Narrated by Rosalyn Landor
While I’ve enjoyed the previous two books in this series, Simply Magic is my favourite so far. It’s the story of Susanna Osbourne, another of the group of friends who are teachers at Miss Martin’s School for Girls in Bath, and Peter Edgeworth, Viscount Whitleaf, who met each other briefly – once – when they were children, but whose lives have taken them in very different directions since then.
While on a visit to Frances, Countess of Edgecombe (Simply Unforgettable), Susanna is introduced to Viscount Whitleaf and his name sends a chill of recognition through her. He, however, does not recognise Susanna from that long-ago summer afternoon when they met and played together, and she does not welcome his devastating smile and his flirtatious compliments. Her family and the viscount’s are linked by tragedy and she has no wish to become further acquainted with a man who seems to have been able to brush off the past so easily.
Peter is an open-hearted, kind young man with a sunny disposition, whose only problem seems to be that he isn’t quite sure what to do with his life. He knows what his overbearing mother and five older sisters would like him to do – get married to a young woman of his mother’s choice and start populating his nursery, but Peter isn’t prepared to go down that road again. Five years ago, at the age of twenty-one, he dutifully fell in love with and proposed to the young lady that had been chosen for him, only to break things off shortly before the wedding, earning himself a reputation as a callous jilt in the process. Now, he wants to make his own choice – and it’s clear to the listener that he needs to assert himself more in other areas, too – but isn’t ready to do so just yet.
Susanna was orphaned by the age of twelve, and was taken in at Miss Martin’s School as a Charity Girl. Having completed her education, she stayed on as a teacher. She’s happy with her life, but seeing Peter again stirs up old wounds and memories of things she’d rather forget. Yet in spite of her determination to dislike him, she soon finds herself unbending towards the young viscount and the pair strikes up a deep and genuine friendship that is very quickly on the verge of being more.
Even though Peter keeps telling himself that he needs to keep away from Susanna and that he must not seem to be singling her out, he is drawn to her intelligence and spirit and can’t stop thinking about her. On the last afternoon of Susanna’s holiday, they end up making love – and he is stunned when she refuses his later offer of marriage. But Susanna knows he has made it out of obligation only, and even though her heart is breaking, is determined to return to her life in Bath, never expecting to see Peter again.
But life has a way of tripping one up with the unexpected. In Simply Love, the Duchess of Bewcastle organises a belated wedding party for Anne and Sydnam Butler, and it’s at this party that Susanna and Peter meet again. After this, we begin to discover the truth about the death of Susanna’s father and about shared history of the Osborne and Edgeworth families.
It’s clear early on that Peter, as the single male child and heir, was wrapped up in cotton wool and sheltered from anything unpleasant by his mother and five older sisters. His mother has continued to be a strong presence in his life; and while I wouldn’t exactly call him a “mummy’s boy”, he hasn’t yet bothered to cut the apron strings, preferring instead to stay away from home as much as possible. He grows up during the course of the story, finally discovering the truth about his family’s connection to the Osbornes and some shocking revelations about the death of Susanna’s father, all of which was previously deliberately concealed from him by his mother.
Some reviews I’ve read call her an absolute monster, and say that she should have been subjected to a harsher fate; but Mary Balogh is far more subtle than that and the solution she arrives at far more realistic. The fact that Peter doesn’t cast off Lady Whitleaf and refuse to ever speak to her again is a sign of his newly acquired maturity and shows that he has gained enough self-esteem and self-assurance to be able to find it in him to forgive her and to see her for what she really is – a selfish, lonely woman. In my review of Simply Love, I said that one of this author’s great strengths is her ability to write complicated relationships – especially familial ones – in a way that feels true to life, because things don’t always get tied up in easy solutions and neat bows. That remains true here.
But what makes Simply Magic my favourite of this series so far is the beautiful way in which the romance between Susanna and Peter develops, and the character of Peter himself. The sense of longing that permeates the love story in the later stages of their first two weeks together is so strong that it just leaps off the page; and their parting after their final, idyllic afternoon together is utterly heartbreaking. And Peter is such a lovely, lovely man. He’s handsome and charming, as all romantic heroes are (of course!), but he’s a truly kind and compassionate person who genuinely likes people and wants to help them, regardless of who they are or their station in life.
Rosalyn Landor’s performance is excellent once again, although I have to note that the Scottish accent she gives Susanna in the previous two books has disappeared in this one. Things like this are not uncommon continuity errors in series books, but it’s very unusual on the part of this particular narrator, which is why I was a bit surprised. That said, Susanna’s role in the previous books was small – I suppose that had I not listened to all three books within as many months, I might not have realised the change, and it’s really the only thing I can find to criticise about this narration which is otherwise flawless. I especially liked Ms. Landor’s characterisation of Peter, which immediately conveys the impression of a good-natured and very likeable young man with a smile in his voice; and in the more romantic scenes, she gives him a quiet intensity that works very well for the intimate moments between the couple. She portrays Susanna very well, also – her initial disapproval of Peter is very clear in her voice, which softens slightly and relaxes as she gets to know him. All the secondary characters are clearly differentiated; there are a number of ladies who appear several times – Claudia Martin, Frances (Countess of Edgecombe), the Duchess of Bewcastle and Lady Whitleaf – and even though they don’t appear in scenes together, they all sound completely different to one another so that the listener never has to rely on textual indicators to work out who is speaking. Ms. Landor’s pacing, expression and acting choices are all spot on as usual, her instinctive affinity for the material really shining through to make Simply Magic a perfect marriage of author and performer in an audiobook I’m sure I will return to again and again.
Caz
Narration: A
Book Content: A-
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence Rating: None
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Simply Magic was provided to AudioGals by Tantor Audio for a review.
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