voices working in the format today. A former child actress, Whelan transitioned to audiobook narration in the early 2010s and has since recorded well over 600 titles, earning multiple Audie Awards and being named one of Audible's best narrators of all time by numerous industry outlets. She is closely associated with Kristin Hannah's historical fiction and Emily Henry's contemporary romances, pairings so consistent that many readers now associate her voice directly with those authors. Whelan is also a published novelist herself, which she has said gives her a writer's instinct for pacing and structure that informs her narration choices. Her performance of Tara Westover's memoir Educated won the Audie Award for Best Female Narrator in 2019 and is frequently cited as one of the benchmark narrations in the genre.

Awards: Multiple Audie Awards including Best Female Narrator (2019); AudioFile Golden Voice; Audible Narrator Hall of Fame

Notable narrations: Educated; The Four Winds; Beach Read; Great Big Beautiful Life; The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo