British Audio Awards Shortlist Announced

18 September 2025

The shortlists for the inaugural British Audio Awards (also known as ‘The Speakies’) have been announced and we’re pleased to see several Ulverscroft available titles make the list. More information on the shortlisted titles is below.

Fiction
Precipice by Robert Harris
Available in CD, MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook.
In London, 26-year-old Venetia Stanley - aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless - is having a love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state. As Asquith reluctantly leads the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer is assigned to investigate a leak of top-secret documents - and suddenly what was a sexual intrigue becomes a matter of national security that will alter the course of political history.

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Available in CD and MP3 CD audiobook.
The definitive production of Northern Lights, narrated by Ruth Wilson, star of the major BBC series His Dark Materials.
"Without this child, we shall all die."
Lyra Belacqua and her animal daemon live half-wild and carefree among scholars of Jordan College, Oxford.
The destiny that awaits her will take her to the frozen lands of the Arctic, where witch-clans reign and ice-bears fight.
Her extraordinary journey will have immeasurable consequences far beyond her own world?
First published in 1995, and acclaimed as a modern masterpiece, this first book in the series won the UK's top awards for children's literature, including the Carnegie Medal.
Ruth Wilson is an award-winning actress, best known for her roles in His Dark Materials, Luther, Mrs Wilson and The Affair. She won universal acclaim, and the BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Mrs Coulter in the BBC adaptation of His Dark Materials.

Crime & Thriller
Lovers Of Franz. K by Burhan Sonmez
Available in CD, MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook.
While the youth uprising sweeps across Europe, a debate about Franz Kafka appears in student magazines, arguing that publishing the texts Kafka left behind against his will is unfaithful to his legacy. When Kafka's best friend, Brod, is injured in an attempted assassination, assailant Ferdy Kaplan is captured and questioned by Commissioner Muller at the West Berlin police station. As his interrogation progresses, Kaplan's background is revealed piece by piece, from the love story between him and his childhood friend Amalya, to their shared passion for Kafka, which leads them to join a radical group. But when a shocking discovery is made about the person who ultimately set Brod's attempted murder in motion, Kaplan and Muller agree to work together to expose the truth.

Panic by LJ Ross
Available in CD and MP3 CD audiobook.
A killer without a conscience...
After the success of their first case as a newly-formed Profiling Unit, Doctor Alexander Gregory and his eminent friend and mentor, Professor Bill Douglas, draw the attention of senior officials at Europol, who are battling a unique kind of foe.
The threat is simple: unless a multi-national supermarket chain pays a hefty ransom, poisoned food and drink will find its way onto the shelves in one of their stores. Nobody wants to play Russian roulette when lives are at stake but, as demands escalate and police seem no closer to finding the terrorist, fear spreads like wildfire in the hallways of poweras well as in the supermarket aisles.
When the first victim dies, panic reaches fever pitch across Europe and pressure mounts for the two English profilers to prove themselves, before its too late...
Murder and mystery are peppered with dark humour in this fast-paced thriller set amidst the spectacular landscape of Northern Europe.

Science Fiction & Fantasy
Count Zero by William Gibson
Available in CD and MP3 CD audiobook.
They set a Slamhound on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the colour of his hair.
When the Maas Biolabs and Hosaka zaibatsus fight it out for world domination, computer cowboys like Turner and Count Zero are just foot soldiers in the great game: useful but ultimately expendable.
When Turner wakes up in Mexico - in a new body with a beautiful woman beside him - his corporate masters let him recuperate for a while, then reactivate his memory for a mission even more dangerous than the one that nearly killed him: the head designer from Maas Biolabs says he wants to defect to Hosaka, and it's Turner's job to deliver him safely.
Count Zero is a rustbelt data-hustler totally unprepared for what comes his way when the designer's defection triggers war in cyberspace. With voodoo gods in the Net and angels in the software, he can only hope that the megacorps and the super-rich have their virtual hands too full to notice the amateur hacker with the black market kit trying desperately to stay alive…

Non-Fiction
The History Gossip by Katie Kennedy
Available in CD and MP3 CD audiobook.
TikTok sensation Katie Kennedy, aka @TheHistoryGossip, serves up a delicious blend of fascinating, witty and salacious history tea for every day of the year.
With infectious wit and historical insight, The History Gossip brings you the mad, bad and dangerous tales from around the world. With entries for every day of the year, this is history - but not as you know it.
Equal parts fascinating and funny, Katie's unique brand of humour takes readers on a romp through the history books and answers burning questions such as 'Was Anne of Cleves a minger', 'Did Mary Shelley lose her V-card on her mother's grave' and 'Did George IV eat himself to death' and more.
What better way to start your day than find out what other people have done before? The History Gossip reveals the funny, strange and utterly juicy tidbits throughout world history, each with a modern twist of pop culture references and contemporary slang.

Memoir
The Lives Of Lee Miller by Antony Penrose
Available in CD and MP3 CD audiobook.
Lee Miller, 1927 - New York: A classically beautiful young woman, she is discovered by Conde Nast, hits the cover of Vogue and is immortalized by Steichen, Hoyningen-Huene, Horst and other famous photographers.

Lee Miller, 1929 - Paris: Protege and lover of Man Ray, she invents with him the solarization technique of photography, develops into a brilliant Surrealist photographer, and plays the statue in Cocteau's film Blood of a Poet.

Lee Miller, 1939-45 - Europe: Living at times with her future husband, the painter Roland Penrose, she becomes a US war correspondent and covers the siege of St Malo and the liberation of Paris. Her photographs of Dachau concentration camp shock the world.

These are but three of the many lives of Lee Miller, intimately recorded here by her son, Antony Penrose. Featuring a selection of her finest work, including portraits of her friends Picasso, Ernst and Miro, Penroses tribute to his mother brings to life a uniquely talented woman and the turbulent times in which she lived.

Children
Loki: A Bad God’s Guide To Making Enemies by Louie Stowell
Available in CD and MP3 CD audiobook.

Loki's fourth doodle-packed diary in the number one best-selling series.

Loki has made a fair few enemies during his time in Asgard. Too many to count and certainly too many to remember. When the elf, Vinir beams Loki aboard his chariot and challenges him to a magical duel, Loki hasn't got a clue why.

Sweet talking his way out of a fight by pointing out there's little honor in dueling someone who can't remember how they wronged you, and even less in picking on a child, Loki is returned safely to school.

That is until Vinir shows up in child form, as resolute as ever about seeking that duel... and vengeance...