Do you remember when you were little, when you first discovered books?

As babies, we’d touch them, manipulate them, stare at the pictures, chew the covers. But they delighted us. We were so eager to learn to read, to recognise letters, to sound them out by making their unique noise, putting them together to make sense.

Words created a whole new world. They brought new people we’d never met, places we hadn’t visited, different eras. We were amazed, stunned, amused, frightened, delighted, simply because of the power of random words in a sentence, followed by more words.

Then came the most primitive audiobook. We sat on a knee and listened to a story. Maybe it was a grandparent, a dad – for me it was my mum, and she’d tell me about magical times, incredible people, wonderful adventures. Or we’d sit as a family around the fire, the orange light glowing on our faces, and someone would say, ‘I remember when…’

It was magical.

Then came the cold nights, rain hammering against the window, me huddling beneath a blanket, and my mum would pick up a book, say, ‘Close your eyes…’ and she’d read a story. It might be a fairy story, a Beatrix Potter, a tale of pirates or princesses or passion. But we were transported to a new place and we believed.

I remember snuggling up against a radiator that belted out too much heat in primary school, smelling the stench of boiled cabbage from the hall while our teacher read us The Wind in The Willows. I believed those animals were real and I loved them with all my heart. (The story of teacher Miss Hamilton in The Silver Ladies do Lunch came straight from this experience.)

An audio book is the next step, listening to someone read to us. The narrator connects directly with our imagination, our emotions. Voice has the power to take us to a special place and keep us there as observers, as participants, as an audience who feel and think as the characters do. Friends who’ve bought my – and many other – audiobooks tell me they listen to them in all sorts of unusual places: while out walking, baking, doing the housework, in the bath, on holiday, while driving, gardening, on a building site, in the bath, before falling asleep.

I’m blessed to have wonderful narrators – I think of them as voice actors – with the most incredible evocative qualities to their voices. I have so much love for the work of Phyllida Nash, Antonia Beamish, Cathleen McCarron and Emma Powell. My new cosy crime, Foul Play at Seal Bay, out in August, will be read by Jilly Bond. It’s so lovely to listen to these gorgeous voices, to wallow in their gift of making words create powerful pictures and a range of emotions.

My youngest offspring is a voice actor – I know how hard they work – and I’m grateful for the incredible performances I hear the actors give on Boldwood/ Ulverscroft audio.

Audio books take us back to that primal place of being read to, of sharing stories aurally. They are delivered by talented performers who can make each word sing and vibrate. I love a kindle; I adore holding a book in my hand and diving in between pages. But an audio book takes us to an enchanted place, at any time, whatever we are doing. It holds us there from the first word until the last. It builds pictures, takes us to places we’d never dream of, it stirs new emotions

It certainly is a special kind of magic.