The Once and Future Queen (La Vie de Guinevere)

PLEASE NOTE: This project was originally titled La Vie de Guinevere, released 10/29/2024.

Same audiobook, new name!

Recipient of a Kirkus starred review

(Run Time: 16:12)

After the sudden death of her boyfriend, Vera would have been happy to spend the rest of her days curiously unnoticeable, washing bed sheets and cleaning toilets in present day Glastonbury. But when the strange new guest at her hotel reveals himself to be Merlin and drags her back to seventh century Camelot, a place she knows only from legends, only Vera (or Queen Guinevere as Merlin calls her) can right the course of history and save Arthur’s kingdom from the will of a power-hungry mage. There’s one enormous problem: Guinevere was the sole witness to the curse that’s now draining the kingdom of its magic, and Vera doesn’t remember anything of her supposed life as Queen Guinevere.

With Camelot’s peace ebbing ever closer to shattering, the clock is ticking. But working with Merlin’s magic to retrieve her long-lost memories and save the kingdom brings more questions than answers: why is it that King Arthur, who treats his subjects with loving benevolence, can’t even stand to look at her? And why does that make Vera’s soul feel like it’s splitting in two? What robbed her of her memories in the first place...
And most importantly... Why?

As Vera is about to discover; in a world of legend and power, the secrets of her memories are only the beginning.

Included with your Audiobrary purchase:

• An interview between Julia and the author about how this story originated, what it took to start writing it (finally!), and its inventive path to publication. (Run Time: 0:55)
• Original illustrations accessible directly in the app.

Paula Lafferty (Author) lives in the Kansas City area with her husband, daughter, and Otto (the sweetest dog there ever was). She received a BFA in Film Production from Chapman University and a Master of Divinity from Saint Paul School of Theology. She has a taste for finding magic in "the ordinary" and a spark for discovering stories at every turn. Telling stories is the thread that runs through Paula's life, and La Vie de Guinevere is her debut novel which she originally funded through a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign.

Julia Whelan (Narrator) is an author, screenwriter, lifelong actor, and acclaimed audiobook narrator of over 700 titles.

She is, most recently, the recipient of Spotify's Narrator of the Year Award (the most listened-to narrator globally), the first-ever Gracie Award for Best Fiction Narrator (presented by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation), the SOVAS (Society of Voice Arts and Sciences) Lifetime Achievement Award, and winner of the Audie Award for Best Fiction Narrator of 2025. She also captured both the winner and runner-up slots in the inaugural audiobook category of the Goodreads Choice Awards.

Her latest books — the Audie nominated duet romance, Casanova LLC (coming in print, Spring 2027), and the annotated Victorian poetry anthology The Poetry Of My Oxford Year — debuted exclusively on Audiobrary. jmwhelan.com