Her Every Wish by Courtney Milan

Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

As was the case with Once Upon a Marquess, the book in Courtney Milan’s new Worth Saga that precedes this novella, reactions to Her Every Wish have been mixed. That said, I found it to be more cohesive in many ways than the novel. Because of the shorter format, the storyline is simpler and less complex – not that there aren’t complexities, because there are – but with fewer characters and fewer obvious foibles, there is more room to concentrate on the relationship between the protagonists, something I felt lacking in the previous story.

Daisy Whitlaw appeared in Marquess as a friend of the heroine, Judith. Daisy’s father was a successful tradesman, but after his death, Daisy and her invalid mother have found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. In an attempt to better provide for them both, Daisy enters a competition offering a prize of fifty pounds to the person (not the man, as she points out more than once) with the best idea for setting up a new business. Daisy knows her proposal is sound, yet when the day comes to announce the shortlist of ten, she is nonetheless astonished to find herself one of the ten. On discovering that ‘D. Whitlaw’ is a woman, the other entrants – all men – are disgusted. Daisy is insulted and ridiculed, her confidence deserts her and she starts to question her wisdom in having entered the competition in the first place.

She is trying to hurry away from the crowd when a familiar voice stops her. Crash – who has no other name (well, actually his first name is Nigel, but nobody ever calls him by it!) – is what we might today call a bit of a “wide boy”, running all sorts of schemes with his fingers firmly thrust into several pies. He and Daisy went to bed together – just once – before this story opens, but although they obviously have strong feelings for each other, something went badly wrong and their relationship ended almost as soon as it began.

Crash is a fascinating character. He’s clever and blessed with an inordinate amount of charm, but because he is of mixed race, he is as used to being told “this is not for the likes of you” as Daisy is, because she’s ‘only’ a woman. He offers to help Daisy to prepare to deliver her final proposal to the judges, knowing instinctively that what she needs is the confidence to believe in herself, to KNOW that she is just as worthy of success as anyone else and to be able to stand up to those who would disparage her. He stands by Daisy, supports her and is instrumental in her personal growth, all admirable things which make Crash a typical Milan hero.

Daisy is the sort of heroine one begins rooting for immediately, and I enjoyed listening to her finding her confidence and herself as she discovers the determined, clever and resourceful woman she really is. Like Crash, she’s had a lifetime of being told “you can’t” and it’s difficult conditioning to break, but with his help, she finds the strength to do so.

Thus, much of the story is about Daisy’s journey of self-discovery and her mission to take charge of her life; and that’s terrific and as well written as one would expect of this author. But while I enjoyed the supportive nature of the relationship between the protagonists, the romance takes a back seat and is rather underdeveloped.

We know from the start that Crash and Daisy had a very short-lived affair, but aren’t told the reasons for the break-up until over we’re half-way through the story. But the reason for their separation (on less than good terms) right after they’d just finished making love was one I found really hard to buy into. Crash has a massive over-reaction to something Daisy says which had me scratching my head and literally thinking “WTF?”. When they do eventually talk things through and Crash tells Daisy how her words made him feel, I was able to feel more sympathy with him and to understand his point of view – yet because this doesn’t come until much later, I spent an hour or so thinking that he was an idiot and had behaved in a ridiculously high-handed and unpleasant manner for no reason at all towards a woman who had just given him the only thing of value left in her possession.

There’s one other thing about Crash that I can’t not mention as it’s come up in so many other reviews; and this is that there are three throwaway references to the fact that he has had male lovers as well as female ones. I have no problem at all with a bisexual character in a book, but as this is never explored further, and the listener is given no idea of how this informs his character or affects his relationship with Daisy, I ended up wondering what was the point of mentioning it at all?

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about Ms. Milan’s novels and novellas is the way she is able to tell a strong story that encompasses more than a romance while never making the listener feel as though she is tub-thumping or delivering a lecture. The way she has tackled a myriad of issues surrounding the position of women in 19^th century society, whether it is the scientifically-minded woman who has to hide behind a man in order for anyone to take her work seriously (The Countess Conspiracy) or the danger faced by those women who dared to speak out against the accepted order and worked towards effecting change (The Suffragette Scandal) – have been interesting, and, yes, educational. But most of all, she made me feel for these women as they fought and made me fall a little bit in love with the men who came to stand beside them.

I decided to wait to listen to the audiobook of Her Every Wish rather than snapping up the Kindle edition on the day of publication. Having found it difficult to get into the ebook of Once Upon a Marquess and seen the mixed reviews for this novella, I was sure that the audiobook, which has the advantage of Rosalyn Landor’s melodious voice and strong affinity for the author’s distinctive prose would be the best way to experience the story. I made the right choice. Once again, Ms. Landor proves exactly why she deserves to be called the doyenne of narrators of historicals by means of her strong characterisations, clear differentiation, and by her ability to get into the heads of all the players in the story and to bring out their every emotional subtlety and nuance. I thoroughly enjoyed her portrayals of Crash’s indomitable aunt and her friends, a group of what we might term ‘game old birds’ who have been there, done that and got the T-shirt several times over. She also does a good job of roughening up her normally perfect RP accent in order to reflect that these are working and lower class characters; this is not indicated in the text, but is an acting choice I definitely approve of. I admit that I had wondered how she would vocalise Crash, who, by his own admission, has no idea who his parents were or what his ethnicity actually is; but as the text actually mentions that he has a “plummy” voice, her choice to employ a slightly coarser, less ‘posh’ London accent works perfectly.

Ms. Milan is never going to be a writer who can ever be called uninteresting or dull, and I’m a huge fan of hers. Yet I can’t deny that I’ve been rather disappointed in both the instalments in this series so far. I know we’ve got a long way to go yet, but neither this novella nor the preceding novel has been particularly successful in the romance department, and that’s a little disappointing. I had the feeling while listening to both that whereas Ms. Milan had previously achieved the right balance between didacticism and romance, now the scales are starting to tip unfavourably for those of us who are primarily interested in the romantic elements of her stories.

But as long as Rosalyn Landor is narrating these books, I’ll keep listening to them. Her talent for getting to the emotional heart of a story makes His Every Wish an engaging and enjoyable audio experience in spite of the reservations I’ve expressed, and while I wouldn’t advise newcomers to Ms. Milan’s work to start here, her fans will find things to enjoy.

Caz

Narration: A

Book Content: B

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: None

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: Courtney Milan

Her Every Wish was provided to AudioGals for a review.

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