Ash

Author: Luke Romyn

Narrator: Jay Snyder

Length: 14 hours 26 minutes

Publisher: Audible Original

Released: Jun. 6, 2019

Genre: Action; Fantasy

A former mercenary turned blind priest, Ash is running from his amoral past – a victim of a power-hungry corporation, Titanus, which used him for mysterious experiments, discarding him when he lost his sight. Through its experimentation, Titanus unwittingly created a dark mirror world called Shade, a place where no human can survive – except for Ash. By opening a rift, Ash can escape into Shade, where his vision is restored, his wounds heal more quickly, and, if necessary, he can drag his attackers in with him, turning them to dust. While attempting to implement a global teleportation system, Titanus makes a grave error and opens several dangerous rifts, which threaten to tear the planet apart. Believing Ash to be the only one able to close them, Titanus exploits those Ash cares about most to coerce him into cooperating. But the creatures they have inadvertently released from Shade will be the least of their worries.

Luke Romyn is a USA Today and Amazon #1 bestselling author whose books have sold over 600,000 copies worldwide. With a background in international security, Luke’s books are high-octane fantasies, stretching the limits of human imagination from apocalyptic thrillers to psychic suspense to mythical adventure. Luke lives in Northern Queensland, Australia, with his wife, Sarah, and various animals he calls family.

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James Hadley Snyder, known professionally as Dan Green, is an American voice actor, voice director and script adapter who has worked for 4Kids Entertainment, DuArt Film and Video, NYAV Post, and Central Park Media. He is best known as the voice of Yugi Muto from Yu-Gi-Oh!, Trudge from Yu-Gi-Oh!   I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Luke Romyn. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

Q&A with Author Luke Romyn

• Tell us about the process of turning your book into an audiobook.
  • This time around was great. We secured a fantastic deal with Audible, and they looked after everything for me. In saying that, they were also very open to my ideas regarding cover art and the narrator. Great team that I can’t praise enough.
• Was a possible audiobook recording something you were conscious of while writing?
  • Not at the time. All I wanted was to write the best book possible. Everything else comes later.
• How do you manage to avoid burn-out? What do you do to maintain your enthusiasm for writing?
  • I absolutely adore writing. Writing books, while painful, drives me onward every day, and nothing gives me more pleasure than creating a tale from nothing more than my imagination and a few keystrokes.
• If you had the power to time travel, would you use it? If yes, when and where would you go?
  • Probably not. No doubt, I would screw everything up and bring back the dinosaurs or something.
• If this title were being made into a TV series or movie, who would you cast to play the primary roles?
  • Dave Bautista from Guardians of the Galaxy would play Ash. I don’t know about the others; casting’s never been my forte.
• What do you say to those who view listening to audiobooks as “cheating” or as inferior to “real reading”?
  • What a load of nonsense. A story is a story, something to enjoy, not a task to perform. If scientists knew how to bottle a book and inject it straight into an artery, I’d be the first in line. The same people who say this are probably the ones who also criticize eBooks. Get into literature any way you can and ignore the naysayers.
• How did you celebrate after finishing this novel?
  • Pizza and Playstation.
• What gets you out of a writing slump? What about a reading slump?
  • Writing slump is easy; I don’t have them. I know that makes me sound arrogant, but it’s true. How can you run out of ideas in a universe of infinite possibilities? Reading slump, though… I just grab a Harry Potter novel and dive in. Gets me every time.
• In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of writing a stand-alone novel vs. writing a series?
  • A stand-alone encompasses an entire tale into a single novel, whereas a series draws it out, making the reader extend beyond the first tale to find out the full story. This stretches the enjoyment, but if you don’t draw the reader into your tale in the first book, they’ll never read the whole series. A stand-alone, for good or ill, shows the entire picture in one hit, leaving the reader satisfied or cursing you, depending on the person.
• What’s your favorite:
  • Food: Pizza
  • Song: Various
  • Book: Waylander by David Gemmell
  • Television show: Breaking Bad
  • Movie: Star Wars
  • Band: Justin Bieber.
  • Just kidding, let’s go with Machine Head, but it changes day to day. Tomorrow, I might say Mozart (I know, he’s not a band.)
  • Sports team: None, I’m a nerd.
  • City: New York.
• Are any of those things referenced in appearance in your work?
  • New York’s in a few of my tales. I love it to bits.
• What bits of advice would you give to aspiring authors?
  • Keep going forward, charge ahead, be honest to yourself, and screw the critics.
• What’s next for you?
  • My manager is talking movie and/or television deals with various producers. I’m currently editing another fantasy-adventure, and I have a horror novel ready to edit sitting on my hard drive, waiting for me, whispering every so often. No rest for the wicked.

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