Narrated by Jenny Sterlin
The Blurb: When the Duke of Lexington meets the mysterious Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg on a transatlantic liner, he is fascinated. She’s exactly what he’s been searching for—a beautiful woman who interests and entices him. He falls hard and fast—and soon proposes marriage.
And then she disappears without a trace…
For in reality, the “baroness” is Venetia Easterbrook—a proper young widow who had her own vengeful reasons for instigating an affair with the duke. But the plan has backfired. Venetia has fallen in love with the man she despised—and there’s no telling what might happen when she is finally unmasked…
My take on the story: I am a big, big fan of Sherry Thomas’ writing. She writes a tale that is beautiful and interesting and unique and funny and heartbreaking and satisfying. This book is another winner if not one of my favorites. It’s the story of Venetia, who is trying desperately to keep her head above water and also to keep her rogue sister from making a muddle of all their lives. Between the 2 women, they are a scandal waiting to rock society when the aloof and haughty Duke declares beautiful women to be the downfall of good men. Since he is lecturing on anthropology, his anecdote is taken as expertise and has the effect of announcing that Venetia is so beautiful that she has caused men to commit suicide – and she decides to revenge herself in a manner so calculated to bring him to his knees that she overlooks how it might affect her own life. (See blurb above)
My one quibble was the manner in which she wraps up the story and ends the conflict. It was a sort of verbal Gift of the Magi type ending, with each revealing what they would sacrifice for their love. I dunno – it wasn’t their words or actions, but the circumstances that lowered the credibility threshold for me. It brought the story down from a fangirl A++++ to a mere B+ for me.
My take on the narration: My one other experience with Jenny Sterlin was Jo Goodman’s The Compass Club series, which I enjoyed immensely in print. Virginia Leishman read the first one, again an enjoyment, but Sterlin finished out the series, and the next one in the series was a DNF for me. She changed the tone of the characters in my head – something I don’t normally have so fixed that a narrator can ruin them. She has the effect of making the heroes sound so haughty and soooo bored, that you wonder if they have normal emotions. Her reading of them does not allow those emotions to come through – I found I pretty much hated the hero within a few minutes of listening. That totally did not work for the Compass Club fellows who were young and earnest and passionate. However, it did work for Christian, the haughty, aloof Duke of Lexington who spent much of the book fighting his passion for Venetia by being haughty and aloof. Sterlin’s regular narration works well. She has great character voices out the wazoo – society gossips and servants and a passel of others. Her pacing works and all her accents were fine. However, in general I do not like having the heroes always sounding like they disdain everything and everyone. This time, OK – he did! And ya gotta give props to a narrator that has to say “Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg” over and over and manages to do it without tripping!
Melinda
Narration: B-
Book Content: B+
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence: None
Genre: Historical Romance (set in 1896)
Publisher: Recorded Books
