Much Ado About You by Eloisa James

Much Ado About YouNarrated by Susan Duerden

First of all, I have to take my hat off to Susan Duerden for pulling off something which, to my mind, would have been quite a daunting task. In Much Ado About You, there are four (possibly five) principal female characters and four principal male characters as well as various servants and other secondary characters. She managed to voice them all reasonably distinctly and clearly. Almost all those eight principals will appear in the other three entries to the series too, so I imagine a lot of thought had to go into keeping the voices consistent across all the books, although I have yet to listen to any of the others.

As this IS the first in the Essex Sisters quartet, it has to set the scene. With the death of their horse-mad father, four girls have been left in the guardianship of Rafe, Duke of Holbrook. He has never met them and, in fact, wasn’t all that close to their father, agreeing to his request that he undertake their care on his demise as a matter of honor rather than any expression of friendship. Rafe is expecting girls young enough to want to play with toys and is naturally surprised when four young ladies arrive, aged twenty-two (Tess, the eldest) to fifteen (Josie).

Here is the first of Ms. Duerden’s herculean tasks – to enable the listener to differentiate between four female characters who are quite close in age. But she makes it sound easy. Tess is given a slightly deep tone with a soft edge that fits her character perfectly. As the eldest, she is the caretaker, and has clearly become accustomed to adapting herself to the others’ needs. Annabel, the next in age, is the beauty of the family and is determined to make a spectacular marriage so that she can find good husbands for all her sisters. Her voice has an undercurrent of good humor, the tone slightly sharper than her older sister’s. Imogen’s voice has a much harder edge to it – she can be rather a hard character to like at times while Josie is still in the schoolroom and clearly has a well-developed sense of irony. If anything, the voices are easier to differentiate when all the girls are in a scene together. When it’s just one or two of them, it sometimes took me a second or two to figure out who was speaking as there were fewer other female voices around for comparison.

Having young ladies of marriageable age under his roof means Rafe needs to find a chaperone quickly, and as a stop-gap, Lady Clarice Maitland who lives not far from Holbrook, comes to stay for a few days before other arrangements can be made. Lady Clarise is clearly interested in becoming the Duchess of Holbrook, but Rafe is not similarly inclined – in fact he’s rather a shambles of a man, unkempt and almost perpetually drunk or on the verge of it, which makes him seem much older than his thirty-six years. He’s also kind and honorable and concerned about doing his duty for the girls, firing them off successfully into society once their mourning period is over (I developed rather a soft spot for him during the course of the book!).

We meet Rafe and his good friend, the Earl of Mayne, at the start of the book, and as with the ladies, it’s easy to tell which of the men is speaking. Rafe’s voice is low and husky while Mayne’s is slightly higher pitched with a sharper edge. By the time the other two male principals are introduced – Lucius Felton and Drevan Maitland – the listener should be familiar enough with the first two men’s voices so as not to confuse them with either of the others. Ms. Duerden has opted to make Lucius the lowest pitched of the male voices with a slight huskiness that made him sound rather sexy. ;-)

This first story belongs to the oldest sister, so we follow Tess’s path to love and happiness, which, fortunately for her, isn’t overly strewn with obstacles. Not long after arriving at Rafe’s estate, Mayne – a rakish bachelor who is currently suffering the pangs of rejection by a society beauty – offers for Tess, partly because her dowry is one Something Wanton, widely held to be the finest racehorse in the country. Not knowing Mayne’s precipitate proposal has been prompted by his desire to acquire the horse, she nonetheless accepts him. He’s an earl, he’s rich, he’s handsome, and she likes him. By marrying him, she will be able to help her sisters to make good matches of their own.

But Rafe’s friend, Lucius Felton, has become rather taken with Tess too, and although he had not thought to take a wife (believing himself to be too cold-hearted to be capable of love), he finds himself rather put out when he discovers she has accepted Mayne’s offer. However, on the evening before his wedding, Mayne gets some unsettling news that leads to jilting Tess.

Unlike his friends Holbrook and Mayne, Lucius is not titled, but like them, he is immensely wealthy. A highly successful financier, his money smacks of “trade” and the word in society is that his parents have disowned him as a result.

Tess is more than halfway in love with Lucius when she marries him, but finds him a little stuffy. He’s great in bed (naturally – he’s a romantic hero!) but out of it, he’s reserved and very correct. Tess starts to wish he would show a little more emotion. She also wants to reconcile him with his parents.

The second romance featured in this first book is that of Imogen and Draven Maitland – young, handsome, but dependent on his mother for his income and just as horse-mad as the girls’ father. Maitland is actually betrothed to another but Imogen is determined to have him.

I found Much Ado About You to be an enjoyable audio experience, even though there were times I felt it was a little insubstantial.  Some of that is due to the fact that it’s the first in a series and there was much groundwork to be laid, and some because there were, at times, too many characters “on stage”.

There was also a balance to be struck between the romance and the relationships between the sisters, which again, had to be established for future stories. Even though this is ostensibly Tess’ book, the path to her HEA was actually fairly straightforward, with no real conflict or any obstacles to be surmounted along the way. Had that not been the case, there would have been less time to explore the sibling relationships and vice versa. On the whole, the balance was the right one, even if personally, I’d have liked a little more depth to the romance.

Caz


Narration:  B+

Book Content:  B

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in, but fairly tame

Violence:  None

Genre:  Historical Romance

Publisher:  Harper Audio

 

Much Ado About You was provided to AudioGals for review by Harper Audio.

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