Lady in Green by Barbara Metzger

Narrated by Stevie Zimmerman

I’ve enjoyed a number of Barbara Metzger’s Regency Romances in print, and decided to listen to the recently released Lady in Green as it’s one I haven’t yet read. Her books are undoubtedly fluffy; those I’ve read are humorous and lively with lots of fun dialogue – and the synopsis of this – in which a young heiress in disguise becomes the housekeeper for a notorious rake – sounded as though it would be a nice, light-hearted listen.

But I’m sorry to say that while it’s definitely light-hearted, I disliked the principal storyline intensely. I know it’s meant to be madcap and zany; and perhaps it was in 1993 when the book was originally published, but over twenty years later, the heroine’s sanctimonious, holier-than-thou attitude got on my nerves to such an extent that it’s a miracle I stuck it out for the whole (almost) seven hours.

When Lady Annalise Avery overhears a conversation between her fiancé and her step-father in which the former makes no bones about the fact he intends to keep his mistress after his marriage, she is furious and refuses to go ahead with the nuptials. Her step-father – who has made a deal with the fiancé to share in Annalise’s large dowry – is intent on forcing the match, so Annalise runs away, cleverly covering her tracks to make it look as though she has headed off to Bath or a couple of other locations, when she has in fact doubled back to the estate to request help from her old nurse and her husband, a former gentleman of the road.

To cut a long story short – and I have to say that this part, detailing Annalise’s roundabout journey to London with Henny and Rob does drag – the three end up at the home of Annalise’s aunt, Lady Rosalind, who is currently abroad with her friend, Lord Elphinstone. Annalise has been assured that she can stay as long as she likes, and the three settle in as stable master, cook and housekeeper.

Ross Montclaire, Lord Gardiner (known as Gard to his friends and also as en Garde owing to his prowess with his sword) is fed up with his mother’s constant criticism of his way of life and her continual nagging at him to get married, so he decides to set himself up a little pied à terre where he can come and go as he pleases and entertain his filles du jour (or, really, filles du nuit *wink*). He is pleased to discover that Lord Elphinstone’s house in Bloomsbury is available to rent while the gentleman is abroad, and even though the housekeeper is quite possibly the most unprepossessing woman Gard has ever seen, he is impressed with the cook’s culinary skills and with the care and knowledge of horses shown by the stable master. He decides to take the house and all is going well until he informs the housekeeper that he will be bringing his various light o’ loves to the house of an evening.

Annalise is horrified at the thought that the house she has come to regard as home is going to be turned into some kind of bordello, and immediately sets about sabotaging her employer’s love life. One woman is given a sleeping draught; another runs screaming from the house when she sees the array of whips and manacles in Gard’s bedroom; on another occasion, Annalise lets a flea-infested dog sleep in the earl’s bed so that he and his ‘guest’ for the night get bitten to shreds, and another night, she puts an ‘inhibitor’ in his drink, so …

He’d been a three-bottle, four-barmaid man in his salad days. Obviously his salad was wilted.

– and in addition, she doesn’t scruple to tell her employer exactly what she thinks of him. I had a real problem with this. For one thing, Annalise is in Gard’s employ and for a servant to address a nobleman the way she talks to him should have led to instant dismissal. But most importantly – what business is it of hers what he gets up to in his own house?

Fortunately for Annalise, Gard is incredibly lenient with her and allows her to remain in her post. Even so, she continues to interfere in order to keep the house a strictly no-nookie zone – and it’s perhaps not to Gard’s credit that he fails to twig that his enforced celibacy is due to more than a string of strange accidents.

While Gard is trying to get his leg over each night, during the day, he makes the acquaintance of the mysterious Lady in Green who has begun to take early morning rides in Hyde Park. Heavily veiled, and accompanied only by a couple of beefy, taciturn grooms, nobody knows who this woman is, but judging from her perfect posture and the quality of her mount, she is widely rumoured to be everything from a foreign princess to an extremely expensive courtesan. When a group of young bucks gets too close to her one morning, Gard rides to the rescue and thereafter offers to be her escort.

Of course, we all know where this is going, and Gard is naturally furious when he finally works out who his annoying housekeeper really is and what she’s been up to. The romance, such as it is, is rushed and based on little other than physical attraction and the characters are two-dimensional. Gard is a decent chap at heart, and while he certainly is – or tries to be – promiscuous, he’s kind and good-hearted, but there’s not much more to him; and Annalise is such a self-righteous prig that I really don’t know what he saw in her other than her looks.

Stevie Zimmerman is a prolific narrator of historical romance, and is particularly well suited to this sort of light-hearted comedic story. She doesn’t overplay the comedy or play it for laughs, opting instead to let the humour come through from the words alone; and while I really didn’t like Annalise’s interfering tactics, some of them are nonetheless quite funny as is the gossip which starts circulating as a result. The cast of characters isn’t large, but Ms. Zimmerman’s differentiation is good throughout, and although she doesn’t lower the pitch of her voice overmuch to portray the men, she does ensure there’s a good contrast between characters of different gender and there is never any question of who is who in any one scene. I liked her portrayal of Gard in particular; he sounds attractively masculine and she effectively conveys his variety of emotional responses – his frustration and despair, his kindness and his compassion, making him the most sympathetic character in the book.

One thing I’ve noticed in other titles I’ve listened to by this narrator is that the sound quality isn’t as good as that of the vast majority of the audiobooks I listen to these days. Right from the start, there’s a tinny quality to the sound and to my ears, there is too much treble and not enough bass and mid-tones. I also noticed a repeated phrase at around 4:15:45, as well as a handful of mispronunciations. Overall, however, Ms. Zimmerman gives a solidly accomplished performance and if she could somehow improve the sound quality of her recordings, I’m certainly not against listening to more of them.

Caz

Narration: B

Book Content: C

Steam Factor: You can play it out loud

Violence Rating: Minimal

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: Untreed Reads

Lady in Green was provided to AudioGals for a review.