Castles by Julie Garwood

Narrated by Heather Wilds

I finished listening to this audiobook with a huge smile on my face. Yes – there were some aspects of the book as a whole that I found problematical, but an excellent performance by Heather Wilds – a narrator I will certainly be looking out for in future – helped me see (or hear) past those issues, and just sit back and enjoy the story for what it was; a well-written and well-performed piece of romantic fluff.

Castles is the fourth book in Ms. Garwood’s Crown’s Spies series. I haven’t read or listened to the other three, but I’d say it’s not necessary to do so in order to enjoy this one.

The heroine of the story is Alesandra, princess of some unspecified, European principality, who was orphaned at the age of twelve and brought up in a convent. When the story opens, the Mother Superior thinks that her prayers have finally been answered, as Alesandra’s guardian, the Duke of Williamshire, has written to say that he wishes his ward to travel to England take up residence with him and his family. When the princess arrives at his London home, it’s to discover that not only are the duke and his wife laid low by illness, but so is his eldest son, to whose care Alesandra was to have been entrusted. The only other option, therefore, is for the princess to move into the home of the duke’s second son, Sir Colin Hallbrook.

Colin immediately suspects his father of matchmaking and he’s completely on the money. Alesandra informs him straight away that she has to get married in the next three weeks and his name is at the top of the eligible bachelors lists prepared for her by his father.

Colin will have none of it but Alesandra is by no means disappointed by his refusal. She is certainly struck by his good looks, but she can already see that he is proud, arrogant, and will be difficult to manage so she promptly crosses him off the list and asks him to help her to choose a husband from the remaining candidates. Colin senses that the princess isn’t telling him everything and she won’t enlighten him further.

Following an attempt to kidnap Alessandra by those who wish to take her home and force her to marry General Ivan (the man who has laid claim to her father’s throne), Colin calls a family conference to decide what must be done to keep her safe. They discuss her list of potential suitors and, in a rather funny scene, Colin finds fault with every single one and eventually gives in. He will have to marry her.

The rest of the story is principally concerned with Colin and Alesandra accustoming themselves (or not) to marriage. Sensibly, Alesandra never expected to make a love match in so short a space of time but hoped that, in time, she and her husband could come to love each other.  She holds on to that hope, but Colin makes it very difficult for her.

Even though Colin is a typical alpha male-hero who thinks he doesn’t have to explain his actions to anyone, believing that his word is law, he’s nonetheless intuitive about his new wife, and quickly learns that her outward aspect of serenity and calm is frequently a mask for her worries and insecurities. I particularly enjoyed his relationships with his brother, Caine, and business partner, Nathan – both are aware of Colin’s feelings towards his wife long before he admits them to himself.

There’s a lot of humor in Castles and Alesandra is a very engaging character, being both intelligent and spirited without being TSTL. She’s an inveterate list-maker who believes in being organized. Many of the moments in the story that made me smile derived from her propensities in that direction.

Alesandra and Colin are (almost) always honest with each other and I really enjoyed this aspect of their relationship. Occasionally Alesandra tries to avoid telling Colin things, but he can tell when she is keeping something from him and, to her credit, she knows what things she can and can’t afford to put off telling him. There are several instances where a lesser author may have been tempted to have Alesandra keep things from her husband in order to ramp up the tension (or lengthen the story for the sake of it), but thankfully, that doesn’t happen and the book is better for it. The story doesn’t get tied up in knots and, more importantly, it shows how much Colin and Alesandra trust each other.

On the negative side, there are some anachronisms and plot-holes, which lowered the content grade. Also, one particular sub-plot seemed to be just a contrivance to inject an element of peril into a story that I thought was engaging enough without it.

Then there is the fact that an unmarried lady of high birth would never have been allowed to move in with a young, unmarried man without becoming a social pariah, illness notwithstanding. The fact that the duke and duchess actually encouraged her to do so was completely implausible. The misapplied appellations grated somewhat, too, as Colin was referred to as “Sir Hallbrook” rather than “Sir Colin”, the family physician as “Sir Winters”, and Colin’s former employer as “Sir Richards”.   “Sir” always preceeds a Christian name, not a surname.

This is historical romance à la 1990s, so I was expecting  to hear some anachronistic language, but  I have to draw the line at a nineteenth century gentleman addressing his wife as “baby”, even in the throes of passion. ;-)

In Heather Wilds, I’ve found a new name to add to my “narrators to trust” list.  She has a dozen titles to her name at Audible (UK) in a variety of genres, and here, I found her narration to be immediately engaging and very enjoyable overall. Her reading was well paced and she gave Alesandra a slight Germanic accent, which worked very well for her character and made her sound rather endearing. I don’t think it’s explicitly stated exactly where Alesandra comes from, so Ms. Wilds’ choice was a perfectly valid one, and she maintained the accent convincingly and consistently. Giving the heroine a distinctive accent means, of course, that she’s very easy to single out in scenes which feature a number of characters of the same sex but, in fact, all the other female characters were very clearly differentiated so that it seemed to me that there would have been no danger of confusion had Ms. Wilds not taken that option.

She employs an Irish lilt in her characterization of Flannaghan, Colin’s butler, and once again she maintains it most successfully. Colin’s father, brother, and business partner were all appropriately voiced, as were the other male characters, and she does a very good job with Colin himself. He’s a prickly character and is frequently abrasive in his manner of speech. The deeper, clipped tones Ms. Wilds chooses to adopt for his character skilfully convey his  brusqueness. She effectively softens his harsher edges in those moments he is flirting with Alesandra, teasing her, or comforting her.

Sometimes there are books you know you shouldn’t really like as much as you do – they’re kind of a guilty pleasure – and that’s how Castles turned out for me. I like a reasonable degree of historical accuracy in my historical romances, and I admit that wasn’t this book’s strong point. But it more than made up for that lack with the superb characterizations, the development of Colin and Alesandra’s relationship, and the witty dialogue.

Caz

Narration:  A-

Book Content:  B

Steam Factor:

Violence:  Minimal

Genre:  Historical Romance

Publisher:  Brilliance Audio

Castles was provided to AudioGals by Brilliance Audio for review.