Five days after the audiobook launched, Queen's Road had sold eight copies.

Now, I know what some people are thinking. Eight copies isn't exactly JK Rowling territory. But if you've ever created something and shared it with the world, you'll understand why I stared at that number with an entirely disproportionate amount of excitement.

Because those eight copies represent far more than a sales figure.

They represent months of listening to the same chapters repeatedly, making notes, questioning whether a pause sounded right, whether a character's voice matched who they were on the page, and occasionally wondering if I had completely lost my mind.

People often talk about how difficult it is to write a book, and they're right. What nobody really tells you is that turning that book into an audiobook introduces an entirely new layer of vulnerability.

Reading your own work silently is one thing. Hearing somebody else bring it to life is something else entirely.

I worried endlessly about whether people would connect with the characters in the same way I had. Would Jay still feel steady and dependable? Would Arthur's dry humour land in the right moments? Would Sophia sound like the observant, thoughtful child she had always been in my head?

Then I listened.

And, unexpectedly, I laughed.

Not because the story is a comedy, although Queen's Road certainly has its moments, but because hearing the characters out loud reminded me why I wrote them in the first place. They felt human. They interrupted each other. They coped with fear through humour. They sounded like people you might actually know.

There were still moments of stress, of course.

• The endless checking.
• The reviews and approvals.
• The fear that readers might hear something different from what I had intended.
• The strange experience of knowing that, after years of carrying these characters around in my own head, they now belonged a little bit to everyone else too.
• But there was joy in it as well.

Real joy.

The kind that comes from hearing a scene work exactly as you'd hoped it would. The kind that appears when someone messages to say they listened on their commute and did not want to switch the car off. The kind that reminds you why you spent all those evenings and weekends writing in the first place.

And now, somehow, we're already working towards Beneath the Silence.

If this experience has taught me anything, it's that creativity rarely looks glamorous from the inside. It often looks like second-guessing yourself while listening to the same chapter for the tenth time. It looks like learning entirely new skills you never expected to need. It looks like worrying far more than is probably healthy.

It also looks like community.

Because every person who has listened, reviewed, shared a post, recommended Queen's Road to a friend or simply cheered me on has helped make this possible.

Eight copies in five days may not sound extraordinary to everyone.

To me, they sound like footsteps heading down Queen's Road.

After all the hours of writing, editing, reviewing and worrying, hearing those footsteps has been one of the loveliest experiences of my writing journey so far.

If you enjoy character-driven stories, British humour, found family, and the kind of apocalypse where tea remains a survival essential, I'd love for you to visit Queen's Road.

You can listen to the audiobook here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/AUDIBLE-Queens-Road/dp/B0H31BHJLW/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0

And if you've already listened, thank you. Every review, recommendation and kind message has meant far more than you probably realise. You've helped this little Somerset street reach readers and listeners far beyond anything I imagined when I first sat down to write it.

After all, we all have our own Queen's Road.