The Voice I Almost Didn’t Ask For

For the past several years, the only time I have been able to read is when I’m not reading at all.

The car. The commute. The school pick-up line. The twenty minutes between one thing and the next when I plug in and someone else’s voice carries me somewhere I wouldn’t otherwise get to go. Audiobooks have been my lifeline to story during a season of life where sitting down with a physical book felt like a luxury I couldn’t justify.

I suspect I’m not alone in that.

So when the question came up, more than once, from more than one person, “Is it on Audible? I’ll wait until it’s on Audible”…I understood exactly what they meant. Not that the book wasn’t worth their time. That audio was the only door they had open right now.

I filed that away. I started thinking about what it would take to walk through it.

The narrator I almost didn’t ask for

Here’s something I’ve never said publicly before.

While I was building toward the Audible release, I did what I imagine most authors do - I listened. Not through a casting search or sample reel. Through a book series I loved, one I had listened to the way you listen to something that feels like it was made for you. She brought those characters to life in a way that stayed with me. The pacing, the warmth, the way she handled emotional weight without overseeling it.

At some point, listening, I had the thought: that’s what my book should sound like. And then immediately: that’s not possible.

But I reached out anyway. Fully expecting a polite no, or more likely no response at all. Preparing myself for the gracious acceptance that some things are simply out of reach.

She said yes.

She said yes, and what followed was one of the most surreal and meaningful experiences of this entire journey; hearing someone else give voice to words I had written in silence, alone, not entirely sure anyone would ever care about them.

The other side of the earbuds

The Harbinger is now on Audible. Which means that somewhere, right now, someone could be listening to it in their car. In the only quiet hour of their day. The twenty minutes between one thing and the next.

The same way I have been consuming books for years.

I don’t know who they are. I don’t know if they’re on a commute or a road trip or just parked in a driveway finishing a chapter before they go inside. I only know that the story found another door…and that someone walked through it.

That’s what this series keeps doing. It started as a book. Then an ebook. Then Kindle Unlimied. Now audio. Each format a different door into the same world, open to a different reader who needed a different entry point.

I almost didn’t ask for the narrator who made this version possible. I almost talked myself out of it before I even tried.

What I keep learning, slowly, imperfectly…with more resistance than I’d like to admit…is that the ask is almost always worth making. The worst answer is no. And no leaves you exactly where you already were.

She said yes.

Go ask your thing.