A few weeks ago, Drew and I finished narrating the audiobook 125 Ways to Meet the Love of Your Life by Dr. Jan Yager. If I were single and hoping the meet the right person, I would buy this audiobook in heartbeat!
Once we finished the production, we were inspired to create a 2:28 video to describe how we met in the style of the interviews from the popular movie When Harry Met Sally. Enjoy!
As we count down to a new year, I wanted to take a moment to update you on some of my activities this year. Much of this article originally appeared in my profile earlier this week on the Eargasms Audiobook Review site. I appreciated the great questions from audiobook listeners and encourage you to read them.
During 2015, I’ve drastically increased my efforts to help authors and publishers with a backlist understand the audiobook production process and get more of their titles into audio! I wrote a number of articles and created some videos, which I will detail in a moment.
Rest assured, my writing and video production activities are mere extensions of my greatest passion, which is audiobook narration! I’m delighted to announce I released 8 new audiobooks in 2015!
My first release of 2015 was BLY VS BISLAND: BEATING PHILEAS FOGG IN A RACE AROUND THE WORLD, which the talented Melissa Reizian Frank narrated with me. It was a very special narration project, and the story behind the story still gives me chills!
In addition, I performed:
You can hear samples of my 2015 releases in this Soundcloud playlist:
Every now and again, we get a Divine whisper of an inspired idea. Such was the case about a very special and exciting audiobook I created and produced earlier this year.
In 1889, Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland were female reporters in New York. Each went on a daring solo trip around the world at the same time. Nellie wanted to beat the time of Phileas Fogg, Jules Verne’s fictional character in Around The World in 80 Days. Rival reporter Elizabeth Bisland left on a solo race around the world hoping to beat Nellie’s time!
Nellie sailed east to England in the morning. That night, and unbeknownst to Nellie, Elizabeth took a train west to San Francisco. In Bly vs Bisland: Beating Phileas Fogg In A Race Around The World, I combined the narratives from both women into a single book with 1 timeline! Who will win the race?!
My journal entries tell Part 1 of the story behind the story between idea and implementation.
[Read more…] about Bly vs Bisland: The Story Behind the Story (Part 1)
What would you do if you received a $20 bill on which someone had written “For a good time, call Kit” and a phone number?
Sherry Spencer decides that she’ll call Kit and let her know that her phone number was being circulated along with the currency. Any woman would want to know that, right?
Only…to Sherry’s shock, Kit isn’t a woman, but a man. And he’s not exactly thrilled to hear her news or anxious to retrieve the bill from her.
The next day, she’s not exactly thrilled to see Kit again. I won’t say how or where they re-establish their acquaintance because I don’t want to give too much away!
For A Good Time, Call by Trish Jensen is a sweet romance that runs 5 hours and 38 minutes. It read like all of my favorite RomCom movies and left me smiling at the perfect HEA ending! I hope you’ll enjoy it, too!
Here’s a different scenario: What would you do if you were the last person left on Earth following a nuclear war?
For 19-year-old Lita Day, the choice is simple: continue singing to the TV camera every night in the empty Copa.
Her husband Bill had said a man might hear her and would come to her. However, Lita was shocked by the visitors who actually showed up.
Eddie For Short is a 41-minute short story by prolific American science fiction writer Wallace West that is sure to give you something to think about!
In October, I released a couple of cozy mysteries. The first was Return To Fender by Virginia Brown.
This fun book is the 4th in the Blue Suede Memphis Mysteries and is set in the week or so approaching Halloween. In fact, one of the biggest scenes in the book occurs at a Halloween party.
One of the leading drag queens in Memphis asks our heroine Harley Davidson (yep, that’s her name!) to find out who is trying to kill him. Harley isn’t a detective. She’s a tour guide at Memphis Tour Tyme.
Her friend and co-worker Thomas “Tootsie” Rowell is adept with computers and helps her get information. Her former boyfriend Bobby and current boyfriend Mike — both police officers — try in vain to convince her that she should leave the investigations to them.
Whoever it is thinks Harley is getting a little to close to the action and tells her to back off — or else.
As with the first 3 books in this series, Drew Commins, the hero of my life story, voices all of the male parts in this book, which runs 9 hours and 44 minutes.
Next came Yip/Tuck , book #4 in the Pampered Pets fun, cozy mystery series written by Sparkle Abbey. Each book in this series alternates between the POVs of 2 cousins, pet therapist Carolina LaMont and pet boutique owner Melinda Langston. This time, it’s Mel’s turn to tell the story.
She and her best friend Darby find Dr. Jack O’Doggle, one of Laguna’s best known plastic surgeons, dead outside of her Bow Wow Boutique. In trying to unravel the mystery of his bizarre death and find his killer, they learn most interesting secrets about several people in town.
Meanwhile, in a sub-plot, Mel and Caro are fighting over a brooch left by their grandmother to her “favorite granddaughter”. Naturally, each thinks she is the granddaughter in question, so they keep stealing the brooch from each other. We’re in on the fun as Mel plots and schemes about getting the brooch back in her possession!
The story has a lot of charm and humor. I especially enjoyed narrating Betty Foxx’s lines because Betty White seems to have been the model for this character.
Yip/Tuck is set at Christmastime and runs 5 hours 15 minutes, making this a perfect companion on holiday trips to see friends and family!
December saw 2 releases: one of mine, and one for my husband Drew, which I directed.
Dead In Boca by Miriam Auerbach is audiobook #3 in the Dirty Harriet cozy mysteries.
In Boca Raton, Florida, Junior Castellano, a big-time land developer, hires PI Harriet Horowitz to find the silver-haired gigolo who broke Mama Castellano’s heart.
Simple enough, until the Boca police find Junior bulldozed at one of his construction sites. Was Junior killed by his mother’s con man? Or by a bitter ex-wife or spurned ex-girlfriend? Maybe by his estranged sons got the old man out of the picture for good.
The book has lots of laughs during its 6 hours and 49 minutes. I particularly enjoyed Harriet’s HELP test — the Horowitz Ersatz Lovers Profile — in which Harriet asked funny questions to determine whether Junior’s mama, Miss Lil, was getting scammed.
After the success of Plague, a story about a terrorist unleashing the Ebola virus in Atlanta, Drew was excited to narrate H. W. “Buzz” Bernard’s latest suspenseful offering.
In this stand-alone story, Chuck Rittenburg is a washed-up, former tornado chaser/tour guide. A film director offers him $1 million to find the biggest, baddest F5 tornado within a 2-week window. Chuck hopes to not only find the tornado, but to regain the respect of his estranged son Tyler, who decides to help Chuck in this venture.
At the same time, an FBI agent wants to tag along on the quest. She isn’t tracking storms. Instead, she’s chasing the criminals who follow them and pretend to be emergency workers. The only help these so-called EMTs offer is to help themselves to the victims’ valuable possessions.
Bernard is a former weather forecaster, and he sprinkles his immense knowledge of and love for weather phenomena in unique metaphors throughout the book. His writing style really adds to the drama.
This is a great listen on a trip (especially in sunny weather!) as it runs 9 hours and 45 minutes.
Dirty Harriet Rides Again is book 2 in Miriam Auerbach’s Dirty Harriet mysteries. Once again, Harriet Horowitz has to kick some serious butt in Boca Raton….after consultation with her friendly local alligator Lana, of course! 🙂
It’s not the first time that Harriet has been at a wedding when a murder occurs. The first time was when she shot her abusive ex-husband. (Well, he did deserve it.)
This time, she is attending the wedding of her gay friends Chuck and Enrique. I won’t tell you who gets killed, and I certainly won’t tell you how Harriet figures out the killer! I will say, though, that the zingers in the book are hysterical, and the singers in the Holy Rollers Motorcycle Club and Gospel Choir provide more than just a little entertainment!
This cozy mystery audiobook runs 5 hours and 36 minutes. It’s a fun listen, especially while poolside or at the beach.
By the way, I was thrilled to learn that author Miriam Auerbach is a finalist in the Best Novel: Cozy/ Traditional category for the 2014 Silver Falchion award! I loved narrating the audiobook of her nominated book DIRTY HARRIET. Congrats to Miriam and Bell Bridge Books on this honor!
The next new release really means a lot to me because I published it!
For the first time on Audible on iTunes, I’m proud to present the UNABRIDGED edition of the classic text FANNY HERSELF by renowned American author Edna Ferber.
Due to Amazon/Audible/ACX publishing rules, my audiobook has a different title: Fanny Herself: A Passionate Instinct.
This wonderful, coming-of-age story follows Fanny Brandeis from her childhood in Winnebago, WI into her 20s as a businesswoman in Chicago. Even though the book was written in 1917, many of the themes are still relevant.
Fanny’s mother, a widow, makes a decision about her children’s education that affects all of them throughout their lives. Like many of us, Fanny has to decide how whether she will pursue wealth or her creative dreams. We also wonder whether Fanny will find love.
I have recently discovered Edna Ferber and find that she is a brilliant storyteller. Ferber won the Pulitzer Prize for Novel in 1925 and may be best known for her book Show Boat, which was adapted into a successful and long-running musical.
Rather than relying on dialogue to progress the story, she offers such vivid descriptions that we feel we are right there with the characters, experiencing the world as they did. Her female characters are strong and assertive, and I could identify with both Fanny and her mother. I was sorry when the story ended!
The book runs 12 hours and 44 minutes, perfect listening for those long drives to and from the beach or rainy weekends.
Ferber originally published this book as a serial story that ran in the April-November 1917 issues of The American Magazine. Check out my companion Kindle ebook which contains the original, beautiful, hand-drawn illustrations that accompanied the magazine segments.
I love Edna Ferber’s work so much that I narrated the first of many of her short stories to come: Cheerful By Request.
As a child, Josie Fifer always spoke in front of crowds and liked to make people laugh. She thought she would be an actress on the stage. However, her life changed in a freak accident.
Can she find happiness and fulfillment in a new career?
Although the story is over 100 years old, it offers an important truth that is still relevant to the modern listener.
The black, the pearls, the theatre marquee, the star, and the mauve — oh, especially, the mauve! — are all important elements of this wonderful short story. I get giddy with delight when I think about how perfectly the cover art and the music in the credits complement the story.
The story runs just over an hour, an ideal length to hear while commuting, cooking, or doing other tasks.
I’ve got several recent releases to post, so you might want to get a cup of coffee and relax!
Earlier this year, I published The Heart of the New Thought by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, one of the leaders in the New Thought movement in the early 20th century.
This short book was first published over 100 years ago, but Wilcox offers advice for living a better and more spiritual life that is still practical today. Wilcox suggests ways to change your thinking and specific actions to take in order to feel better about yourself and improve your life.
For instance, have you ever noticed that the more you talk about being sick, the illness worsens and stays with you for a longer period of time?
I’m especially proud of this book because it is the first publication for my new audiobook company Jewel Audiobooks! Jewel Audiobooks will specialize in self-development and travel treasures and long-hidden gems of fiction.
Fans of Melissa F. Miller’s Sasha McCandless legal thriller series will be happy to know that book 5, Improper Influence is now in audio!
In this book, Sasha meets forensic pathologist Bodhi King, who asks her help in solving a case where young, healthy women in Pittsburgh are dying. In determining the cause of deaths, Bodhi also becomes a target.
Meanwhile, Sasha is working on a legal case involving corruption and another with a breach of contract. Could these cases be related to the deaths?
As if she didn’t have enough on her plate, her hunky fiancé is getting antsy about planning their wedding.
It’s never a dull moment in this series!
I had the honor of narrating Mary Potter Kenyon’s Chemo-Therapist: How Cancer Saved a Marriage .
When Kenyon’s husband David contracted oral cancer, she looked for books and inspirational stories to help them get through the experience. She lets the listener know early on that her husband DID NOT DIE from his cancer treatments as she wanted to provide hope to those who are ill or caregivers for cancer patients.
She wrote with honesty and frankness about the state of their marriage at the time of his diagnosis and their steps to become closer as he went through treatments.
She also discussed the effect that his treatments and the couple’s re-commitment to each other had on their 8 children.
I wanted to narrate it because so many people are in a similar situation. I think this book can offer hope and encouragement to people who need it most.
Just in time for pool season, I’m delighted to announce that the Dixie Divas — your favorite summertime companions — are back with book 5 in this funny, cosy mystery series, Divas Do Tell .
You’ve heard of the book The Help? Well, this isn’t that book….but Holly Springs, MS resident and sister to one of the Divas Dixie Lee Forsythe was inspired by that book to write one of her own!
Bitty Hollandale and other own residents were upset about the publication of Dixie Lee’s tell-all Dark Secrets Under the Holly due to its thinly-veiled descriptions of townspeople. They were even more upset about the movie version…..that is, until they found out they could be IN the movie! Of course, wherever the Divas are, murders seem to follow.
It’s a fabulous day when I get to voice the dialogue between the main characters Bitty Hollandale and Trinket Truevine! I’m thrilled to learn that author Virginia Brown is already at work on book 6!
My latest release is Two Shades of Morning by Janice Daugharty. It falls in the category of literary fiction.
A woman looks back to the early 1960s and tells us about her relationships with her next-door neighbor. At the time, our narrator Earlene was 19, married, and accustomed to being the prettiest girl in her little N. Florida town.
Nothing changed — yet everything changed — the day her friend and neighbor Robert Dale Sharpe brought home his pretty new wife, Sibil.
“Nobody ever believed much about Sibyl Sharpe, least of all that she would die, and yet death is the first thing I heard about her.”
With an opening line like that, you know there are secrets to be kept and others exposed!
All of these books are great listens for those summer road trips and lounging by the pool. Enjoy!
