The authors behind the novel Caretaker stopped by the Kelly Clarkson Show to discuss their new book.
The novel by Jason Halbert, Clarkson’s music director, and his wife, Rhonda Halbert, will be published next week by Eald Talu House. The thriller, written under the pen name R.J. Halbert, is the first in a planned series and tells the story of a married couple and their two children who move from Boston to a possibly haunted house in New Hampshire.
A critic for Kirkus praised the novel as “an imaginative series debut with a spooky plot, chilling details, and a wholesome family.”
“You see a big future for this book, right?” Clarkson asked the authors. “I don’t do this with every book I read, but when they’re good, you can almost visually see the series or the movie. So are y’all envisioning this?”
“We’ve decided that we’re going to try to take on another big project, with an audiobook,” Rhonda Halbert replied. “Jason doesn’t do anything small or half-hearted, so we reached out and thought about the best actors that we…envisioned for these voices. We reached out to them not really knowing them, and we had everyone we wanted to sign on and become the voices for our audiobook.”
Jason Halbert then announced that one of the audiobook’s narrators would be Clarkson herself.
“I hate acting and only will I do it for this couple,” Clarkson said. “No, but I’m very excited. I mean, the character’s name is Kelly, it’s fine.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
