A Chat with A.L. Jackson & Andi Arndt

I’ve wanted to feature Andi Arndt as a new AudioGals Narrator Friend for some time now. Since we’re all about romance around here, I hoped for just the right new release and we discovered it with A.L. Jackson’s A Stone in the Sea, the first in her new Bleeding Stars series. A.L. Jackson and Andi make an impressive team as they have proven with their previous audiobook pairings. Now take that and add Sebastian York into the mix and you have one sensational rock star themed audio title.

I met Andi Arndt at APAC (Audio Publishers Association Conference) in 2013 when she had around two dozen titles to her name. Over the last two years, I’ve watched her narration career blossom with numerous romance audios, often in the New Adult category. To learn more about Andi, check our her AudioGals Narrator’s Page.

I listened to A Stone in the Sea a couple of weeks ago and was completely taken with its romance and narration. It’s a New Adult title, a sub-genre I enjoy from time to time, but I have listened to few featuring a rock star. Kaetrin will be listening to and writing an official AudioGals review of A Stone in the Sea shortly but I have to say that it came in as a solid A for me!

 

Giveaway (closed)

We’re giving away ten downloadable audios of A Stone in the Sea. Entry is simple. Just complete the easy entry form found at the bottom of the page by midnight (CST) Thursday, April 9th. No comments are necessary to enter although we’d love to hear your thoughts in our discussion area. You may only enter once. We’ll contact winners on April 10th so watch your email as we must have acknowledgement of your win within 24 hours. If we don’t hear from you, we’ll select another winner.

 

The Chat

LEA  Welcome Amy and Andi to AudioGals! We’re thrilled to have you with us today.

ANDI  Thank you Lea!

AMY  Thank you for having us!

LEA  Amy, I see you have a new series – the Bleeding Stars series. The audio version of the first in the series, A Stone in the Sea, released on March 12th much to the excitement of romance audio fans. Can you tell our listeners something about setup for the series?

AMY  Sure. I’m very excited about this new series as it’s something I haven’t quite done before. I wanted to write a rock star series, but I wanted it to be a little different than the typical rock star meets small town girl.

AMY  I wanted to delve into the issues that surround that type of lifestyle, so this series will cover the stories of all four band members in Sunder, plus some of the family members and how their lives are affected.

LEA  Can you tell us more about the first entry, A Stone in the Sea?

AMY   A Stone in the Sea is Sebastian Stone and Shea Bentley’s story. Sebastian is hiding away in Savannah after getting into some trouble with the law. Shea works in a bar in Savannah where she first meets Sebastian. There is a ton of attraction between these two. Sebastian finds comfort in Shea having no idea who he is or anything about his past. He’s keeping major secrets, but as these two fall in love, we find the secrets that threaten to destroy them belong to Shea.

AMY  It’s a super angsty, emotional story that was a complete blast to write.

LEA  I assume Shea and Baz’s story will continue in Book 2? And will a second band member begin his romance journey at that time? Or can you tell? :)

AMY  Shea and Baz’s story continues in Drowning to Breathe (Book 2), and while all the band members will be present in this book as well, we won’t move on to one of their own stories until the third book.

LEA  Okay – I had a feeling we had a lot more to experience with Shea and Baz. I want more!

AMY  Definitely! I won’t leave you all hanging like that :D

LEA  Hehehe.

LEA  Andi – I see you are co-narrating A Stone in the Sea with Sebastian York. How does a co-narration such as this work? Can you explain the alternating POVs and do you each record in your own studios?

ANDI  Well, first of all, I very much enjoy having a co-narrator when there are alternating male and female POV’s chapter-by-chapter, as in this novel. I think it frees me to focus on just the one perspective. As far as how it works logistically, I coordinated the production, so Sebastian York sent his chapters to me, and I worked with my editor, proofer, and mastering engineer to stitch the whole thing together as a unified whole.

ANDI  Sebastian York was great to work with and we did listen to one another’s voices as part of the process of working together, but we didn’t listen live or anything like that. He worked in his home studio and I worked in mine.

LEA  That was my next question – if you all discussed the characters.

ANDI  Not at length. I have done co-narrations where there was some pre-recording discussion of various traits, etc., but in this case it was all there in the text – I think if we had had questions we would’ve felt free to ask, but the writing was so strong, it contained all the information we needed.

LEA  Listeners are so curious about these things. :)

ANDI  Understandably! I hope the effect is that they can imagine Sebastian Stone and Shea and not worry about Sebastian York and Andi.

LEA  That definitely was my experience.

ANDI  I’m so glad to hear that!

LEA  I listened to A Stone in the Sea last week and, I must say, Andi, that I loved the southern accent you gave the heroine! What decisions went into your characterization of Shea? What about Baz?

ANDI  Thank you. I’m developing a bit of a niche with my “light Southern lilt” these days and as soon as I saw it was set in Savannah, I knew it needed a little flavor of that place. I did discuss the use of an accent with Amy, so I could dial it to the level she was looking for. You don’t want to go too over the top, but I thought too neutral would be missing something.

ANDI  As far as Baz goes, I think less is more with my male characters, and his personality is definitely more close to the vest, so that’s how I worked with him. I listened to Sebastian’s sample before doing my chapters, just to get his rhythms in my head.

ANDI  I also wanted to let listeners get to know Shea on her own terms as the book unfolded.

LEA  I’m not one who requires accents from a narrator as I often don’t know what sounds right. But being from the South, made me appreciate the lilt you gave Shea. It seemed just right.

LEA  And Sebastian York – I so enjoy his narrations! Amy, since you released A Stone in the Sea through ACX, were you involved in your choice of narrators?

AMY  Yes, that is one of the huge benefits of going with ACX – I was able to select my narrators myself.

LEA  What went into your thoughts as you chose Andi and Sebastian?

AMY  When I decided to go through ACX, I knew immediately I wanted to work with Andi again since she’d done such a fabulous job with my other books.

AMY  I contacted her, and she helped me through the process of auditions for a male narrator. My books have a very rhythmic, lyrical quality to them, and I hear my characters voices so clearly in my head as I’m writing, so it was important to me to find a male narrator who could bring that feeling to life, and Sebastian York has such a smooth, sexy voice, I knew he had to be my Sebastian Stone.

ANDI  I believe I have seen his voice described as “panty-melting” in another forum.

AMY hahahah…yes…that description is fitting.

LEA  Andi – oh, most definitely! We hear comments like that!

LEA  I’m anxious to listen to Drowning to Breathe now! When can we expect to see it?

AMY  We’re slated for the ebook and paperback release on June 22, and hopefully the audiobook will be very quickly behind it.

LEA  Oh, yay! I think a relisten of A Stone in the Sea will be in order in early June. I love relistening to audiobooks I have enjoyed.

ANDI  That’s high praise, Lea, thank you!

LEA  Andi – as Amy mentioned, A Stone in the Sea isn’t your first A.L. Jackson narration. I imagine listeners who try the combination of Amy’s writing and your narration very well may go searching for other Jackson/Arndt releases. What are the other titles and when were they released?

ANDI  Well, the first one I was assigned was Pulled, which was a stand-alone story that I remember Amy describing as a “dark fairy tale,” very dramatic, just non-stop yearning and need and angst. I remember listening to music that Amy said she was listening to during her writing sessions and it definitely helped put me in that emotional place. And then…

ANDI  there was the Regret series, which was the story of Christian and Elizabeth. Take This Regret was the first title in that series, but it’s actually in the middle of the chronology. I narrated If Forever Comes next, the sequel, and finally there was Lost To You, a prequel that tells the sweet, sweet story of how they got together. I got to go skating in Central Park, lovely!

ANDI  Those came out in 2013 and 2014.

LEA  Amy, last year Andi shared with me the story behind your Regret series. I believe it isn’t as simple Books 1, 2, and 3. Can you tell us about the progression of that series?

AMY  Sure. It’s funny because I had written Take This Regret as a standalone, so I consider it Book 1.

AMY  But as so many readers fell in love with Christian and Elizabeth in Take This Regret, they asked for the story of how they met, which became the prequel, Lost to You. Then If Forever Comes was written to complete their story.

AMY  So basically you can either read Lost to You or Take This Regret first, but I now recommend for readers to read Lost to You first since it gives better insight into Christian and Elizabeth’s history in Take This Regret.

ANDI  If I might add something–

ANDI  Reading through the Regret series, I was struck by how much I had assumed that most romance novels were meant as a vehicle for escape. In this trilogy though, it was much more a process of the reader being able to confront very real and important crises and evolutions within a relationship. We have two people really working on their lives together because they share such a deep love, but we see how it isn’t always easy for them. I think a lot of readers must find that trilogy therapeutic. Amy do you hear from a lot of readers about parallels to their own concerns? Just all so familiar and important!

AMY  Ah yes, Andi, I can’t tell you how many times a single mother messaged me about how much Take This Regret meant to them because they’d shared so many of the same struggles as Elizabeth did. It’s also so much about forgiveness and redemption, and the fact that life isn’t always that easy. Of course I always want to give my characters a happily ever after, which may not be so true to life, but I hope as I write my stories they do deal with some of the issues we face in every day life. While I know they can be difficult to read, I always hope that in the end, they’re very uplifting.

ANDI  You earn your HEA’s!

AMY  Oh yes, I make my characters work for those. ;)

LEA  That series is sounding like a Must Listen now. Running over to Audible in a minute!

LEA  I see that Lost to You is listed as 0.5 at Audible (although it is mistakenly listed as Book 4 of the Take This Regret series as well) with Take This Regret as Book 1 and If Forever Comes as Book 2. I want to point this out so our listeners can avoid confusion.

AMY  Thank you for that Lea. Yes, the Amazon system has had some trouble labeling these, and each time I fix it, they change it back. LOL. I’m not quite sure what to do about that.

LEA  We’ll spread the word!

LEA  I’d like to end today with the term “New Adult”. Amy, I see your books categorized as Contemporary Romance, General Fiction, and New Adult. Personally, I see A Stone in the Sea as New Adult although I see New Adult fitting neatly into Contemporary Romance. What genre or sub-genre do you think best describes your books?

AMY  I agree with you that New Adult fits neatly in the Contemporary Romance genre. I do feel that I write distinctly in both categories, though. While Take This Regret, If Forever Comes, Pulled, and When We Collide definitely don’t fit into the New Adult sub-category, I believe the rest of my books do. While New Adult fits under the umbrella of Contemporary Romance, I believe in order to label it a New Adult a book needs to encompass the coming into adulthood years, beyond the young adult category, but as a New Adult faces the difficulties that come with adulthood with the newly given ability to make their own decisions, moving away from home, etc.

LEA  We featured the New Adult genre two-three years ago working with Hachette Audio on a blog hop. We had seen the beginnings and wondered about it. Once we delved into the nature of it and gave it a loose definition, it helped our reviewers understand what they were listening to. I see New Adult as a fast growing wildly popular sub-genre but I’m not an expert. Do you think New Adult is still defining itself?

AMY  I definitely believe the New Adult category is still defining itself. It grew into popularity so quickly over the past three to four years and there has been a lot of debate as to what actually qualifies as “New Adult.” I believe as time goes on, it will become much more clear to both authors, publishers, and readers on what to expect from these types of books, which I imagine will grow to encompass even more than they do now.

LEA  Andi, as a narrator, what are you seeing in the New Adult market?

ANDI  Well, because I sound on the younger side, I am cast for New Adult titles and YA as well. The issues that face the characters in New Adult stories seem to touch quite often on the nature of identity as an individual vs. as a member of a couple. What do I want to do with my life, and how is that affected by the fact that I have feelings about another person that are challenging my assumptions about what my life is supposed to be or what I expected it to be.

ANDI  I remember back to that time in my life, and being so swayed by the force of another person and my love for them. It’s really a lot to go through and at a time when there’s not the depth of life experience to help make those decisions, plus you’ve still got the strong pull of family personalities and obligations.

ANDI  Of course the euphoria of the first sexual relationships is part of that pull toward the romantic partner, no doubt, but I see the issue as being one of intimacy, not just opportunity. But it can leave the individual wanting more of her own center of gravity. And I think we deal with that all our adult lives. The way we start out can set patterns in place that to some extent or other are always there, or if they’re unhealthy, they’re patterns that we have to work very consciously to shift.

AMY  I have to say I think Andi probably just summed up New Adult perfectly.

LEA  She did! And did you notice how her obvious actor training pulled us in even further when she explained where her inspiration came from?

AMY  Yes Lea! Love it. Next time someone asks me what New Adult is, I’m stealing Andi’s description. ;)

LEA  It has been such a joy having you all with us today. Are there any current of future projects you want to share with us?

AMY  Thank you so much for having us, Lea! It was an honor chatting with you. Listeners can listen for the audio of Come to Me Recklessly on April 7, which is a stand alone novel in my Closer to You series.

ANDI  Well, speaking of New Adult and Contemporary Romance, I’ve just finished books in that genre from two different Australian authors whose books are set in the U.S. Kylie Scott’s Stage Dive series finishes up with Deep, (released March 31st), and I just wrapped recording on Leisa Rayven’s Broken Juliet, the sequel to Bad Romeo, which comes out next month. I’m very much looking forward to Drowning to Breathe for A.L. Jackson this summer, and I feel so fortunate to narrate for these smart, talented, hard working authors! Thanks for having us today, Lea.

LEA  Thanks for joining us!

 

Time to Enter

 

GIVEAWAY CLOSED

 

Happy A.L. Jackson listening!

 

Lea Hensley