It’s no secret that Neil Gaiman is my favourite author, and I usually love him narrating his own work. Over the past month or so, I’ve gotten to experience The Graveyard Book as read by my all-time favourite narrator – my wonderful partner Jacob.

One of our long-distance date night traditions is us reading something together – which usually means I lay in bed with an unopened copy of the book on my bedside table, and he reads to me. The greatest joy of this particular novel was getting to share the final few chapters in person, curled up on my couch, and not separated by thousands of kilometres.

The book itself? Wonderful. One of my favourites of Neil’s (aren’t they all though?) There’s such depth and complexity to this tale of Nobody Owens, orphaned as a toddler at the hands of a mysterious murderer who would have slaughtered Bod too if he wasn’t adopted by ghosts and granted the freedom of the graveyard. A funny, smart, thoughtful and tear-filled story of life in the midst of death. Bonus review content: Jacob’s potential “serious voice actor” headshot. His work is great, but usually performed to an exclusive audience of 1. I’d recommend booking him for your next narration project but I plan on keeping him pretty busy – we have more Gaiman to get through.