Must Love Breeches by Angela Quarles

Must Love BreechesNarrated by Mary Jane Wells

Although I enjoy the occasional time travel novel, I chose to review Must Love Breeches on the strength of the narrator, who has become a favorite for narrating historical romance here at AudioGals. An American in contemporary London, Isabelle Rochon is attending a historical reenactment ball when she is whisked back in time to 1834 and discovered by a young Ada Byron (daughter of Lord Byron, the English poet). Isabelle imagines at first that everyone is taking their reenactment roles a little too seriously when she is introduced to Lord Montagu. After a turn around the ballroom, she starts to realize there is something different – including all of her co-workers gone, and everyone here, even the coat check fellow, is in period clothing. Soon she is reconciled with her fate and more than a little thrilled to be experiencing things she has only read about in her history books and historical romance novels.

Lord Phineas Montagu is your stock historical romance hero, a member of the ton, with the nickname the Vicious Viscount, a rake of the very worst kind. He’s bent on avenging his sister’s death after she was seduced, left pregnant, and died in childbirth, so he has cultivated the persona to infiltrate the very club whose members are actively ruining young women. At this very moment, however, he has just realized that he needs to wed to continue his ruse, so he is in need of a wife. He’s attracted to the odd Colonial at the ball, and after a short period of time determines she should be the fake fiancée.

Once Isabelle decides that the antique silver card case she carried to the ball is the force behind her travel back in time, it is stolen by a footpad – so the chase is on to find the case so she can return to her time. But meanwhile, there’s plenty of time to fall for Lord Hottie – right?

The story was a mixture of chick-lit-type story-telling and historical romance, with Isabelle unable to maintain her 1834 persona and regularly slipping up and talking like a modern 29-year-old, sometimes only in her head and other times out loud, to the great consternation of everyone around her. She confides only in Ada that she is from the future, but is overheard – which adds a 3rd layer of suspense to the novel, as another dastardly character dares to uncover her time travel method. As she and Montagu race about London to recover her silver case, like newly-affianced couples do, she and he also fight their attraction – how can she lead him on when she wants to return to her own time? How can he become involved with a temporary fiancée?

Mary Jane Wells did make the story. Her elocution and delivery were extremely entertaining, and her acting skills superb. She slipped in and out of the American/British accents with ease. She created consistent character voices for everyone in the story, with a low enough pitch for men to imply gender differences. I thought several times while listening that I would not have enjoyed the print book nearly as much. She made inane dialogue sound witty, and plot lines that might have had my eyes rolling, I dismissed. I have only one tiny issue with Ms Wells’ speech, which was overwhelmingly wonderful – she does have a very minor sibilant “S” that on a mediocre narration would have bothered me more. (This is sometimes called “tongue thrust” and “lisp”.) Otherwise, her delivery was brilliant and outshone any small drawbacks.

Ms. Quarles also writes steampunk time travel, and introduces into Must Love Breeches a conceit I’m not familiar with (maybe a steampunk thing?): alternate timelines. The alternate timeline detail appears in the epilogue and made me very confused, even after going to her website to read her explanation. I feel that to appreciate her alternate timeline theories, you might have to read all of her books since she intertwines them, with some of them written in the alternate timeline. I didn’t find her time travel world-building to be very convincing, and the alternate timeline detail reinforced that. Overall, this story will probably be more appreciated by those who like contemporary and time travel romance than historical romance fans, even those who appreciate Mary Jane Wells’ top-notch narrations.

Melinda


Narration: A

Book Content: C+

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: None

Genre: Time Travel Romance

Publisher: Unsealed Room Press

 

 

 

Must Love Breeches was provided to AudioGals by the author for a review.

[jwl-utmce-widget id=32435]

1 thought on “Must Love Breeches by Angela Quarles

  1. You know I’m a big fan of MJW which is why I considered picking this up, although in the end I thought the story probably wasn’t for me – your final sentence is therefore eerily appropriate :)

Comments are closed.