Narrated by Jenny Sterlin
The Truth About Lady Felkirk is an enjoyable, if somewhat predictable, story in which the romance is peppered with a dash of mystery in a plot that revolves around theft and murder.
Lord William Felkirk wakes up with what he believes to be a massive hangover, aching all over and almost unable to move. His brother Adam, the Duke of Belston, immediately summons an unfamiliar young woman to Will’s bedside, introducing her as Justine – Lady Felkirk, explaining that Will had married her on impulse shortly before the accident which caused the head injury that almost killed him. Will is stunned to discover that he has just awoken from a coma, and that he has been incapacitated for the past six months. He’s bewildered and exhausted, but not weak-minded – and is very sceptical about his supposed marriage. He’s never been the impulsive sort, and has no memory whatsoever of a wife, their marriage, or the events immediately prior to his waking up. He is not suffering from amnesia as such; he knows where he is, who he is and recalls his life up until the accident, and is immediately suspicious of this lovely, but rather reserved young woman who claims to have married him.
Adam scoffs at Will’s doubts, telling him that Justine has shown nothing but extraordinary care and devotion toward Will and insisting that he is sure to remember her once his health starts to improve. Will is still doubtful, but when, after a few days, Adam suggests that perhaps it would jog Will’s memory if he were to take Justine back to his own house so that they can spend time together without other people underfoot, Will agrees.
Justine doesn’t show it, but the idea of being alone with Will fills her with disquiet. He will surely expect to bed his wife, which is not a prospect she finds at all appealing, and she is also worried as to what will happen when he regains his memory of the accident. Ms Merrill lets the listener in on the secret right away – that Justine is not, in fact Will’s wife – so that we are eager to discover her motivations for acting as she has, and to wonder exactly when and how Will is going to find out the truth.
I won’t say more about the plot, save to say that while it’s not perhaps the most original of storylines, it’s competently handled, the writing flows well and the author has managed to inject a real sense of menace into the relationship between the villain of the piece and Justine, who really does have no choice but to do as he tells her to. She gives the impression of being the perfect, demure lady, always polite, always ready to do as she is asked; but Will quickly learns that her blandness is some sort of defence mechanism. He can’t work out why she would need such a thing, but as they spend time together, he learns that Justine is an intelligent and charming woman, possessed of a great deal of warmth and humour. His initial suspicious of her begin to melt away as he discovers her to be a passionate lover as well as a good friend and companion. Justine is falling for Will even as she hates herself for deceiving him – but she is driven to protect her beloved younger sister from suffering the same fate as she herself has suffered, and if betraying the man she has come to love is the price, then she must pay it.
My major quibble with the story is with the way that Will, after having been in a coma for six months, is able to get out of bed within a day or so of regaining consciousness, and after a short period of physical weakness, is able to walk, ride and do all the other things he’d done before his accident without any intensive physical therapy to rebuild his atrophied muscles! I also didn’t much care for Justine’s sister, Margot, when she first appears, because she behaves like a spoilt brat, although she does redeem herself later on.
Jenny Sterlin is a narrator I enjoy listening to, and she acquits herself in this audiobook with her usual skill. This is a category romance, so it’s not particularly long (around seven and a half hours) and there aren’t too many characters, but she differentiates well between them all, and performs both narrative and dialogue expressively and at a naturalistic pace. Justine is softly spoken, as befits her reticence, while Margot is louder and more strident by contrast. The sisters are Belgian, so Ms Sterlin gives Justine the slightest hint of an accent, although for some reason, that disappears somewhere along the way. Adam and Will are easy to tell apart in the scenes in which they appear together, and given that the story is set in Wales, the servants and locals are given an appropriate and gentle Welsh lilt. Ms Sterlin portrays the villain in such a way as to make him sound thoroughly unpleasant, but doesn’t take it too far and stray into the cartoonish territory.
The Truth About Lady Felkirk is a relatively short, undemanding but enjoyable listen. Neither the story nor narration are outstanding; I’ve certainly given Ms Sterlin higher ratings in the past, but it’s a decent enough story that’s well narrated and certainly worth the seven and a half hours I spent listening to it.
Caz
Narration: B-
Book Content: C+
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence: Minimal
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Recorded Books
Jenny Sterlin and Virginia Leishman were the first narrators that I listened to way back in the late nineties. :)
I like them both.
Thanks for a Saturday review!
I haven’t seen Virginia Leishman’s name around for ages – I have some of her recordings, too.