Never Kiss a Rake by Anne Stuart

Narrated by Xe Sands 

Never Kiss a Rake is the first book in a new historical trilogy from Anne Stuart which features the three Russell sisters, Bryony, Maddy, and Sophie. Their father, a renowned and wealthy financier, has died suddenly and in mysterious circumstances, leaving them destitute. Based on the scrap of a note she has found, the eldest sister, Bryony, believes her father was murdered and likely that one or more of his business partners was responsible.

Determined to find out the truth, Bryony decides that the best way to ferret out the information she needs is to infiltrate the households of these men – among whom are the privateer Captain Morgan and Adrian Bruton, Earl of Kilmartyn and, to that end, she secures herself an interview in the Earl’s household, where there is a housekeeper’s position available. She is interviewed by the beautiful and pampered Countess of Kilmartyn, who is about to dismiss her when her husband intervenes and hires Bryony.

Kilmartyn is widely known to be a rake of the worst sort and seducer of beautiful women. His relationship with his wife is acrimonious to say the least – their mutual hatred is palpable. But Cecily has some dirt on Adrian, which she is using to blackmail him and prevent his leaving her. She might not want him (and in fact has a string of lovers) but she doesn’t want anyone else to have him, either. Kilmartyn is immediately intrigued by Bryony, sensing that she is not at all what she seems, and his conversation is liberally peppered with sexual innuendo, partly in an attempt to unsettle her into revealing her true purpose in his house, and partly because he really does want to take her to bed.

He’s one of those intensely masculine heroes that it could be easy to dislike because he’s so confident about his ability to seduce the woman he wants … and yet he’s ridiculously attractive. As a Goodreads friend commented to me, “ain’t no badder boy than an Anne Stuart bad-boy” and I can certainly agree with that!

I know that Xe Sands has narrated a number of Anne Stuart’s other books, but this was my first time listening to her, and I was very impressed. She has a beautifully smooth speaking voice and her character voices were all appropriate and well differentiated. I admit, when I read in Ms. Stuart’s recent interview that Ms Sands would be using British accents for the characters but her own natural accent for the narration, I was apprehensive. As I’m sure has become apparent from my reviews, I have a bit of a bee-in-my-bonnet about accents, and finding them poorly or inconsistently done can easily ruin an audio for me.

But I’m pleased to say that I was very pleasantly surprised. I admit that it did take me a little while to get used to the switching between trans-Atlantic accents, but once I did, I could admire the skill it must require to be able to do that so readily and believably. In terms of the characters, I liked the softness Ms. Sands brought to Bryony’s voice while managing to make it clear that she had a backbone of steel underneath. She brought a tremulous quality to her voice in her more vulnerable moments, which worked very well. The other minor characters such as the housekeeper and servants were all well portrayed as were the characters of Cecily and Brown. If I have one niggle, it’s with the way she voiced Kilmartyn. She gave him a very throaty, louche – and admittedly sexy – almost-growl which was more than tinged with an Irish accent, all of which was very much in keeping with his character. But sometimes, his voice was so low and soft that I found I had to concentrate really hard to make out the individual words. To coin a phrase – he sounded so laid back he was almost on the floor!

Never Kiss a Rake bristles with sexual tension as Bryony battles her attraction to her gorgeous employer while trying to find evidence of his involvement of financial wrong-doing and her father’s murder – and simultaneously hoping to discover he had nothing to do with any of it.

But there are weaknesses, too. The identity of the villain is fairly obvious from the outset, although to be fair, we don’t discover the reasons for his actions, and I suspect these will not be revealed until the final book. I thought the final third of the book, in which Bryony and Kilmartyn begin – individually – to suspect that Cecily has been murdered was a little weak and didn’t hang as tightly together as the rest of the story.

On the positive side, the two protagonists are well-drawn and engaging, even if I found Bryony’s inability to trust Adrian and believe that he did truly want her until the last possible minute became rather annoying. (Even when they’re finally in bed together, she tells him she doesn’t trust him – but makes love with him anyway.) Adrian is rather delicious, even though he does remind me of a few of Ms. Stuart’s other historical heroes – but I can forgive that because of the way he is so desperate to protect Bryony even as he’s proclaiming himself to be an immoral bastard.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Never Kiss a Rake and am looking forward to the remaining books in the series. The pacing is good, the writing excellent and the sexually-charged banter between Bryony and Kilmartyn is a delight.

Caz

Narration:  B+

Book Content:  B

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence:  Minimal

Genre:  Historical Romance

Publisher:  Brilliance Audio