Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride by Christi Caldwell

forever betrothed never the brideNarrated by Tim Campbell

The first book in Christi Caldwell’s Scandalous Seasons series, Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride has an intriguing premise and an engaging heroine, but while I did enjoy the story, there are a number of faults in the execution which made it impossible for me to rate it more highly. The same is true of the narration by Tim Campbell who is, apart from one rather large flaw, a very accomplished narrator and vocal actor.

Lady Emmaline Fitzhugh and the Marquess of Drake were betrothed almost in the cradle – she was five and he was thirteen. Resentful at having his future disposed of in such a manner, Drake ran off to join the army as soon as he was able, returning to England after the Peninsular Wars a very different man to the boy who left. Emmaline has always looked up to Drake, and has waited patiently for him to claim her as his bride – but he never does. In the three years since his return from war, he has avoided her like the plague and spent his time in the manner of young men, gambling, drinking and wenching, his cavorting with the bored widows of the ton a regular feature of the scandal sheets.

Now, here’s one of those faults I mentioned, because I really couldn’t understand why Emmaline’s brother, the Duke of Mallen, could sit back for so long and watch the sister he clearly loves be regularly humiliated. Both he and his mother make it clear that they are aware of how difficult a situation Emmaline is in and how unhappy it makes her, yet neither takes a single step to either hasten the wedding or end the betrothal.

To be fair, Emmaline has not spoken up either, until finally, hearing Drake’s name coupled with that of a stunning opera singer, she decides she’s had enough and that it’s time to bring him up to scratch or end her limbo-like existence by calling the whole thing off. With the help of one of Drake’s closest friends, Emmeline starts showing up at every event he attends, and even though he tries hard to avoid her, it’s impossible. In spite of himself Drake begins to wonder about the nature of the woman he’s been betrothed to for the past fifteen years.

Throughout the course of several encounters, Drake finds that he likes Emmaline, and enjoys her company. She is not at all the sort of insipid young miss he had expected; instead, she’s witty, lively, extremely kind and wise beyond her years, and he starts to believe that perhaps, with her at his side, he will be able to fight the darkness that lurks inside him.

Emmaline is an engaging heroine, full of kindness and optimism, but Drake is a difficult character to warm to, partly because he treats her so badly and partly because he’s not particularly well drawn. It’s obvious to the listener that he is suffering from PTSD, and his frequent nightmares and night terrors make him believe he’s on the verge of insanity. But most of the time, he functions perfectly well, and I don’t think his traumatic experiences can completely exonerate him from having behaved like a complete git towards Emmeline and having subjected her to the humiliation of everyone knowing he was shagging anything in a skirt while engaged to her.

I mentioned that I found several problems in the execution of the story, and these range from the numerous grammatical and syntactical errors to there being elements of it that require too large a suspension of disbelief.

One of the latter is the first love scene in which Drake and Emmeline end up rolling around in a flower bed with her bodice open and his hand up her skirts – which takes place in Hyde Park of all places! I had to rewind at that point just to make sure I’d heard aright, but alas, I hadn’t been assailed by sudden deafness and that was, in fact the case. It’s a ridiculous idea and took me right out of the story.

I also couldn’t help asking myself how it was that the only son of a duke would have been allowed to enlist in the army. A small issue, perhaps, but it bugged me, especially as, later in the story, Emmaline’s brother mentions that he was unable to enlist because he also was the heir to a dukedom.

As for grammar and syntax, I made a number of notes and it would take too long to include them all, but as an example, Ms Caldwell speaks of a character having an affinity TO something instead of an affinity FOR something and there’s mention of a female setting her cap ON a man instead of setting her cap AT him. The buttons down the back of Emmaline’s dress are, apparently, “fastidious” and the word “erstwhile” is used incorrectly (it means “former” not enthusiastic). I know one doesn’t have to have passed a test to become a published author, but I’d have thought a good grasp of the English language should be a prerequisite.

There is also quite a lot of repetition within the story after it gets going. Drake is annoyed at Emmaline’s pursuit – but he likes it. Then he doesn’t. Then he does. He doesn’t want to marry her in case he hurts her – then he wants to marry her regardless – then he doesn’t – then he does… you get the idea. I was also not convinced that Emmeline was anything other than infatuated with Drake for most of the book. It wasn’t just that he’d done nothing to deserve her affection, it was that she didn’t really KNOW him – and I never heard them really going through that stage of a relationship. The same goes for Drake – he jumps from wanting nothing to do with Emmaline to wanting to marry her and being in love with her, yet I never heard a transition; one minute he doesn’t want her, the next he’s in love.

I listened to Tim Campbell last year in Julie Johnstone’s What a Rogue Wants, and in that review said that on an artistic level his performance was very good indeed. I’m saying the same here. All the characters are clearly differentiated and suitably voiced according to age and social station; and Mr Campbell performs the female characters very well indeed. I liked his acting choices, the clarity of his diction, and the sound of his voice; his pacing and emotional range are excellent and as a piece of vocal acting, his performance is terrific. My biggest issue with it is exactly the same as before, which is that his accent and pronunciation, while generally good, let him down about 25% of the time, and it’s a real shame, because the mispronunciations happen constantly throughout the book and are very distracting. I made the decision here – as I did in the Johnstone book – to continue listening despite those problems because Mr Campbell’s performance is otherwise very fine, but it’s not something I can ignore when writing a review. The issues are exactly the same as before – the mispronunciation of certain phonetic groups mostly based around the letter A and the letter U. I made a number of notes while listening and they would be too many to list here, but basically words like “pulse” and “lash” are constantly said wrongly; the “U” sound in those words should be pronounced “UH” (as in under) and not as “OO”, so we get “scoolpted” instead of “sculpted” or “dool” instead of “dull”. The “A” in “dashed” should sound the same way it does in the word “cat”, but Mr Campbell says it in the way it’s pronounced in the word “cart” – so that “dash” sounds like “dah-sh” and grand” sounds like “grah-nd”. Also, Marquess is pronounced “MARkwiss” and not “mark-ESS”, and I take issue with his pronouncing Emmaline as Emma-line and not Emma-leen, the French manner of saying it surely the more likely one for a British historical set in this period.

It’s incredibly frustrating, because these things ruin a narration that would otherwise have gained at least a B from me.

I’m sure this makes it sound as though Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride is a complete wash-out, but that isn’t the case. In spite of the problems I had with the storytelling and narration, I did find it to be an engaging listen – just not one I feel I can recommend without reservation. If you’re less picky on the subject of English accents than I am, then Mr Campbell’s performance has much to recommend it, and I liked the initial premise. I just wish there had been less repetitive padding and more time given to the development of the romance.

Caz


Narration: C-

Book Content: C+

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence: Some description of battle, but nothing graphic

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: Christi Caldwell

 

Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride was provided to AudioGals for review.

3 thoughts on “Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride by Christi Caldwell

  1. You’re a star Caz! There is no way I could listened to this with all the mispronunciations.

    Thanks for the informative review!

    1. Hahahah! The things one does for the public good! :P

      In all seriousness though, I do like Mr Campbell as a performer. There aren’t enough male narrators in historicals and he’s certainly good enough to correct the errors. I live in hope.

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