I am super-stoked to announce the arrival of the TRACER audiobook!

Actually, excited doesn’t begin to cover it. I’m jumping up and down right now. There may be ululating.

The two voiceovers who brought this to life absolutely smashed it. Sarah Borges (who voiced Riley’s sections) and Jeff Harding (who voiced Prakesh and Darnell) were killer choices, and I can’t wait for you to hear this.

To celebrate, I thought I’d do something fun. I got on Skype with the Seattle-born, UK-based Sarah Borges to find out about how audiobooks get put together, her process, how she got into character for Riley, and the benefits of whiskey in the voiceover business. The whole interview is below (apologies for the slightly dodgy sound quality – my original recording corrupted, unfortunately, so I had to upload my backup. It’s still totally audible, though).

MASSIVE thanks to the folks at Hachette Audio for putting this together.

The TL;DR section:

Here are the best quotes from the interview.

“I’ve done quite a lot of Mills and Boon audio books…One of the engineers at the Royal National Institute Of The Blind, Lucy, stopped me mid-recording and gave me one of the best compliments I’ve ever had, because she asked, how you doing those? Making those orgasm noises? How are you making that real? Darling! It’s fine, it’s my craft.”

“I did The Help last year. I was Skeeter in that, because I’m originally from Mississippi. Pascagoula, Mississippi. I have a recording of myself singing Popeye The Sailor Man in my Mississippi accent. I was an early talker. But we moved to Seattle, thank you parents, when I was about three. My brother was born there, so he’s a complete Seattlite. But I’m sort of this mongrel, and now I’ve been here for sixteen years.”

“I did three years of vocal training at Rose Buford. Really awesome training. Everybody who’s been there knows that the training is full on. They take your part and put you back together. It’s not psychological, it’s giving you a toolbox. I’ve also been a singer my entire life; I sing jazz or opera. Choral singing, I absolutely adore. That teaches you breath control, support, relaxation. Little tricks. You have an apple with you in studio if you get a bit claggy, pineapple is really good, because the enzymes break down any sort of gunk. Water, lots of water. I drink so much water. I try to avoid coffee, although I’m from Seattle, so I love coffee. You don’t have a big night out the night before. You have to look after your voice. I’m not a smoker, I don’t drink a lot – although I like wine, and whiskey is purely medicinal.”

What are you still doing here? Go get the audiobook! It’ll blow your damn mind.