Syncing Audible & ebooks

I tried something new this week. I bought The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell on Audible and linked it to an ebook.

I love listening to books in the car while running errands, but dislike switching to a different story to read when I return home. It usually takes me a few minutes to reorient myself with the characters and plot. Then, I have to do it again when I get back in the car.

It’s tough for me to justify paying full price for the same story on Audible and an ebook for the simple sake of convenience. I love libraries, but there’s a lot of competition in my county for bestsellers. One time, I placed a book on hold and discovered I was number 435 on the wait list. It took four months for me to receive that book.

A few weeks ago, after I purchased the Audible book, a pop-up box appeared, offering the ebook for $1.99. Why not, I thought. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have lost only two bucks.

I downloaded the book on both my cell phone and my iPad. Easy peasy. Through Amazon’s high-tech magic, the book synced. I started out listening on my cell phone in the car. The narrator had a gorgeous English accent. That first day, I looped around the grocery store parking lot a few extra times so I could finish the chapter.

That evening, I curled up in my favorite chair with my iPad and pulled up the story. Voila! It started with the very next chapter. And so it went, back and forth, between my car and the recliner. No hiccups. No issues. I’m hooked. And I highly recommend you try it.

By the way, The Girls in the Garden is a nail biter of a crossover novel for older teens and their parents. A single mom and her two daughters are forced to move from their forever home after a tragic accident. They land in a community that encircles a park. Visiting the park in the evenings and on weekends helps the shell-shocked family adjust to their new life. After all, everybody knows everybody, and most everybody is super friendly. Then, one sister finds the other dead. Who could have done this in their new perfect community? I thought I’d figured it out, but Lisa Jewell inserted a nice little twist at the end.

Have you ever tried syncing Audible with an ebook? How did you like it?