The Dangerous Gentleman by Julia London

The Dangerous Gentleman by Julia LondonNarrated by Anne Flosnik

Where to start? What a difficult book to review. While I loved the heroine, and enjoyed parts of this book, the hero is an extremely trying one. Mostly due to the hero, at different points in this book, I greatly struggled to continue listening. Of course, in the end, I was happy I pushed through, but it was not always easy.

The Dangerous Gentleman is a British historical romance with elements of suspense. The first book in the Rogues of Regent Street series, it may nonetheless be read as a standalone book, as each book tells the love story of a different rogue, who has gained notoriety for his scandalous adventures both in and out of the bedroom.

Adrian Spence, Earl of Albright has had a difficult upbringing. Never loved by his father, who yearns for the opportunity to disinherit him at every turn, he has learned to survive and has created his own wealth. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Benedict, is the golden child in his father’s eye. So when Adrian is goaded into a duel, and kills his opponent in self-defense, Adrian’s father finally finds the means to disinherit him and transfers all of his inheritance (other than an entailed estate which follows his title) to Benedict.

When Adrian finds out that Benedict is planning on proposing to Lilliana Dashell, a 22-year-old spinster country girl, Adrian seeks his revenge by marrying her first. But other than in her bedroom, which he will only occupy long enough to get the deed done (even on their wedding night), Adrian generally ignores her and is indifferent to her attempts to get to know him. Instead, he is condescending, belittling her and generally dismisses her as merely a “Grange Princess”. At one point, he treats her so badly, that there is a scene involving dubious consent where he accuses her of acting like a whore and treats her accordingly. Moreover, even though he promised to show her the world in order to convince her to marry him, he’s not even a man of his word, as he shuts her away on his estate and refuses to allow her to accompany him when he travels.

Lilliana, in turn, desperately tries to gain Adrian’s attention, and notwithstanding her great sadness (she cries every night after he visits her bedroom), still manages to care for Adrian, even when, following an accident, everyone else would turn their back on him. I felt so sorry for her. Even at the same time that she is being horribly verbally abused, she still fights to uncover family secrets, in the hopes of helping Adrian see again the slight glimpses of love that he has shown her.

Anne Flosnik generally renders a good performance of this story. Imbuing each character with their own believable, distinguishable voice, she brings them to life. Even amongst characters of the same gender, Ms. Flosnik cleverly creates a slightly different intonation for each, so that there is no need to rely on dialogue tags.

Ms. Flosnik also does a good job of communicating the various emotions which, at many times, are quite intense and explosive. In particular, when she recites Lilliana’s lines, you can just hear the anguish tearing her apart, and in a number of scenes where she cries, it sounds so genuine that you can’t help but empathize with her horrible plight.

My only observation is that I heard a somewhat common problem with the narration that I have noted with a number of other romances. Namely, you can hear Ms. Flosnik breathing in between some of the long phrases. Although this does not affect the entire book, where it occurs, it generally gives the performance a slight breathless quality, even when the applicable scene does not call for this effect, which can be distracting to some listeners.

For the most part, I was able to tune this out, so I think it is a relatively minor problem. However, I would be remiss not to point it out, as I had to reflect it in the rating below. Without this issue, I would have given the narration a B+. The rating also reflects my reaction to Ms. Flosnik utilizing a huskier, older sounding voice for a 22-year-old character. Then again, Ella had to grow-up quickly, in the impossible situation she was thrust into, so perhaps the narrator’s interpretation is true to Julia London’s writing.

How I wish, Adrian had redeemed himself earlier in the book. Unfortunately, it was a little too late for me to believe a HEA possible for this couple.

[section label=’Audiobook Information’ anchor=’Audiobook Information’]

BJ


AUDIOBOOK INFORMATION

TITLE: The Dangerous Gentleman

AUTHOR: Julia London

NARRATED BY: Anne Flosnik

GENRE: Historical Romance

STEAM FACTOR: Glad I had my earbuds in

REVIEWER: BJ [button type=’link’ link=’http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J2XR8D8/?tag=audiogalsnet-20′ size=’btn-lg’ variation=’btn-default’ target=’blank’]Buy The Dangerous Gentleman by Julia London on Amazon[/button]

 

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