Narrated by Rosalind Ashford
In Devil’s Match, Patrick Danvers, newly-minted Viscount Westover, is in a bit of a bind. The black sheep of the family, his exploits on the duelling field have earned him the nickname ‘Devil’ Danvers, and his reputation is so black as to send any right-minded, gently-bred female running in the opposite direction lest being seen in his company irrevocably ruins her reputation. But under the terms of his late uncle’s will, he must marry a respectable woman and produce an heir within a twelvemonth if he is to inherit the bulk of the lands and fortune that accompany his title.
Patrick’s cousin Judith is the one family member who does not shun him, and it’s she who comes up with (she thinks) the perfect solution to his problem. Her companion, Caroline Ashford, will soon be leaving and because Judith’s mother dislikes her, she will have no recommendation, no prospects and nowhere to go. Caroline is attractive, intelligent and well-bred, so why doesn’t Patrick marry her and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak?
Patrick naturally dismisses this as a silly suggestion – until he meets Miss Ashford and wonders if perhaps Judith has the right idea after all.
While she was brought up a lady, Caroline has no family or connections and has to make her own way in the world. When she meets the handsome and charming Patrick Danvers, she cannot help but be rather smitten with him – until he makes what she interprets as an inappropriate proposition, which leads to her storming off and leaving him in the middle of the dance floor, mortified when he realises just how badly she has misconstrued his proposal.
Patrick – who can see what he has begun to think of as his only chance to fulfil the terms of his late uncle’s bequest slipping away from him – is naturally miffed, especially as he had been rather taken with Caroline. Enter Patrick’s friend, the bluff and rather endearing Bertie Bascome, who can’t bear to see his friend’s distress and thus determines to “get” Caroline for him. Unfortunately, however, Bertie’s manner of “getting” the young lady is to kidnap her and take her to France, then send for Patrick who will then rescue her and restore her ruined reputation by doing the right thing and marrying her.
Caroline will have none of that, however, not least because, having now learned more about Patrick and his unsavoury reputation, she thinks that it was his plan – and not Bertie’s – to abduct her and force her into marriage.
With our hero and heroine seemingly at an impasse, the author then introduces a secondary romance into her story, which at times threatens to become more interesting than the relationship between the central couple. Then somehow our quartet of lovers – and Bertie – become attached to the wrong person – and I really wanted someone to speak up or DO something to sort out the mess and restore all the participants in the courtship dance to their rightful partners!
As is so often the case with books that have “Devil”, “Wicked”, “Rogue” or similar epithets in their titles, the character to whom such description is applied is very rarely any of those things, and that’s certainly the case here. Patrick is actually a likeable, sensible and kind young man who has, through no real fault of his own, been placed in a number of difficult situations which have led to his being ostracised by society. Deciding that if society doesn’t want to know him then he damn-well doesn’t want to know society, he has turned his back on it – which has had the unfortunate consequence of enhancing his “devilish” reputation rather than quashing it.
I found it hard to warm to Caroline after first few chapters, because she was overly self-righteous and intractable in her opinion of Patrick. Once she knows of his reputation, she chooses to believe the worst of him, mostly because she is scared of the attraction he engenders and doesn’t want to fall in love with him. She tries to distance herself by believing that he’s an unsavoury character, which feels very contrived.
Rosalind Ashford does a decent enough job with the narration, but it’s not enough to lift this story above the run-of-the-mill. Her voice is pleasantly mellow with a slight huskiness to it that is attractive and easy to listen to, but her enunciation, while very clear, is sometimes a little on the slow side. She differentiates well between characters, and is able to sustain a suitably lower pitch for the male characters without sounding strained. Her portrayal of the two leads is good, but it’s her interpretations of Bertie and the enigmatic Earl of Rutherford that stick in the mind, with Bertie coming across in a way that reminded me of his Wodehouse namesake (a bit of a slowtop, but with his heart in the right place) and Rutherford’s measured speech having a quiet menace to it that is nonetheless attractive and which is very appropriate for his character.
I would, however, advise Ms Ashford to try to steer clear of stories which require her to perform using foreign accents. In Kate Noble’s Compromised, she had to portray a German character, and here she has to voice a Frenchman, and I’m afraid that in both cases, her accents were ridiculous – and not in a good way. Perhaps “ridiculous” what she was aiming for – but if so, it didn’t work because it sounds as though she can’t do the accent rather than that she’s deliberately overplaying it.
Devil’s Match is one of those audiobooks I can only describe as “average” in terms of both content and narration. Ms Ashford’s narration, while sound, doesn’t have the deftness of touch required to enliven such a story, but If you’re in the mood for a traditional (clean) Regency romance which doesn’t require a huge amount of brain-power, I’m sure there are worse ways you could spend your time!
Caz
Narration: C+
Book Content: C
Steam Factor: You can listen out loud
Violence: None
Genre: Historical romance (Regency)
Publisher: Audible Studios
Devil’s Match was provided to AudioGals by Audible Studios for review.
