Lord of Danger by Anne Stuart

Lord of DangerNarrated by Susan Ericksen

Originally published in 1997, Lord of Danger is a standalone historical romance set in Medieval England at the time of the reign of Henry III. It has all the ingredients one would expect from an Anne Stuart novel – intrigue, suspense, a heroine with backbone and an amoral, dangerously sexy hero, all wrapped up in an above average narration by Susan Ericksen.

Lady Alys de Lancie and her younger sister Claire are half-sisters to Richard, known as Richard the Fair, who is cousin to the twelve-year-old king. The ladies have been brought up in a convent but are now to leave it and travel to Richard’s castle at Summersedge so that Alys can marry the man chosen for her, Richard’s trusted advisor and, according to rumour, a wizard and practitioner of the dark arts. Naturally, the idea of marriage to such a man is not an eminently appealing prospect, but Alys is a pragmatist and knows that she has no choice in the matter.

Simon of Navarre is highly intelligent, shrewd, manipulative and ambitious, seeing marriage to one of Richard’s sisters as a way of further cementing his position at Richard’s court. He is not, of course, a wizard, but is certainly not averse to using his fearsome reputation and the rumours that constantly circulate about his having made a pact with the devil to his advantage, creating both awe and fear in those around him. Thanks to his spy at the Convent of Saint Anne the Demure, Simon knows exactly what to expect from Richard’s sisters; Claire is extraordinarily beautiful but flighty and Alys is calm, peaceful and pretty enough; and he’s quite happy to take the older, plainer sister, believing she will be far less troublesome. Until, that is, he is told that Alys is clever. The last thing a man like him needs is a clever wife, one who will want to poke her nose into his business and uncover his secrets, so he inveigles Richard into letting him choose for himself. Richard thinks Simon’s choice is a foregone conclusion – what man would not want the gorgeous Claire? But from the moment the women arrive at the castle, it’s Alys who engages Simon’s attention, with her refusal to be cowed, her wit and her sensual, husky voice – and Simon’s mind is made up. Playing safe has never appealed to him, and he decides he is rather looking forward to introducing the demure Alys to sensual pleasure and making her so completely besotted with him that she would never reveal his secrets should she ever discover any of them.

Just as Simon can see beyond Alys’ prim, docile exterior to the determined and clever woman beneath, so Alys sees Simon as a man and not some supernatural being or monster. She is afraid of many things – horses, thunderstorms – but is the one person at Summersedge who does not fear Simon of Navarre. When Simon undertakes to tutor Alys in herbal medicine and healing, he sees it as a way to spend time with her and to embark upon his planned slow seduction, but soon realises that he has failed to see the danger she presents to his ambitions, his ordered existence – and to his heart.

I am a complete and total sucker for this sort of set-up, one in which the enigmatic, impervious hero falls desperately in love with the quick-witted heroine whom everyone but him sees as plain, so I was expecting to enjoy this story a lot more than I actually did. I liked it, but I didn’t love it, principally because not enough time is spent on developing the relationship between Alys and Simon. I haven’t counted, but it seemed to me that around a third of the story – possibly more – is devoted to the secondary romance between the spoiled, shallow Claire and the handsome and godly knight, Sir Thomas du Rhaymer. Thomas is quite an intriguing character, but Claire is so annoyingly immature that I started to resent the time I spent listening to her and Thomas and zoning out while I waited to return to the main storyline. I wanted to spend more time with Alys and Simon as they got to know each other and to explore their characters and motivations further, but what I got instead was whiny Claire and more telling than showing. Simon is an especially intriguing character, a man haunted by ghosts from the past and by the horrific events he witnessed during the Crusades – but again, this is not fully explored and I never really felt that I got to know him or Alys very well.

Susan Ericksen has narrated a number of Anne Stuart’s historical romances before, and here, as Xe Sands did in the author’s House of Russell series, opts to narrate dialogue using an English accent and to perform the narrative using her own, American one. This works for the most part as Ms Ericksen’s English accent is quite good; she manages to avoid a number of tell-tale mispronunciations – “can’t” and “bath” are pronounced correctly, using the long “a”, for example – but not all of them so that there is still a smattering of odd pronunciations throughout the dialogue. But they certainly weren’t enough to pull me out of the story and she makes up for those errors by the way she throws herself into the characterisations so wholeheartedly and the emotion she injects into her performance. She differentiates well, especially between the two sisters, who are easy to tell apart in their many scenes together; and the considered, softly-spoken manner of speech she adopts for Simon fits him perfectly. The stand-out characterisation, however, is that of Richard the Fair whom she captures brilliantly, somehow making him sound every bit as corpulent, sly, vicious and full of bluster as he is in the text.

Lord of Danger didn’t grab me as I’d hoped, unfortunately. The secondary romance detracts too much from the main storyline, and the central romance is under-developed; but Susan Ericksen’s performance is engaging and certainly worth listening to if you’re a fan of the author’s and/or medieval romances.

Caz


Narration: B

Book Content: B-

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in (but at the very tame end)

Violence Rating: Minimal

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: Blackstone Audio

Lord of Danger was provided to AudioGals by Blackstone Audio for a review.

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3 thoughts on “Lord of Danger by Anne Stuart

  1. It’s so funny — I think that was close to my absolute favorite historical audiobook, much more so than others that have gotten much higher scores. It just goes to show how individual tastes are, and why we can’t expect all readers to love the same thing.
    Actually back then I wrote two romances in every historical — the major one, usually a dark hero, and a supporting one with a nicer hero.
    Thanks for the review — it’s fascinating to see what works and doesn’t work for people.

    1. Thanks for taking the time to comment, Anne and for being so magnanimous :)

      I suppose it’s also the fact that tastes change over time; I have the feeling secondary romances used to be more common than they are now, when readers/listeners expect the focus to be completely on the H/h.

      I’m really pleased to see your back catalogue coming to audio and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever’s next.

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