Not Quite a Lady by Loretta Chase

Narrated by Kate Reading

There are a few author/narrator Dream Teams in the Romance genre that get all of us here at AudioGals pretty excited – and one of the top ones is Loretta Chase performed by Kate Reading. Appearing at the top of the All About Romance Top 100 for years, Lord of Scoundrels was one of our Most Wanted audiobooks, and when released with the talented Kate Reading as narrator, our wishes were pretty much all fulfilled! Now that more and more of her backlist is coming out, Romance audiobooks listeners will need to hoard Audible credits for months to get stay abreast!

Not Quite a Lady is book 4 in the Carsington Brothers series, and was originally released in print in 2007. Darius Carsington is a rake who cannot be bothered to form a meaningful relationship with a woman and finish “sowing his wild oats” so his father decides to intervene by putting him in charge of bringing a long-neglected property back to producing income, as a means of forcing him to grow up and take responsibility for his life. The challenge: he has one year to do the task.

Lady Charlotte is lives on the property adjoining Darius’ land project; her father Lord Lithby is actually acquainted with Darius’ various papers on animal behavior and other pamphlets about livestock, so he is very enthusiastic about having him working in the area. In fact, it prompts him to add Darius to his list of eligible gentlemen for Charlotte, to encourage his daughter to wed. However, Lady Charlotte has made a career of Not Marrying – of turning down proposals, and generally being seen as not marriageable. Early in life she learned a very hard lesson about trusting men, and she has no desire to repeat it; she plans to live her life as a wealthy spinster.

Their “meet cute” happens when Darius lies on the ground to observe dragonfly mating behavior and Charlotte wanders across the property, without knowing he’s there. When they surprise each other, Charlotte is thrown off balance (literally as well as metaphorically) and nearly falls into the pond. It’s Chase at her finest – the witty barbs tossed between them, the humorous prat-falls that set up their physical attraction. Then the two are thrown together again when her stepmother decides to assist Darius with his project, insisting that he needs her and Charlotte to see to bringing the house back into order. As they spend more time together, Darius’ training in observation of animals makes him more aware than most, and he begins to see a pattern in Charlotte’s behavior – he wants to know why she has been avoiding marriage all these years, and he makes it another project to accomplish.

I won’t say this is the strongest story in the series, but it’s written in Chase’s witty, layered and lush prose and makes for a very entertaining listen, especially with Kate Reading narrating. There isn’t much more I can say about Reading’s ability to bring Chase’s historical romances to life that hasn’t already been said: natural pacing, perfect gender and character differentiation, excellent comic timing, and the ability to bring emotions out. This is highly recommended for the joy of a good historical romance performed by one of the best!

Melinda

Narration: A

Book Content: B

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: None

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: NYLA

Not Quite a Lady was provided to AudioGals by NYLA for a review.