Best Susan Cooper Audiobooks
Susan Cooper is one of children's fantasy's most haunting voices — a writer who braids Arthurian legend and Celtic myth into the ordinary English landscape until the two feel inseparable. The Dark Is Rising sequence, from Over Sea, Under Stone through Silver on the Tree, builds a sense of ancient dread and luminous wonder that few writers have matched. Cooper's prose is lyrical but never soft — it carries genuine menace, the kind that makes the Light's struggle against the Dark feel cosmically weighted rather than merely adventurous. She has a rare gift for atmosphere: fog, midwinter cold, and the silence of old places feel like active presences in her pages. Later work like King of Shadows and Ghost Hawk shows her range beyond the sequence. Readers who want myth that earns its mystery, not just borrows its iconography, will find Cooper essential.
Where to Start with Susan Cooper
- Best entry point → Ghost Hawk
- Best standalone → King of Shadows
- What fans keep coming back to → The Dark Is Rising
- Best narrator for Susan Cooper → Silver on the Tree
- Highest rated by listeners → Greenwitch (The Dark Is Rising #3)
Best Susan Cooper Audiobooks
- 1
Silver on the Tree
The Dark Is Rising • Book 5
by Susan Cooper
Narrated by Alex Jennings
★ 4.19 ABR Score (36.9K ratings)★ 4.11 Goodreads (36.3K) ★ 4.65 Audible (587)More about this pick
Five books of prophecy and myth converge in this epic finale, where Alex Jennings' narration carries the scope and emotional weight of Cooper's grandest achievement.
- 2
Greenwitch
The Dark Is Rising • Book 3
by Susan Cooper, Unknown Author
Narrated by Alex Jennings
★ 4.14 ABR Score (33.0K ratings)★ 4 Goodreads (32.3K) ★ 4.63 Audible (716)More about this pick
Alex Jennings animates this mythology ensemble so vividly that you forget you're listening: The Dark Is Rising's finest and most assured entry in the series.
- 3
The Dark Is Rising
The Dark Is Rising • Book 2
by Susan Cooper
Narrated by Alex Jennings
★ 4.13 ABR Score (62.5K ratings)★ 4.04 Goodreads (61.2K) ★ 4.54 Audible (1.3K) - 4
Ghost Hawk
by Susan Cooper
Narrated by Jim Dale
★ 3.80 ABR Score (2.6K ratings)★ 3.78 Goodreads (2.5K) ★ 4.37 Audible (145)More about this pick
Jim Dale's narration transforms this divided story into something seamless—his voice work across two cultures and timelines creates genuine tension where the audiobook format makes the stakes feel immediate and inescapable.
- 5
King of Shadows
by Susan Cooper
Narrated by Jim Dale
★ 3.75 ABR Score (3.8K ratings)★ 3.69 Goodreads (3.8K) ★ 4.18 Audible (68)More about this pick
Young Nat Field escapes his tragic past through theater, but when he joins a Globe theater production, Jim Dale guides listeners through his mysterious transport to Shakespeare's actual time.