Narrated by Kate McDermott
I was really pleased to learn, a couple of weeks back, that Carolyn Jewel was venturing into the world of audiobooks with one of her best known titles, Lord Ruin
Ruan Bettancourt, the Duke of Cynssyr (and yes, there are several ‘sincere’ puns) is a playboy and serial heart-breaker. But, as all such men must come to realise at some point, he needs to sow his oats less wildly and beget himself an heir, which of course means taking a wife. As Ruan is the most gorgeous man in the ranks of the ton, it’s natural that his eye would fall upon society’s most beautiful women, and he has the lovely Miss Emily Sinclair firmly in his sights.
Anne Sinclair, the eldest of Emily’s sisters, is not at all pleased by the idea of Emily’s being married off to a dissolute fellow like “Lord Ruin” and is determined to prevent the match.
It’s no secret to say that she succeeds in doing so in a rather unorthodox manner, and is more than ably assisted in her efforts by the man himself! Caught in flagrante delicto while Anne is under the influence of too much laudanum, she and Ruan have no alternative but a hasty marriage – something about which Ruan finds himself strangely content. He quickly discovers that Anne suits him both in bed (and boy, does he discover it! I think the couple does the deed on just about every available flat surface) and out; she is level-headed, intelligent and perceptive, just the sort of wife to suit a man such as he, who is actively involved in government and takes his duties as a peer of the realm very seriously.
Anne finds her opinion of her new husband undergoing a rapid reassessment. Having believed him to be nothing but a dissolute womaniser, she is surprised to discover that he is in fact a man of honour who does not shirk his responsibilities, and, as the book progresses, one who is still haunted by his military past.
The ‘compromised into marriage’ trope is one I particularly enjoy, and this aspect of the book works well. At the beginning of the story, Anne feels that she is destined to remain a spinster and has more or less made her peace with that, being content to watch her sisters make excellent matches and resigned to the fact that she is going to be the one to look after her father in his old age. Because she is ‘merely’ pretty where all of her sisters are acknowledged beauties, she hides a mass of insecurities, and it’s these which prove the greatest barrier for Ruan to overcome in their marriage. Anne is unable to believe that a man such as he, rich, handsome and powerful, who could – and did – have his pick of the most beautiful women in society, could possibly want her, a woman without beauty, youth, or much else to recommend her. Once she begins to spend time with Ruan, Anne realises how easily she could lose her heart to him, and determines not to do so, steeling herself not to allow her emotions to become engaged. But because she is so busy trying NOT to fall in love with him, she fails to see how completely – and rather charmingly – besotted he is.
Despite the fact that the actions which led to his hasty marriage are ones which hardly cover him in glory, Ruan somehow manages to be a swoon-worthy hero; he’s complex, haunted by his past and honourable while at the same time having a bit of a ruthless streak. His wartime experiences may have caused him to harden his heart, but he is nonetheless able to recognise a good thing when he sees it and has the guts to put his heart on the line, even though he is well aware that his wife is unlikely to believe him.
As the story of a marriage of convenience, Lord Ruin works very well. I rather like stories in which the drop-dead gorgeous hero becomes hopelessly enamoured of a woman who is not, on the surface, one to whom he may have given a second glance under other circumstances. Given Anne’s deep-seated insecurities and Ruan’s tendency to use sex in lieu of verbal communication, their marriage has many problems to contend with, the working out of which would easily have been enough to sustain the entire novel.
But in addition to those issues, Ms Jewel has incorporated a sub-plot concerning the hunt for the killer of several young women in which Ruan and his friends are engaged. This element is less well-constructed and I feel it takes too much away from the development of the relationship between the protagonists. That said, though, the central romance is engaging enough and sensual enough to make it possible to enjoy the story on the strength of it, alone.
Kate McDermott is not a narrator I’ve listened to before, and while she certainly has potential, her narration here is badly flawed in many important respects which took me out of the story on a number of occasions.
Ms McDermott is American and has chosen to adopt a British accent for both the narrative and dialogue. Her accent is quite good, but as I have often found to be the case when American narrators adopt English accents, she sometimes sounds as though she is trying TOO hard, which leads to the un-naturalistic pronunciation of various words and/or letter groups. The most common error here is of words ending in “y” – body, very, happy, where the final letter is almost sounded “ay”, so we get “boday”, “veray” etc. and the name Mary sounds like “merry”. Ms McDermott also makes several glaring and sometimes painful mispronunciations, many of which are dead giveaways that the person to whom I’m listening is not English. One such happens within the first few lines, when the word “leisurely” is pronounced “leesurely”, whereas we pronounce it “lehsurely”. In terms of the painful, there is a discussion about prostitutes which pronounces them to be “Cypriots” instead of “Cyprians”, and I think the worst howler of all is when the word “Vauxhall” (whose famous Pleasure Gardens feature in a huge number of historical romances), is pronounced “Voh-hall” (i.e. imitating the French word “faux”) instead of “Vox-hall”, as is correct.
Ms McDermott does a decent job when it comes to character differentiation, and the dialogue is generally delivered at a fairly natural pace. But the narrative is rather slow, with lots of long pauses between words and phrases, and I’m not quite sure if this is due to inexperience or problems caused by the need to sustain the accent for long periods.
Lord Ruin is an enjoyable story, but I’m afraid I can’t recommend the audiobook, which is a great shame, as this is one of those books I’ve been hoping to see in audio for some time. I see from her website that Ms Jewel is now writing the stories of the remaining Sinclair sisters, and I’m looking forward to reading them. But I’m unlikely to want to listen to them if the same narrator is used for the audio versions.
Caz
Narration: C-
Book Content: B-
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence: NR
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Carolyn L. Jewel
I’ve never understood this reasoning. I can tell you how many times I’ve stopped listening to an audio because of a bad English/Scottish accent. Recently I DNF’d an audio because the narrator’s Jamaican sounded like a Mexican bandit. It bugs me in movies too……very few Americans can pull off an authentic English accent, whereas the opposite isn’t always true. I have heard some deliciously funny/evil Southerners done by Brits.
It’s really too bad about the Jewel book. Thanks for the review.
I am listening to The Memoirs of Lady Trent read by Kate Reading, the book content is a B, but the narration grade is off the charts!
I try to be polite when pointing out … what shall I say?… “transatlantic” issues in audio books, but honestly, what was running through my head was this: “aren’t there enough British actors stateside?”
I have nothing against American narrators – I just don’t like it when they narrate British set historicals! Even the best of them have little tell-tale signs that they’re not “native” and I find it distracting. There are a few I can listen to without too much trouble – Kirsten Potter does a great job with British characters but narrates in her own accent, as does Elizabeth Wiley who I listened to recently in London’s Last True Scoundrel. Susan Ericksen is another one who does a pretty good Brit, but they all have certain giveaway pronunciations and inflections.
To be fair, Ms McDermott’s accent in this is pretty good for the most part, but those howling mispronunciations should never have made it through into a final version, and I can’t blame her entirely for that – someone on the production side should have picked them up.
Kate Reading is in a class of her own!
Voh- Hall? Really. How disappointing. The book deserves better. :(
The book deserves better.
Undoubtedly. I can’t believe that an author as experienced in this genre as Carolyn Jewel wouldn’t have known the correct way to pronounce it – but I suppose the problem often is that narrators unfamiliar with the “lingo” in any given genre don’t always know what they’re doing wrong, or which questions to ask.
Given this is a self-pubbed audio, I feel really bad in basically telling the author she chose the wrong narrator – but she did! If Ms Jewel reads any of this, I really hope she takes it in the spirit in which it was intended and either has the errors fixed, or at least considers other narrators if and when the other books in the series appear.