What a Rogue Wants by Julie Johnstone

Narrated by Tim Campbell

In What a Rogue Wants, Lady Madelaine Aldridge is a Lady in Waiting to Queen Charlotte, but doesn’t quite fit in at Court and is frequently the subject of cruel remarks from the other ladies of the queen’s retinue. She doesn’t possess any of the usual female “accomplishments”, preferring archery to embroidery and riding to singing or painting, and has little patience with the pretense and deceit continually practiced by those around her. She is not happy in her position – the queen dislikes her intensely because of an old feud with Madeleine’s late mother – but she bears it as best she can because she wants to please her father, who has sent her to Court in order for her to learn to be a “proper lady” and find herself a husband.

Lord Grey Adlard (Grey doesn’t seem to me to be the sort of name that would have been found in Georgian England, I must say!) arrives at Court to take up the position of equerry to Lord Pearson. He is immediately attracted to Madelaine, and believes she’s probably like so many other court ladies and will be up for a quick tumble in the stables. He’s a rake of the first order, a lifestyle he’s pursued most diligently in order to annoy his father, who has never had time or affection for his second son. Grey’s determination to seduce Madeleine naturally sees him spending more and more time in her company, and as they get to know each other, he is stunned to realise that he wants more from her than some short-lived, illicit liaison, and determines to win her honourably.

Things between them are going well, until Grey discovers the real reason he has been summoned to Court. Shortly after that, Madelaine’s father is arrested for treason and imprisoned in the Tower, and Grey is instructed to use his relationship with her to discover all he can about the plot against the king. Madelaine protests her father’s innocence, and while Grey can’t believe that the woman he loves can have had any part in her father’s treachery, her determination to exonerate her father leads her to make a poor decision which brings her into conflict with Grey and puts both their lives in danger.

The story is decently told and reasonably engaging, although I felt it could have done with some judicious editing as there are numerous repetitions which interrupt the flow. For example, Madelaine often mopes that such a gorgeous specimen as Lord Grey can’t possibly be interested in a girl like her – and just as often expresses her astonishment that he likes her in spite of her oddness, and perhaps because of it. There is occasionally some terribly creaky dialogue, and the plot, while decently constructed and executed, is fairly predictable. But on the positive side, the author takes the time to fill the listener in on Madelaine’s life at Court, and allows time for the romance to develop rather than relying on the insta-lust that seems to be a feature of so many romances at the moment.

I had a hard time grading Tim Campbell’s narration. In fact, I wish I could be like one of the Olympic judges in the gymnastics who gets to hold up two score cards – one with a mark for artistic merit and the other with a mark for technical ability! If I did, I’d be giving this performance something like an 8 for the former and a 3 or 4 for the latter, because this would have been a highly graded narration were it not for one massive technical flaw.

Mr Campbell has, quite rightly I think, has chosen to perform the entire audiobook using a British accent. But the problem is that it’s immediately obvious that he’s not British (I haven’t looked him up, but I’m guessing he’s American). To be fair, he does a very good job with the accent 80% of the time, and it’s quite possible that someone less picky than I am – and not British – might not notice, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many mispronunciations per hour in an audiobook before. As I listened, I realised that these tend to focus around certain letters and sounds. When words contain the letter “A” – pronounced as in “cat” – it is incorrectly pronounced “AH”; so instead of “fancy”, we get “fah-ncy”; “dash” comes out as “dahsh” and “grand” as “grahnd”. And words containing the letter “U”- pronounced as in “tug” – are instead pronounced using the “oo” sound as in “pool”. So “pulse” sounds like “poolse” and “gulp” sounds like “goolp”. And then there are the words which are commonly mispronounced, such as “Aunt”, which is pronounced “ont” and “Calm”, which comes out as “com” or “colm”. There are others, too, but I think these provide sufficient illustration of the issue. And we’re not talking about the odd mispronunciation here and there – it is continual. If it’s not one per minute, it’s not far off.

On a more positive note, Mr Campbell’s vocal acting is quite impressive, which makes that flaw all the more annoying. He has a very attractive speaking voice and he differentiates well between all the characters. Grey’s appealing baritone is used to good effect in the more romantic moments (when I wasn’t wincing at the pronunciation!) and Madelaine’s softer, higher pitched tones are easy to listen to. Mr Campbell even makes use of some regional British accents, such as for the maid, Constance, who is given a pleasant and consistent Irish lilt. His narrative is a little stilted at times and, as I’ve noticed with other non-British narrators using British accents, generally sounds a little too careful; but otherwise, he performs using a wide variety of expression and does a very good job of capturing and bringing out the characters’ emotions. Most impressive of all is his portrayal of the female characters, who are clearly female without being screechy or squeaky!

If you’re someone who doesn’t mind if the accent used throughout an audiobook is approximate, then Mr Campbell’s performance may work for you. But I had to work to allow myself to listen to the story rather than to the sometimes-tortuous pronunciation. That said, I was able to listen to it for ten-plus hours without screaming once I knew what to expect; and in spite of the criticisms I’ve made of the story, it was still engaging enough to enable me to do so.

Overall, What a Rogue Wants is a bit of a mixed bag. The storyline may be rather unoriginal, but it’s decently told and the principal characters are engaging. The narration, however, is incredibly frustrating, because it is almost excellent. Taken as a performance, it works very well indeed, but it’s too flawed on the technical side for me to grade it as highly as the performance aspect deserves. I would certainly be willing to listen to Mr Campbell again in something he performs in his native accent – or even if he does a bit of work on his British one, because he’s very talented and I really think he could nail it with a few tweaks here and there.

Caz

Narration: C-

Book Content: C

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: Minimal

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Julie Johnstone/Audible Studios

What a Rogue Wants was provided to AudioGals by the author for review.