On my first book, Bulletproof Mascara, the novel was also spun off into an audio book and (guilty admission) I have never listened to it. Or rather, I got ten minutes in, freaked out, turned it off and never went back.

It wasn’t that it was bad. It was more that the voices in my head had become external, but they weren’t actually my voices.  The process of publishing is, in many ways, about taking something deeply personal and turning it over into the public domain. And at the time, I had barely come to terms with my friends, family, and complete strangers having opinions on my characters. Having the auditory sensation of hearing them in different voices was completely disconcerting.

However, it’s been a minute since then. Don’t you love how that phrase implies that it really was a short amount of time? And I’m a little more resigned to the process of sharing my fake people with the world. So I recently took a deep breath and dipped a toe back into the audio waters.

This time the process was much better.  Not only did I get to select my voice actor, but I could add my two-cents on her interpretation. I’m completely in love with this new interpretation of my romantic suspense novel The Second Shot. It’s been so fun to hear the book with her voice. It has also been illuminating to realize when I’ve written something that looks so good on the page, but turns out to be difficult to read out loud.

The Second Shot is book one of the Deveraux Legacy series and I can’t wait for my voice actress to tackle book 2, The Cinderella Secret, and 3, The Hardest Hit (due out 10.18.21). Currently the book is under going the Quality Assurance check with Audible and once approved it will hit the virtual store shelves.

You can check out the audio version of The Second Shot here: bethanymaines.com/the-deveraux-legacy/

A drunken mistake in college cost US Marshal Maxwell Ames the affection of Dominique Deveraux and six years later, he’s determined to fix the slip-up. But there’s just one tiny problem—someone wants the Deveraux family dead. Dominique Deveraux never expected Max to reappear in her life, let alone apologize, but as Dominique investigates the mysterious attacks on her wealthy family Max quickly becomes far more than her one time college classmate. Now, Max and Dominique must dodge mercenaries and bullets as they try to make sure that they’re the only ones who get a second shot.