Last year, Amazon offered to pay a stipend to a professional voice artist of my choosing to create audiobooks of Homecoming Masquerade and Festival of the Moon. In December, I had the privilege of listening to a dozen professional voice artists audition to read my books.
Although I originally had a woman’s voice in mind to read these books, it was a male voiceover artist named Robert Forge who won the part. Robert’s smooth narration, combined with his incredible ability to bring the characters to life, was head and shoulders above the rest, and I am so glad I got to work with him.
I am a bit of an audiobook junkie. I think it’s an incredibly effective medium. And, removing my author hat for a moment to let my inner audiobook junkie speak, I am telling you that Robert Forge’s recordings of Homecoming Masquerade and Festival of the Moon are the best performances I’ve ever heard in the medium. He didn’t just get the books, he transformed them into something much greater than they were. His every word of narration is charged with meaning. His pacing is superb. You can’t help but get caught up. The words, the pauses, even the breaths, create this incredible rhythm to the story that I’ve never heard before, and that frankly blew me away when I listened to them.
And the characters….good grief, what he’s done with the characters is just astounding. Every single one of them has a distinct, memorable voice. By chapter 2 of the book you forget you are listening to a performance and feel like you are on the ballroom floor, right in the middle of it all. Listening to this audio production as it came together was a real joy for me. If you like audiobooks, if you are headed out on a trip soon, or if you just want to try something different, please head over to Audible and give it a try. It’s very rare that I feel comfortable bragging about a creative project, but this is one where I can’t help myself. What Robert has done with my books is truly exceptional.
Here is the link to get Homecoming Masquerade on Audible. Enjoy!
