Los Angeles, 1908. Anna Blanc is a former so-so socialite, a flailing police matron, and a killer detective.
Ex-heiress Anna Blanc is precariously employed by the Los Angeles Police Department, reforming delinquent children and minding lady jailbirds. What she really wants is to hunt criminals and be alone with Detective Joe Singer – both no-nos that could get her fired.
On a lover’s tryst in Griffith Park, Anna and Joe discover the body of a young gambler. Anna can’t resist. She’s on the case. As her murder investigation stalls, and her police matron duties start piling up, strange floral arrangements begin arriving from an unknown admirer.
Following the petals leads Anna to another crime, one close to home. Suddenly pitted against Joe, Anna must examine her loyalties and solve the crimes, even if it means losing the man she loves.
Jennifer has been a block layer, a nurse’s aid, a fragrance model, and on the research faculty at UCLA, where she spent 11 years conducting studies to inform health policy. A native of Southern California, she now lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and two teenagers. She’s currently writing book three in the Anna Blanc Mystery series. Book two, THE WOMAN IN THE CAMPHOR TRUNK, is coming out in Fall of 2017 from Seventh Street Books.
Moira grew up in teeny-tiny Rutland, England’s smallest county, which is fitting as she never managed to make it past five feet herself. Moira’s work spans the pantheon of the voiceover world: plays for BBC radio, plays for NPR, video games, commercials, television promos, podcasts, cartoons, movies and award winning audiobooks. She’s won Multiple Audie Awards, Earphone Awards, as well as Audible’s prestigious Book-of-the-Year Award. She has lately set foot in front of the camera again, appearing in “Pretty: the Series” and the Emmy-winning “Dirty Work.”
I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Jennifer Kincheloe. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.
Los Angeles, 1908. In Chinatown, the most dangerous beat in Los Angeles, police matron Anna Blanc and her former sweetheart, Detective Joe Singer, discover the body of a white missionary woman, stuffed in a trunk in the apartment of her Chinese lover. Her lover has fled. If news gets out that a white woman was murdered in Chinatown, there will be a violent backlash against the Chinese. Joe and Anna plan to solve the crime quietly and keep the death a secret. So does good-looking Mr. Jones, a prominent Chinese leader who has mixed feelings about helping the LAPD and about Anna. Meanwhile, the Hop Sing tong has kidnapped two slave girls from the Bing Kong tong, fuelling existing tensions. They are poised on the verge of a bloody tong war that would put all Chinatown residents in danger. Joe orders Anna out of Chinatown to keep her safe, but to atone for her own family’s sins, Anna must stay to solve the crime before news of the murder is leaked and Chinatown explodes.
Jennifer has been a block layer, a nurse’s aid, a fragrance model, and on the research faculty at UCLA, where she spent 11 years conducting studies to inform health policy. A native of Southern California, she now lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and two teenagers. She’s currently writing book three in the Anna Blanc Mystery series. Book two, THE WOMAN IN THE CAMPHOR TRUNK, is coming out in Fall of 2017 from Seventh Street Books.
Moira grew up in teeny-tiny Rutland, England’s smallest county, which is fitting as she never managed to make it past five feet herself. Moira’s work spans the pantheon of the voiceover world: plays for BBC radio, plays for NPR, video games, commercials, television promos, podcasts, cartoons, movies and award winning audiobooks. She’s won Multiple Audie Awards, Earphone Awards, as well as Audible’s prestigious Book-of-the-Year Award. She has lately set foot in front of the camera again, appearing in “Pretty: the Series” and the Emmy-winning “Dirty Work.”
I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Jennifer Kincheloe. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.
Q&A with Narrator Moira Quirk
How did you wind up narrating audiobooks? Was it always your goal or was it something you stumbled into by chance?
A director I work with on plays for BBC radio introduced me to a producer who was looking for a young, female British narrator, so it was serendipity meets preparedness really.
A lot of narrators seem to have a background in theatre. Is that something you think is essential to a successful narration career?
I don’t think there are any real rules in performance. Just be good, or be compelling, preferably both. Obviously, you get better by doing, so be it theatre or improv or stand-up or reading out loud every day, just keep doing that.
What type of training have you undergone?
My degree is in English and Drama, so kind of the perfect degree for an audiobook narrator. I also attended Central School of Speech and Drama, and then went on to perform in theatre, improv, and stand up. I hosted for Nickeleodeon in my twenties and then went into animation and videogames and the voice-over world. Then I found my way in to plays for BBC Radio and LA Theatreworks… and then audiobooks.
How do you manage to avoid burn-out? What do you do to maintain your enthusiasm for narrating?
I’m fortunate in that I have quite a varied voice-over career: cartoons, videogames, radio plays, film and TV, in addition to audiobooks. Also, and I don’t quite know how, but I have managed to always go to a studio with at least an engineer with me to record books. The digital age is great and everything, but it means that so much is done remotely, or in home studios. It can feel a little isolated this brave new world. Yes, I know everyone says, “You can go to work in your pajamas!” I just don’t know if I rate pajamas that highly.
What are your favorite and least favorite parts of narrating an audiobook?
It is the absolute worst when you are sick and coughing or blowing your nose at the end of every paragraph. It is the best when you are flying through the pages because you really get the author’s rhythm and syntax and characters.
What would you say are your strongest narration abilities?
I love characters! And I really love characters with accents! Accents have always been my bread and butter.
How did you decide how each character should sound in this title?
The simple part is just going off the author’s description. Then I decide, based on the author’s style if I’ll give a “full character” or an idea of the character- am I creating a play where I play all of the characters, or am I a narrator giving an idea of the cast? Then you get into logistics. If you have a group of characters of a similar age and demographic how do you differentiate them? What is sustainable? What is distinct? What is truthful? And how might the character’s sound change depending on their arc? This is all part of my decision making. Also, as a female, I have to decide how to approach the male voices. For me, I generally try to initially establish the ‘maleness’ but really emphasize their character, so that as I continue I can focus on making them interesting and truthful with an idea of maleness and avoid that full basso profundo which always reminds me of that scene in The Life of Brian: “Are there any women here?!”
What types of things are harmful to your voice?
Screaming. Yelling. Using unusual placements of the voice. Talking out loud for unnaturally long amounts of time… Wait? What?
Has anyone ever recognized you from your voice?
Yup
How does audiobook narration differ from other types of voiceover work you’ve done?
a) It’s way longer
b) It’s way, way longer
What’s next for you?
I have a couple of YA titles coming up. I am hoping I have a Jane Austen set in the very near future because I do love lit-er-a-ture. Very Good, Jeeves should be airing soon for BBC radio where I play Stiffy Byng. I adore Wodehouse.
It’s 1907 Los Angeles. Mischievous socialite Anna Blanc is the kind of young woman who devours purloined crime novels, but must disguise them behind covers of more domestically-appropriate reading. She could match wits with Sherlock Holmes, but in her world women are not allowed to hunt criminals. Determined to break free of the era’s rigid social roles, Anna buys off the chaperone assigned by her domineering father and, using an alias, takes a job as a police matron with the Los Angeles Police Department. There she discovers a string of brothel murders, which the cops are unwilling to investigate. Seizing her one chance to solve a crime, she takes on the investigation herself. If the police find out, she’ll get fired; if her father finds out, he’ll disown her; and if her fiancé finds out, he’ll cancel the wedding. Midway into her investigation, the police chief’s son, Joe Singer, learns her true identity, and shortly thereafter she learns about blackmail. Anna must choose – either hunt the villain and risk losing her father, fiancé, and wealth, or abandon her dream and leave the killer on the loose.
Jennifer has been a block layer, a nurse’s aid, a fragrance model, and on the research faculty at UCLA, where she spent 11 years conducting studies to inform health policy. A native of Southern California, she now lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and two teenagers. She’s currently writing book three in the Anna Blanc Mystery series. Book two, THE WOMAN IN THE CAMPHOR TRUNK, is coming out in Fall of 2017 from Seventh Street Books.
Moira grew up in teeny-tiny Rutland, England’s smallest county, which is fitting as she never managed to make it past five feet herself. Moira’s work spans the pantheon of the voiceover world: plays for BBC radio, plays for NPR, video games, commercials, television promos, podcasts, cartoons, movies and award winning audiobooks. She’s won Multiple Audie Awards, Earphone Awards, as well as Audible’s prestigious Book-of-the-Year Award. She has lately set foot in front of the camera again, appearing in “Pretty: the Series” and the Emmy-winning “Dirty Work.”
I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Jennifer Kincheloe. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.
Q&A with Author Jennifer Kincheloe
How did you select your narrator?
An Anna Blanc fan who is also a fan of Moira’s knew I was auditioning narrators because I posted it on Twitter. She tweeted me and said, “You need to hire Moira Quirk.” So, I checked Moira out. While I loved her work, I initially dismissed the idea because Moira is English and Anna Blanc is American. I didn’t yet realize that Moira can do anything. She’s won a million awards. Anyway, the book is hard to narrate because you have to get the delicate mix of humor and darkness right. I auditioned some 30 narrators, and they had many strengths, but no one had everything I wanted. I finally approached Moira and asked, “Can you do an American accent?” Her audition was perfect.
How closely did you work with your narrator before and during the recording process? Did you give them any pronunciation tips or special insight into the characters?
Moira instinctively gets Anna. Also, she’s a perfectionist and committed to excellence. I like her artistic choices. She might ask how to pronounce a word, but she doesn’t need me at all.
Were there any real life inspirations behind your writing?
Yes. I got my storylines straight from the 1900s newspapers. A 19-year-old white missionary woman was found dead and stuffed in the trunk in her Chinese American lover’s apartment in New York’s Chinatown. I moved the story to Los Angeles, but lots of things are the same, right down to tiny details. After you’ve listened to the audiobook, Google Elsie Sigel and Leon Ling. The B plot in the novel is about two singsong girls–Chinese sex slaves–who were stolen away from their “owner,” a tong president. It almost led to a gang war. The LAPD were hunting the singsong girls to give them back to their “owner” so the LAPD could collect a $1,000 reward and avert violence.
Are you an audiobook listener? What about the audiobook format appeals to you?
I LOVE audiobooks. I listen to 20 audiobooks for every one paper book I read. The narrator is everything to me, which is why I’m so thrilled with Moira Quirk.
If you had the power to time travel, would you use it? If yes, when and where would you go?
Definitely 1900s Los Angeles! I’d go everywhere that Anna would go–fancy hotels, cheap brothels, Joe Singer’s apartment.
What do you say to those who view listening to audiobooks as “cheating” or as inferior to “real reading”?
Nonsense.
How did you celebrate after finishing this novel?
I need to work on that celebration thing.
In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of writing a stand-alone novel vs. writing a series?
I liken it to a movie vs. a TV series. You simply have more time to develop the characters. You know them so well.You also have the challenge of making them grow or change in every book. Sustaining the romance is a trick, but I love how Elizabeth Peters did it in the Amelia Peabody series. It never got old. The audiobooks of that series are seriously the best I’ve ever heard (after Moira). They relate the adventures of a woman Egyptologist in the late 19th and early 20th century. Start with CROCODILE ON THE SANDBANK. You’ll thank me.
What bits of advice would you give to aspiring authors?
Write for yourself. Not for money, critics, or glory. Only write for yourself.
Jennifer has been a block layer, a nurse’s aid, a fragrance model, and on the research faculty at UCLA, where she spent 11 years conducting studies to inform health policy. A native of Southern California, she now lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and two teenagers. She’s currently writing book three in the Anna Blanc Mystery series. Book two, THE WOMAN IN THE CAMPHOR TRUNK, is coming out in Fall of 2017 from Seventh Street Books.
Moira grew up in teeny-tiny Rutland, England’s smallest county, which is fitting as she never managed to make it past five feet herself. Moira’s work spans the pantheon of the voiceover world: plays for BBC radio, plays for NPR, video games, commercials, television promos, podcasts, cartoons, movies and award winning audiobooks. She’s won Multiple Audie Awards, Earphone Awards, as well as Audible’s prestigious Book-of-the-Year Award. She has lately set foot in front of the camera again, appearing in “Pretty: the Series” and the Emmy-winning “Dirty Work.”
I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Jennifer Kincheloe. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.
