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Audiobook details
Two rules. One locked door. An entire summer to break both.
Calisa has her Brooklyn summer planned down to the last detail, until she catches her boyfriend Ethan cheating and the whole thing falls apart in a single afternoon. Her mothers suggest Vermont. Specifically, Auntie Zee's bed and breakfast somewhere in the hills, where the work is physical, the guests are quiet, and the distance from the city might do her some good. Calisa agrees, mostly because she has nowhere better to be.
What she finds when she arrives is not the cozy retreat she was expecting. The inn is worn down, Auntie Zee runs it with the stubbornness of someone guarding a secret, and the handful of guests staying there behave in ways that do not quite add up. Calisa throws herself into fixing the place anyway, scrubbing and painting and planting alongside the groundskeeper's son, who seems to know more than he says. The inn begins to look like itself again. So does Calisa.
Then Auntie Zee lays down two rules: no opening doors, no asking questions. Calisa follows them until her great-aunt goes missing. What she finds when she starts looking is not frightening so much as world-altering. The inn has been keeping a secret for a very long time, and once Calisa steps through that door, there is no reasonable way to step back.
I went in expecting something light. The Faraway Inn is light, but it is not simple. Sarah Beth Durst builds her cozy fantasy the way a good inn is supposed to work: everything is comfortable on the surface, and only later do you realize how much effort went into making it feel that way.
Calisa is a character who earns her progress. She arrives in Vermont carrying the specific sting of a heartbreak she did not see coming, and Durst does not rush the healing. Calisa scrubs floors, repaints shutters, hauls things, and figures herself out through the work. That part of the book is grounded and unhurried, and it makes the fantasy elements land harder when they arrive because you have already believed in the physical place.
The inn itself is the best character in the book. Its geography becomes important, each room carrying a different weight, and the rule about doors is the kind of detail that sounds simple until you understand why it exists. Durst does not explain everything at once. She lets the mystery accumulate at a pace that feels natural rather than withheld, which is a harder balance to strike than it looks.
The romance subplot with the groundskeeper's son sits exactly where it should: present enough to matter, restrained enough not to crowd everything else. Their dynamic has real friction, the kind that comes from two people who are not sure whether to trust what they are feeling. It works because both characters have things going on beyond their interest in each other.
Soneela Nankani's narration is a strong match for this material. Her voice carries Calisa's frustration and curiosity without overselling either, and she handles the shifts between the inn's warm domestic scenes and its stranger, quieter moments without losing the thread. The ten hours pass without resistance. That is usually the sign of a narrator who understands what kind of story they are in.
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The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst is a YA cozy fantasy narrated by Soneela Nankani, published by Listening Library on March 31, 2026, and running 10 hours. Sixteen-year-old Calisa escapes a Brooklyn heartbreak to spend the summer at her great-aunt Zee's rundown bed and breakfast in rural Vermont, where she quickly discovers that the inn is keeping a secret far stranger than a leaking roof.
Soneela Nankani brings Calisa's voice to life across the full free trial. Her narration keeps the warmth of the story intact while letting its quieter mysteries breathe. Start listening for free, cancel anytime before the trial ends, and you will not be charged.
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US-based editor & staff writer focused on audiobooks. Honest reviews, curated “best of” lists, and practical guides with an accessibility lens.
