Narrated by Faye Adele
Lovers of romances premised on destiny (childhood friends to lovers) and beauty and the beast tropes will be the most eager to listen to this one. She Tempts a Duke also features a common secondary suspense plot focused around the struggle for a dukedom and the inevitable hero’s fascination on seeking revenge for nearly being sabotaged of his birthright. While these themes are not always intermixed in one story, their use either individually or packaged along with other common romance subplots is certainly nothing novel. But Ms. Heath managed to capture my attention with the way she told this story, and I found myself wanting to see how the characters achieved their inevitable HEAs.
Perhaps one additional detail is worth noting. At times, She Tempts the Duke may seem a bit slow in its development. However, as this is the first book in The Lost Lords of Pembroke series, there is a good bit of set-up for the rest of the series which focuses on Sebastian’s (this book’s hero) brothers: Tristan (his twin brother) and Rafe (his younger brother). In that vein, I believe that Ms. Heath has set-up an interesting backstory of how each brother was forced to survive following their betrayal and forced disinheritance: Sebastian as a soldier, Tristan as a pirate, and Rafe, the youngest brother who Sebastian regrets the most having to leave behind in a workhouse, as the owner of a notorious gaming club. How each dealt with his estrangement should lead to some interesting personality differences which will no doubt play out in their own stories.
The story starts in England in the 1840s. Having just been imprisoned in a tower by his uncle, following the death of his father (the Duke of Keswick), Sebastian at just 14 years of age is faced with the terrible task of trying to save his brothers even as he fears for his own life.
Fortunately for them all, a mere wisp of a child, their next door neighbor and friend, Mary, who is only 12 years of age herself, comes to their rescue. After freeing them from the tower, Sebastian must decide how to keep his brothers safe, without any money and as they assume identities in order to remain undetected until they can come back and fight for their birthrights. That’s when Sebastian makes the decision that send each brother on a different path.
For 12 years the only thing Sebastian believes keeps him going is his determination to regain his family’s estate at Pembrook. So entrenched is this desire that he still carries around a ribbon given to him by Mary, along with a patch of soil from the estate. Even as he lay nearly dying from terrible injuries which left him with terrible facial scars and took one of his eyes, he would reach for and smell and feel the ribbon and the earth from his ancestral home to derive the courage to continue to battle to live.
Then Mary and Sebastian reunite unexpectedly when Sebastian comes home to claim his birthright. But Mary is already betrothed, and moreover his evil uncle is still as determined as ever to keep his hold on the dukedom. Could there possibly be a HEA under these circumstances?
Faye Adele performs a solid narration in this story. Ms. Adele’s pleasant voice forms a soothing backdrop for the performance and is particularly well suited to playing the part of Mary. I was easily able to envision Mary’s character’s just from the way Ms. Adele played her.
Ms. Adele’s characterizations of the other characters were also easily distinguishable. Though she doesn’t provide a very deep masculine sounding voice, I had no trouble differentiating Mary from Sebastian and the other males. She did however provide only a slightly different nuanced intonation between Sebastian and his brothers, making it slightly more difficult to differentiate among them without reliance on dialogue tags.
All in all, I enjoyed both the story and narration of She Tempts the Duke, and look forward to continuing with this series in Lord of Temptation which is Tristan’s story.
BJ
Narration: B
Book Content: B
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence Rating: Minimal
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Harper Audio
She Tempts the Duke was provided to AudioGals by Harper Audio for a review.
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